Chapter Text
The plan was about as simple as they come; get in, do the job, get out, go home. The problem lay in the middle part- “do the job”- which wasn’t to say that it was difficult, just different. Strange even. As the doors came crashing down, one thing never changed from job to job, and that was the noise.
It varied, of course. Sometimes there was excessive screaming if they were busting a human trafficking organization. Some busts were a lot more shouting and cursing than screaming, but more often than not those types of operations consisted almost entirely of people- good and bad. Sometimes there was excessive gun violence- whether it came down to a long, drawn out exchange of bullets back and forth between police and gangs, or simply desperately crazed melee attacks from empty pistols and jammed semi-automatics. Sometimes there were days of stake-outs and preparation, hours upon hours of sleep lost, but in the end the job was always cut down to one constant. People.
A certain type of people specifically; the scum. People who took advantage just because they could, people who ran just because they could, people who killed just because they could. People who were driven to extremes just because they couldn’t; couldn’t afford, couldn’t manage, couldn’t cope. People held down until they couldn’t breathe anymore, who had been taken from and pushed around until the only thing left to do was snap. People who didn’t necessarily want to, but had no other alternatives because of circumstances out of their control.
People. That was what was strange about this job. Not the people specifically, but rather the lack thereof. Every door that was busted in, every weak wall that caved, there was no sign of any people. Of any life even. Anywhere in the city, it wasn’t hard to find nests of mice, or cockroaches, or ants, and especially rats . If there was one creature that was loathed most by mankind, it was rats. But each time a wall crumbled, or a door was broken from its frame, there were not even any rats sent scattering away from the human intrusion. There were no sounds from between the walls, or in the ceilings, either. It was completely, utterly quiet.
“Eraserhead, anything?”
“Nothing. I’m going to go back to the basement- the team there is still clearing floors below. I’m finished here.”
“Copy.”
A figure strode purposefully from the room, back into the hallway, and toward the stairwell of the building. Descending the entirety of the staircase put the man back on ground level. The actual building only consisted of five upper floors in varying states of decay considering the layout of the floor and if the windows were still intact. Rooms that had exterior walls were relatively whole, but only if the windows were not smashed to pieces. The floors for the most part were okay, but every now and then a floorboard would give way shamefully. The building itself should have long been demolished.
The only reason it hadn’t been was the activity of the occupants that were supposed to have been there. Because there had been occupants, some people had lived on the upper floors- maybe not comfortably, but the place had been lived in. Mildly.
Someone had remained on ground level to coordinate the search grid, an underground hero, and they greeted the figure as he returned.
A head dipped in a polite nod, “Eraserhead,” and a response was garnered; “I’m going down. What floor is the team currently clearing?” Gruff. To the point.
“Negative three. Apparently there’s quite a bit of evidence to go through. Officers are following with tags. Be advised, the rest of the team still haven’t come across any perps.” A simple grunt was the only elicited response as Eraserhead continued to the basement stairwell.
“Alright, I’ll start at the bottom and work my way back up.” This did not elicit further response as the coordinator turned to their radio to inform the team below.
There were twice as many floors below as there had been above and with each floor passed, the steps of underground hero Eraserhead grew quieter and quieter, until even he thought he might meet resistance at the end of his descent. In the end, though, he had been correct in his assumption that there would be no other signs of life within. Or at least life signs that would combat heroes and police force; no criminal wanted to be arrested, after all.
Stepping onto the negative tenth floor revealed about as much to the pro as the fifth floor from above, except it was in much better shape, but turning the corner from the stairwell into the final floor yielded a response so primal that Eraserhead didn’t have time to figure out the ‘why’s or the ‘who’s. For as he came to the single corridor he was awash in the sudden urge to empty his guts out onto his feet.
Like every other place in the building, all was silent. Unlike the rest of the building, this floor was alight with harsh fluorescents that lit up every detail; the hallway that the pro entered was narrow and stark white, but not pristine. The floors were trailed with blood that varied from old browns to sharp crimson, the walls and ceiling were splattered with fresh reserves of what had to have been multiple people. There were some spots from the ceiling that were actively dripping to coagulate upon the floor.
The smell of it all was so very wrong that the only thing Eraserhead could do was turn back into the stairwell and quite literally “lose his lunch,” gagging until nothing else could come up at all. He swore, dismally reaching for the piece of equipment tucked into his right ear and tapping twice to open his link back onto the radio frequency that was being used for the operation.
“I think I know why everything is otherwise empty,” he began, straightening by the wall of the stairwell.
He tossed a pained glance to the floor where he lost his guts and the doorway where he had to continue his sweep then pressed on, “please excuse the body fluids at the bottom of the stairwell, I could not keep my lunch.”
“Please clarify, what’s down there?” Sounded in his ear.
“This whole floor is covered in blood, and it’s mostly fresh.”
“ Mostly?!”
Some of his patience snapped, “ yes . I’m going to finish my sweep, we’ll rendezvous on the bottom floor and we can brainstorm theories.”
He took a moment to register a response from each member of the rest of the team, then made sure to ensure the coordinator from the ground floor would also be joining them, as well as the police force that had joined them. He was apologetic for a moment that they would all be forced to endure the foul stench and tacked on a rushed “wear nasal protection,” before closing the link on his device.
Eraserhead took a length of his capture weapon and wove the cloth around the bottom half of his face as tightly as he could bear before steeling his nerve and returning to the corridor of carnage.
At approximately twelve foot intervals stood doors of reinforced steel that were held closed by keypad locks. These doors were not saved from the splatter, and the man took a moment to recollect himself before pressing on to the first on his right hand side. He gave the door a gentle kick with his foot, not surprised when it didn’t budge.
He was surprised when the door swung open instead, and had only a moment to brace himself before he was thrown bodily to the floor. A weight kept him down, and a feral, animalistic war cry nearly ruptured his eardrums. He lashed out blindly in response, kicking out with his left foot and then quickly using the backward momentum to roll back into an upright position, crouched and waiting for whatever had struck him to try again.
Erasure flared up instinctively, but it didn’t prevent the manic being before him from leaping a second time. He was ready for it, and instead of crashing to the ground in a heap, he flicked his capture weapon out and bound the creature almost in its entirety. He was not met with a positive response, as expected from just about any person or animal he’d had to ensnare this way over the years, but never in his life had he had the misfortune of hearing something so viscerally afraid.
Re-evaluating his target almost led to another session of dry heaving; the creature that he had bound was actually no more than a child , maybe ten years old, but more than that, this child was caked from head to toe in human remains ranging from blood to actual pieces of tissue and organs. The kid wasn’t wearing shoes, and the bottom of his pants ended in shorn off hems just below his knees; Eraserhead figured that if his arms were unbound that the kid’s shirt would be in a similar state. Distantly he registered the concern of his team echoing through the piece clipped to his ear, but instead returned his attention back to the little one before him.
Realizing that a masked figure would be of no help, he yanked the length of protection from the bottom of his face and tried not to gag at the fresh wave of carnage that assaulted his previously muted sense. He took a fraction of a second to find his voice then, still crouched low, called out to the child as gently as he could bear.
He barely managed a soft “hey” before the writhing ceased and all attention was on the pro. It unnerved him that the kid wouldn’t open his eyes to look at him, but upon closer inspection to that thought, Eraserhead decided that he’d rather not have to until his stomach stopped rolling.
“Can you understand me?” he asked tentatively.
He was granted a very quiet, keening whine in response, and the thought that this kid seemed to be more animalistic in nature hurt him in a way the hero didn’t quite understand.
He tried again, reaching very deeply within himself to further soften his tone, “kid, do you know what I’m saying?”
This time, along with the sound of a wounded animal, Eraserhead was granted with a very frantic bobbing of a head, up and down. The jarring motion worried the hero that perhaps the child was wounded, because while the kid was very fearful, he was also very wobbly, like perhaps a concussion or blood loss was at play. The thought was worrying.
Instinctively he reached out, taking a small face in one hand, his capture weapon held fast in the other. The movement of the child’s head ceased, but the pro hero was quick to retract his touch when the small body instead started to violently tremble. The whimpering picked up again, pained, and louder.
“I’m sorry,” he responded instinctually, taking a heavy step backward to kneel instead against the wall of the corridor. A quick flick of his wrist had his capture weapon returning to pool back over his shoulders.
The child collapsed heavily to the floor and scrambled away from the pro hero until he collided bodily with the door he came through. It careened closed again with a sharp crack that echoed down the corridor and up the staircase. The child wailed briefly, but cut himself off and instead curled into a tight ball.
“Eraser, what’s going on? Did you find something?” crackled in his ear.
He reached up to readjust the piece, frowning as he clicked back into the channel and responded carefully. His frown deepened when he was not responded to in kind, and he slipped the piece from his ear to examine it briefly, before grumbling some kind of profanity to himself and pocketing it. Useless technology.
“Kid?” he began tentatively, turning his full attention back to the child not six feet away from him.
Said child twitched as if a sixth sense could tell that there was attention placed upon him, before he tightened the muscles along his back and shoulders and pressed his knees closer to his chest. He began to rock just slightly, and that keened, whining permeated the air again.
Eraserhead winced empathetically, and carefully took a crouched step closer. He kept his body low, palms facing upward, and tried again, softer still. “Kid? I’m not gonna hurt you, promise.”
He was graced with a face this time, as the child snapped his head up in response. Eraserhead couldn’t quite tell what sort of emotion was being displayed through the carnage of blood and guts, but was a little less relieved to not make eye contact again. He was unnerved, but pressed on gently.
“Not gonna hurt you, I promise,” he reiterated, taking another careful step.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t garner if he was trusted enough to get closer because he had to throw himself forward and snatch the child up by the waist, clutching him back against his own chest in response to the footsteps thundering down the stairs. He knew who was approaching, but they were not the reason that he had to restrain the child again.
Instead of fleeing, as most people and animals do in response to threats, the child in his arms responded to danger with heavy fighting instincts. He supposed it made sense, considering how they met.
He heard Sir Nighteye shouting at the others as they came into view, and the hero managed to grab Centipeder and pull him back around the corner into the stairwell. The other heroes froze where they were at the sight before them.
Eraserhead supposed it did not look good, and as he attempted to wrangle the child back into a relative state of calm, he heard Rock Lock and Sir Nighteye collectively retching. He felt sympathy, but it was washed away by the child’s more frantic movements and the sudden, shrill wailing that began to echo down the corridor. It was fearful, but he knew by the snarl on the child’s face and the gore in his teeth that it was full of danger, too.
The kid twisted, crumpling his form over Eraserhead’s restraining arm, and a set of teeth chomped down onto the appendage. The pro swore from where he was crouched, and managed to pull the pair of them back a few more feet as the heroes at the entrance to the corridor also retreated. Back to the stairwell, and perhaps even the previous floor.
It took nearly ten minutes of gentle coaxing and careful touches before the child was calm enough to respond with something other than thrashing, screaming, or biting. Eraserhead was thankful that he was able to handle the situation without restraining the kid in his capture weapon again. Caged animals never responded well, and from what little he knew of this child, he figured the kid would appreciate never being treated like an animal again.
“Are you okay?” A new voice murmured from the doorway of the stairwell.
Eraserhead flicked his gaze up to meet with Crimson Riot’s, half expecting the kid to go feral again. He almost did, but it seemed that his own lax response to the hero was beneficial to keeping the child in his arms calm. He noted that the kid seemed to be okay where he was, though now instead of curling in on himself, he was curled over Eraserhead’s torso, hands clenched in the front of his shirt and a face buried in his capture weapon. He could feel the small body shuddering with quiet sobs and responded by furling his arms gently around the kid. It seemed to help some.
Crimson Riot spoke again, just as softly as before, “your arm, are you okay?”
Eraserhead nodded, trailing an experienced eye over to where the kid had bit him. The thick fabric of his uniform prevented the kid’s teeth from doing any serious damage, at most he would have the indents of teeth on his flesh for a few more hours.
“Yeah,” he responded, as carefully and calmly as the hero down the hall, “didn’t break the skin.”
He watched Crimson Riot nod, then the hero turned and left. Eraserhead heard him in the stairwell radioing to the others that the situation had been handled.
The underground hero returned his attention back to the child in his arms, and he carefully relaxed from his crouch so that he could sit comfortably with his back against the wall. He didn’t like having to sit in blood, but he had told the others to rendez-vous with him here to discuss what they had found. He didn’t think the others had finished their sweep, though, and this was confirmed when they slowly trickled back into the corridor to explain that when they didn’t get a response from Eraserhead, and had then heard the commotion, the four heroes had rushed down to provide backup.
He felt the kid tense up at the new voices, and turned his own head to murmur through the child’s hair that nobody was going to hurt him, and that he was safe. The kid responded by clinging on a little tighter, and the underground hero carefully set his hand on the back of the child’s head gently, beginning to pull bits of flesh from the strands of his hair. He noticed the others wince visibly at his actions, and suddenly Detective Naomasa was pushing past the others with an armful of plastic bags.
The Detective’s approach slowed at the child’s sudden change in demeanor. It was like that of a cat, almost, his back arched away from Eraserhead and a deep, keening moan rippled from deep within the kid’s throat as his head snapped back up from where it had rested on the hero’s shoulder. His teeth were bared in that vicious snarl that Eraserhead had seen before, and Naomasa visibly flinched at the gory state of the child’s mouth.
He saw the Detective shudder as he came to the same conclusion that Eraserhead and the others had; this child was likely the cause of why there weren’t any other people within the building. Naomasa silently set the evidence bags a few feet away, and Eraserhead used his foot to drag the pile over, then the underground hero focused on bagging what he found whilst he began to clean the kid of the violence. The Detective retreated, but returned with what looked like a damp rag and Eraserhead calmly accepted it.
He soaked what blood he could from the child’s hair, and gently coaxed him to untuck himself from Eraserhead’s chest so that the pro could also wipe away the blood on his face and any other skin he discovered unscathed.
The pro kept the child tucked close to himself, a leg propped up between the other heroes and the child as a visible barrier; the other leg stretched out comfortably and he laid the evidence bags across his thigh. Ones that were holding “evidence” were set off to the side, again between the kid and the heroes so that the Detective wouldn’t have to inch too closely to retrieve them.
The entire time he worked, he spoke softly to the kid. He didn’t get any verbal responses, or any responses at all, but every now and then the kid would tilt his head a certain way and Eraserhead knew that his words were having an effect, and by the time he finished cleaning out his hair the kid was relatively calm.
The Detective inched back over with a fresh rag (where he had found these, Eraserhead didn’t question), and retreated with an armful of evidence bags. The rag he previously used was deposited into an evidence bag as well, which the Detective had also taken.
He carefully took the child’s small chin in his offhand, painfully aware of how the kid reacted the last time he grabbed at his face, and made sure to be especially gentle as he brought the damp rag up to begin wiping blood away from flesh. He began with the kid’s forehead, frowning in concern when he unearthed a few scratches that were deep enough to be considered gouges. The wounds weren’t bleeding, and in fact they looked kind of old, but they did seem sore, and maybe even infected. They would need to be properly treated by a doctor, and while Eraserhead had experience applying stitches, he had a feeling that general anaesthetic would be appreciated and that was something he was not licensed for.
“Detective, could you bring me a med kit, please?” He heard the Detective’s steps retreat back up the stairs, chattering away into his own radio, then all was relatively quiet again; he tried to tune out the steady plip, plip of half-coagulated blood dripping from the ceiling.
He returned his attention back to the kid once more, gentler still as he carefully dabbed at his closed eyelids. The kid kept them closed, even when they were no longer fused shut by dried blood and flaky tissue matter, and Eraserhead pondered on it for only a moment longer as he slowly wiped away beneath his eyes and over his sunken cheeks.
Something glossy caught his eye, and his frown deepened as he focused his attention on trying to wipe it away. It looked faintly like a set of really thick eyelashes, but they were too stiff and a little too wrong in a way the hero couldn’t figure out until the kid was flinching away from his scrutiny and covering his face with caked hands. The hero’s grip on the kid’s chin broke away and he carefully held onto a forearm to prevent the kid from toppling over.
His grip turned just a little bit more firm as the kid’s fingers dug harshly against his own flesh, and the rag tumbled to the floor, forgotten, as the hero moved to cease the self-destructive actions. The hero pulled small hands away from the sensitive organs and thought nothing of it when those hands turned more to claws and dug into the fabric of his uniform. He pulled the kid in close again, this time with little resistance, and the kid wound himself against Eraserhead in the same way he had previously. The relatively clean face met with his relatively gorey capture weapon as the kid’s grip shifted from his sleeves to the chest of the jumpsuit of his uniform. The little form began to tremble with quiet sobs again, and Eraserhead settled his arms back around the kid and gently thrummed his fingers along a knobby spine.
The Detective slipped back into the corridor with a bright red, relatively rectangular bag tucked under one arm and an awkward looking dish in the other hand. He didn’t question what it was for long, because as the Detective drew near he crouched down about four feet away and set both the dish and the kit on the floor and then slid them over the rest of the way. The dish was actually more of a bowl, and was filled halfway with what looked like clean water and even more rags. He hoped those were also clean. He murmured his thanks and used one hand to draw the items closer, then returned to calming the kid.
It took considerably less than last time, and when he stood between the hero’s legs so that the pro could keep cleaning the carnage away, the kid wasn’t even trembling half as bad. Of course, burying his face in the capture weapon had it smeared with drying blood again, and so Eraserhead took up a new rag from the awkward bowl, wrung out excess liquid, and swiped the kid’s face clean again.
He paused again at the kid's eyes, his frown settling back upon his face, and dunked the rag back into the dish of water. He left more liquid soaked into the cloth than last time, and used the excess to try and soak away some of the strange stains that rimmed the child’s eyes. They looked more like bruises the more red he managed to wash away, and by the time he was confident that the kid’s face was as clean as he could get it, he realized that in some way they were.
A quirk mutation? He thought to himself, pressing the rag gently against the lids of the child’s eyes a few more times. This action drew his attention back to the strange eyelashes, and he used the pad of his thumb to gently pull down at the flesh of the child’s cheek. The kid flinched again, just as violently as before, but the pro was able to prevent the kid from trying to gouge his own eyes out again by taking careful hold of his forearms.
The child fought him this time though, slipping on the damp floor and toppling backward; the pro tugged him in close again, but the kid’s bare feet kicked out and caught him in the gut and chest. Still, Eraserhead held fast, calm reassurances tumbling from his lips even if the little one paid no attention.
Suddenly blood spewed, splattering up over his face with a hot squelch, and the kid screamed , then went completely limp, but not quiet. He whined and moaned, and Eraserhead let go of one of the kid’s arms to attempt to staunch the sudden gush of fresh blood that began to spurt out from beneath the juncture of the kid’s arm to his body.
Fuck, that was arterial spray. “I need a medical team here, right now!” the pro bellowed instead, hunching over the stilling form.
Blood pooled beneath the kid’s crumpled body and gushed from between his fingers and Eraserhead found himself panicking despite his best efforts. He could hear the other heroes rushing forward and he saw, from his peripheral vision, as Crimson Riot and Rock Lock pushed their way over and crammed a wad of cloth on top of his hands. Eraserhead took them as best he could and then pressed down with nearly all his weight to keep the blood from spilling much further.
“Kid! Kid, stay with me, okay? I need you to stay with me!” he called, but he could hardly hear himself past the rushing of his own pulse.
Crimson Riot was digging through the med kit, pulling out packages of thick gauze but Eraserhead stopped him with one command; “give me a pair of gloves, then I need you to keep pressure for me.”
The other hero nodded, located the brand new box of latex gloves and ripped them open, then he pulled a glove free and used it to keep the next two he grabbed relatively sterile. Eraserhead, wasting as little time as possible, seized the gloves, and Crimson Riot was just as fast to put pressure back on the kid’s wound as it began to spray again.
Quick as he could, Eraserhead yanked the gloves on then shoved Crimson Riot’s hands aside and felt for the wound, then he slipped his middle and index finger between the layers of flesh to feel for the bleed. It was messy, and every second that passed he cursed his lack of medicinal know-how until finally he met the source of all the blood. He pushed his thumb into the wound as well and pinched at what he could only assume was part of the kid’s brachial artery, just above where he could feel the blood gushing.
The wound wasn’t spurting blood anymore by the time the medical team got to them, but the kid had lost enough blood and was unconscious. He was instructed to keep pressure and the EMT closest tried to hand him a wad of gauze that he waved away with his free hand, then hunched back over the kid and tried with all his might not to freak out anymore.
“I’m pinching the kid’s artery closed, I don’t think gauze will be of much use,” he uttered. The EMT nodded and murmured their praise at his quick thinking; he grit his teeth and tried not to think of all the things that could go wrong during transport.
The two of them were situated onto the gurney the team had brought down; it was snapped upright and quickly wheeled down to the stairwell before the three EMTs strong-armed them back to the ground floor. Vaguely, Eraserhead was impressed they managed to get them back up ten floors without a strength quirk.
“Eraserhead.” The pro snapped his gaze to the EMT that addressed him and registered that they had made it to the ambulance. The rocking of everything around him assured him they were en route to the nearest hospital. He could hear the siren wailing.
“We’re going to Musutafu General, I need you to tell me everything you know-”
“Male, about ten years old, damage to the brachial artery-” someone was going through the ABC’s* at the kid’s head, another EMT- the one who spoke- was moving into action at the kid’s side by where Eraserhead was hunched over him.
Everything after that passed in a blur; they were wheeled into the ER by the two EMTs- who were replaced by two trauma nurses- and were then wheeled into an operating room and greeted by a team of surgeons who treated everything that Eraserhead had found and more.
He was excused from the surgery about two hours in when they got the bleeding under control and no longer needed him, and was instructed to get cleaned up. The pro didn’t realize how much of a mess he looked until he was staring at himself through the bathroom mirror- it looked like he had just murdered someone, and his general apathetic demeanor didn’t seem to do much except cement the idea.
He grimaced, took handfuls of paper towels and wiped away what he could; he didn’t have a change of clothes, and the public facility wasn’t equipped with showers, so whatever could be done with wet paper towels would have to suffice. He didn’t look much better when he emerged and slunk his way to the waiting room; there weren’t many other people there, and those that were steered clear of him, not that he minded.
Eraserhead soon found himself dozing off where he sat, slouched back in the awful hospital chair with his arms crossed. He splayed his legs out to keep himself relatively upright whilst his head bobbed down then snapped up as he fought to keep awake.
A gentle caress to the side of his face had him jolting upright with a shout, quirk flaring up, and hands flying to his capture weapon. His partner, Hizashi Yamada, rose to his feet as Eraserhead did, hands raised in a placating gesture.
“Easy, easy,” he murmured, drawing close and taking hold of shaking, red tainted hands. “It’s just me.”
Eraserhead’s panic died at the words and the energy leached out of him with a heavy sigh. He curled in on himself, and Hizashi pushed damp hair out of his face, wincing when his own hands were stained red.
“Oh, Grumpy Cat,” he murmured in English, and Eraserhead could see that he was fighting himself to keep the physical contact. He supposed he didn’t do the best job at cleaning the blood away and winced in sympathy.
“Sorry, Sunshine, there’s not much I can do without a shower,” he whispered.
Hizashi understood, and held up a relatively small duffle bag. “I brought you some spare clothes, I’m sure that we can track down a shower somewhere in this big building.”
The pro nodded and allowed Hizashi to lead him away from the waiting room, but halted just after the first few steps.
“Wait, ‘Zashi. The kid, I can’t leave him, what if something happens while I’m gone?”
He watched Hizashi soften, fingers threading through his own. “I know, Sho-Bear, I left my number with the nurse at the desk just up ahead; she’ll call me if anything drastic happens. Promise.” Eraserhead was satisfied with Hizashi’s response, and fully let himself be dragged away, presumably to the aforementioned “desk up ahead.”
“Excuse me?” He heard Hizashi interrupt politely.
The two nurses present were engaged in soft conversation, and he heard a muffled gasp in response as he presumed the two had turned their attention to his partner. He guessed that he had done an even poorer job cleaning up than he had previously thought and kept his gaze downcast- in his personal experience, eye contact with individuals covered in blood was always hard to scrub from the unconscious mind, and the unconscious mind loved to replay trauma. That was something he had first hand experience with.
Luckily, his poor state of address prompted one of the nurses to hand over a keycard and direct them to the staff restroom that was, thankfully, equipped with shower facilities and soap. Two for one deals were always great. Hizashi thanked them both, then pulled him along by his wrist. Eraserhead tried not to wince when he realized he was tracking a trail of mostly-coagulated blood down the hall. He sent a mental apology to the janitorial staff.
“Sho-Bear,” Hizashi murmured, again in English, garnering the pro’s full attention. He realized that they were standing at an open door to the restroom and shuffled inside.
Hizashi stopped him at the door and handed him the duffle bag, assuring him that there was also a towel packed inside. He thanked his partner and offered a small smile before allowing the door to swing closed and twisting the lock into place. The muffled “let me know if you need anything” floated through the door lifted his lips up into a small smile and he got to work giving himself a thorough scrubbing.
When he emerged again, he was no longer “Erasure Hero: Eraserhead,” but instead “Aizawa Shota,” teacher at UA. He assumed the child that he and the team had rescued would be placed under UA’s protection and hoped that temporary custody would be given to himself and his partner, Hizashi Yamada, “Voice Hero: Present Mic.” That was not something that needed to be arranged just yet, though, so Shota forced it from his mind.
Hizashi smiled, clearly pleased that he was no longer imbrued with bloodshed and much more comfortable taking his hand this time, before leading him back to the waiting room. They passed the nurses on the way back, who reported no news from the operating team, then found a quiet corner to hole up in for the next few hours.
Shota deposited the duffle bag (which was now holding his contaminated uniform and capture weapon, regrettably) onto the seat beside him and hunkered down to wait. Hizashi settled himself down as well, hand resting on his knee to keep it from bouncing in his mounting worry, and began to talk to him about his day.
He’d had to cut his shift at “Put Your Hands Up Radio” short when Detective Naomasa had called their situation in. He was quietly thankful to the Detective for thinking so far ahead, for being a good friend and colleague, and made a mental reminder to bring him an extra-large coffee the next time they saw each other.
“Sunshine,” he hated to cut his rambling husband short, but he couldn’t keep his plaguing thoughts quiet any longer. Hizashi seemed to understand what sort of things were on his mind with that single word alone and gave him his full attention.
“The kid,” Shota swallowed dryly, wetted his lips, and tried again. “Those bastards sewed his eyes shut.”
He heard a sharp intake of breath beside him, and a gentle touch began to move up and down his back. He leaned into Hizashi as best he could with the weird arm rest of the chairs between them.
“It was almost like-” His voice gave out on him and he reached out a hand for his partner. Hizashi gripped him close, murmuring soft words of comfort.
“I know, Sho, I know,” Hizashi whispered, fingers drumming a soft rhythm against his back.
“It was almost like seeing myself,” he finally ground out, and once he pushed those words out the rest came easily. “I almost couldn’t get the job done because I was so afraid, I thought to myself that I couldn’t fail this kid like everyone had failed me.”
Vaguely, he felt he should be weeping, but the tears wouldn’t come. Years of working his quirk to it’s limit had long since prevented such a thing, and he felt minutely guilty that he couldn’t cry for this kid. Because somewhere deep in his bones he knew that nobody else had cried for this kid before, and there was something to be said about who a person was if they couldn’t cry for someone else.
“We won’t fail this one, I promise, Sho-Bear.” Hizashi broke him from his thoughts just as easily as a stone shattering glass and it gave him pause. He lifted his head from where he had hunched in on himself and drew his gaze to his partner.
Big, fat tears were cascading down his husband’s face like a leaky faucet, more than enough for one person to cry. The sight of him made Shota smile softly, and he brought his hands up to cup his sniveling face, then drew the pair of them close and pressed their foreheads together. He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes, listening as Hizashi meekly did the same, a pair of warm hands cupping his own face.
“Thanks for crying for me, Tweety Bird,” he murmured, half teasing.
Hizashi made a sound at the back of his throat, somewhat indignant at the nickname, and it tore a soft chuckle from his throat. He opened his eyes to his husband trying to get his leaky eyes under control, rubbing furiously under the lids and fanning his face.
“You know I’ll always cry for the both of us, Grumpy Cat,” Hizashi threw back. It was rewarded only with another chuckle. Shota drew him close again and placed a gentle kiss to the blond’s temple. “Thanks, Sunshine.”
Hizashi opened his mouth to continue their conversation, but one of the surgeons stepping into the waiting room drew his attention away. The pair of them stood and made their way over in trepidation. The doctor didn’t look grim, but he was unnerved.
“Eraserhead?” He questioned formally. The underground hero nodded, grave.
“What’s the damage?”
“He’s stable, for now. We have him in the PICU* for observation-”
“Can we see him?” The doctor paused, considering his partner. Hizashi pulled out his hero license and held it up. The doctor took it briefly, examined it, then handed it back with a nod.
“This way, then. I can assume you are the emergency guardian, Eraserhead?”
“We both will be,” he corrected. The doctor spared no other thought to the statement and turned to direct them back down the hallway he had come from.
They were led through the hallways in an almost serene sort of quiet, like a bubble had enveloped the three of them. Shota followed the doctor in a hesitant daze, like his body was trying to catch up to how fast his mind was moving. Scenarios danced through his mind unfiltered, and the air grew stale in his chest. It was an odd feeling he hadn’t felt for decades, not since he was a child at least. He didn’t like it.
Their bubble was popped by the sound of a door sliding open and the doctor led them into the child’s room. He hesitated at the threshold of the doorway for a fraction of a moment before pushing past his apprehension and following Hizashi and the doctor further inside. He slid the door closed behind him before striding purposefully to the bedside.
The kid looked like a corpse, there was no other word for it; the pale skin, bruised, sunken eyes, the stillness. The only evidence that this child was living was the machine he was hooked up to, an ECG*, which was displaying the depolarization and repolarization of each little beat of the kid’s heart. There were many leads of cords and tubes leading between the machinery and the kid, and the doctor assured them that most of the wiring was in fact for the ECG device that sat beside him.
“We’ve got him on a transfusion line for now, he lost a lot of blood.” The doctor didn’t elaborate as to when he might have lost this blood, but regardless Shota was thankful it wasn’t brought up. The specifics of whose fault it might have been were not currently pressing matters.
“We’ve also got a separate line for the general intravenous fluids to help bring his electrolytes back up. He’s also on a quirk suppressant; the way that his body was reacting to our non-invasive methods was cause enough for concern, but the suppressant was enough to get him through the surgery. It should wear off in the next forty-eight hours or so.”
The doctor took the kid’s chart from the foot of his bed and flipped through a few pages then continued, “the state of his body in itself is cause for minor concern; low hemoglobin levels, low electrolyte levels, low ratio of muscle mass, the list goes on. We’ll start him with fluids for now and work from there; compared to other cases like this that I have seen, his chance of recovery is fairly high.”
Shota forced himself to take a breath and slunk over to one of the chairs by the wall of the room. He dragged it right close to the kid’s bed and sunk down with a heavy exhale. “Is there any good news here, doc?” he grumbled.
Hizashi mirrored Shota’s actions, taking the other chair and situating himself beside his partner. Shota took his hand and wove their fingers together, then leaned forward to gently take the hand of the kid laid prone on the hospital bed. The small hand was as cold as ice, and the fingertips were faintly purple-blue.
“Not really,” the doctor replied, flipping the chart closed and setting it down against his side.
“As for the wound you were treating when they wheeled you in,” the doctor sighed and pinched at the bridge of his nose. “It was caused by a low caliber bullet, likely from a common sidearm, but we weren’t able to recover a bullet for evidence. We were able to identify an entry and exit wound, though, and with some time and good nutrition he’ll make a full recovery.” Shota and Hizashi both relaxed by a fraction, but the tension was returned in full at the doctor’s next words.
“The sutures holding his eyes closed were more concerning than initially observed. We’ve got antibiotics running through his system to clear out any lasting infections, and hopefully further surgery won’t be required, but the damage has been done.”
Shota felt a tremor pulse through his body; his jaw clenched and he fought not to tighten his fist around the child’s hand. “Damage?” he ground out.
The doctor nodded and brought the chart back up. He flipped through the first few pages again and settled at what Shota could only assume was his initial report of the matter.
“These sutures are months if not years old. It didn’t look like they had been adjusted at all, either. The average growth rate for a child this young-” the doctor cut himself off, clearly distraught. “I’m surprised his eyelids are intact at all, the skin was so tightly strained over his eyes that the suture sites were tearing. If he had gone any number of days longer like this, I’m afraid he would have very minimal skin left to cover his eyes at all. That kind of damage-” again, the doctor cut himself off. Collectively, the room took a calming breath, bar the child asleep on the bed.
“Please tell me there’s nothing else,” Shota murmured. There was another pregnant pause as the doctor examined his notes.
“Nothing that required immediate intervention,” he trailed off, and both Hizashi and Shota turned their attention from the slumbering form to the hesitant doctor.
“But?” Hizashi prompted.
“We’ve charted out old scar tissue, the place you found him, the people who had him,” this doctor couldn’t seem to come to the conclusion he wanted, and again had to pause and recollect his thoughts. “We could only assume they were using the mutation his quirk has on his blood for some sort of compound or even a bioweapon. The sheer number of white blood cells in a single draw count, it’s unheard of. The fact that he’s got any scarring at all attests to the fact that any sort of treatment or testing he was put through was incredibly harsh. I can only hope that the people who did this have been brought into custody.”
Shota winced a little at remembrance of what he had walked into on that final floor. Hizashi took the lead away from him and assured the doctor that indeed, “the people who had done this have been dealt with accordingly.” Neither of them could tell the doctor what that really meant, though.
The doctor closed his chart, replaced it at the foot of the kid’s bed, and took his leave. Again, the air turned stale in the quiet as the pair of them ruminated in the wake of just what had happened to this kid. The staleness of the air turned bitter at Shota’s growing anger, but the gentle presence of Hizashi at his side and the subtle shift of the child’s chest rising and falling kept the fury at bay. For now.
“Sho.” Hizashi’s voice pulled his attention away, and he turned to his husband.
“You need to sleep,” his partner began carefully, a hand coming to cup the side of his face. The other hand pulled his hair away from where it had begun to fall in front of his sight.
“You won’t get any rest here, and there’s nothing more we can do for the little listener tonight. I’m pretty sure the night nurse will come along and kick us out, anyway.”
Hizashi was right, as he usually was, but when Shota turned back to look over that tiny form laying as still as death he found that lead had settled into place where his bones used to be. He couldn’t take his hand away from where he had reached out to the kid- the small fingers were so chilled and his skin was so pale. How could there be nothing else for him to do?
But Hizashi was right regardless. They were stuck in a temporary limbo; the kid was stable and asleep, the other heroes had likely given their reports in and gone home, as had any officers and the Detective. So, with a heaving sigh, Shota retracted his hand from the kid’s, gathered his feet beneath him, and lumbered upright with the help of his husband. Hizashi wound an arm around behind him in support, and Shota could only lean into him. It took every ounce of his strength and then some to allow Hizashi to lead him away from the kid’s bed, and even as they were walking away from the room, down the hallway, every fibre of his being was screaming at him to go back and watch over the small boy they had left behind.
By the time they got home, Shota’s body had finally caught up to the racing thoughts in his mind and he could confidently conclude that he was thoroughly exhausted. Hizashi helped him take off his shoes and slip out of the light jacket he didn’t remember donning, then led him further inside and sat him on the couch in the living room.
Kanashī, a long-haired, grey tom cat who Shota referred to as ‘Kan’, slunk out from their bedroom and quietly made his way up onto the couch beside Shota. Small paws gently kneaded at the side of his leg when the feline settled down, and Shota placed a gentle hand upon the cat’s back, fingers curling into the long fur. With a heavy sigh, he sagged into the back of the couch, head tilting back and eyes fluttering closed as the small body beside him picked up a deep, steady purring.
The lights in the apartment were left off, for the most part. He could see the lights on in the kitchen from behind his eyelids, and could hear Hizashi puttering about softly, then the lights clicked off and careful footsteps swept over to him. A tender touch of fingertips against his brow pulled his eyes open and he regarded his husband in the gentle moonlight that filtered in through the poor curtains of the living room window. Hizashi looked worried; there was a tension in his shoulders that was not usually there, his lips were drawn in a taught, thin line upon his face, and the skin between his brows were pinched and creased.
Shota brought the hand not holding the cat up and gently pressed his thumb to his husband’s brow, working the crease away, then drew his hand along Hizashi’s temple to comb through his long locks of honey-gold. He stretched himself upright and pulled Hizashi down for a delicate kiss that had any remaining tension seeping out of his husband with a listless sigh.
As they pulled apart, Shota stood, to Kan’s dismay, and let Hizashi drag him to bed. Kan followed lazily, loping between their legs as he went. Hizashi clicked the bedside lamp on and, after a brief comb through the dresser, helped him into some PJs, and then prompted him to crawl under the covers. He watched with weary interest as Hizashi did the same, but clicked the lamp off when he slipped in beside Shota in bed, then promptly pulled him into a strong and comforting embrace. Once his eyes had adjusted, he could see that Hizashi had closed his eyes, ready for sleep, but Shota’s mind had begun to grow restless again. He leaned close and touched the tip of his nose to Hizashi’s.
“Sho,” he complained, not bothering to open his eyes. “Go to sleep.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but piercing, sage green eyes met him in the darkness and anything he had been about to say died on the tip of his tongue. Hizashi’s arms tightened slightly around him, drawing him closer still, and the warmth of his husband at his side killed any other roaming thoughts of the one they’d left behind at the hospital.
“He’ll be okay, Sho, I bet my hair on it.” Shota chortled a quiet laugh at Hizashi’s common reassurance and brought a hand up to flick a stray lock from his husband’s face.
Mind quieted, Shota turned over in bed, pressing his back to Hizashi’s chest, and his partner tucked his face into the back of Shota’s neck in turn. Comforted by the soft rhythm of Hizashi’s breaths fanning across his skin, and his mind finally quieted, Shota closed his eyes and allowed sleep to sweep him away.
It was dark, a pitch black that seemed almost alive. It was quiet, too, like the first blanket of winter when the snow sucked any vibrations out of the air and forced the world to stand still. Shota could feel the staccato of his breath in his chest and the sharp stutter of his heart thundering against his sternum, but any sounds that attempted to escape his lips were stolen into silence by the dark.
“‘Za-” He managed to push out the single syllable before the quiet lashed down his throat and stole his breath.
The darkness loomed; twisting, shifting, cold tendrils coiled up and around his form, pressing, pushing, forcing him to furl up tightly to protect the vital areas of his body. Arms and legs tucked close, he pressed his face down against his knees, trying to become small . Suddenly, sharp fingers dug into his scalp and leveraged his long hair to wrench his head back. The darkness stole the cry from his throat before he could even utter a breath of a sound.
A ribbon of pressure curled over his eyes, and, like a set of reins, forced him to unfurl further, his hands reaching to alleviate his face from the sudden discomfort. The stillness was broken by a snarl that raised the hair on his arms, and while there were no words spoken, the intonation was clear. He stopped struggling immediately, instead wrapping his arms around his middle whilst his throat was further bared to the dark.
Like a crown sitting too low and too small, the ribbon over his eyes began to tighten as if it were a python constricting its prey. It brought the fight back to his limbs and he thrashed with all his strength, but bands wound tight around wrists and ankles and pulled him out to a spread eagle.
A weight pressed down onto his chest, as if someone were sitting on him, and more bands wound further up his arms and legs to keep him still. What felt like hands pressed themselves around his throat and squeezed with a strength greater than his own- it ignited panic deep in his gut and pushed adrenaline through his bloodstream. He kicked and fought tooth and nail, but the binding tightness around him turned suddenly sharp and dug into his flesh- he could feel the warmth of blood oozing- and the darkness that was once cold suddenly became scorching hot. His back arched, unbidden, and his mouth opened to scream.
He shot upright like a bullet, hands scrabbling at his neck and eyes. He still couldn’t see anything, still couldn’t breathe, but he could hear something. A split second of focusing on it, led his mind to the heavy pulse of his heart thrashing against his lungs. It hurt, but not like he had been hurting a minute ago. This hurt was still sharp, but he couldn’t feel the heat of blood leaking from his veins, so he wasn’t immediately dying. His analytical train of thought brought him instead to “ heart attack” and suddenly all he could feel was “ dying- I’m dying!”
Warmth pressed firmly to his back and a pair of comforting arms wound around his middle, gentle hands coming to grasp at his wrists carefully. A soothing voice pierced through his deathly panic; it was melodic, and even though he couldn’t make any words out, it was mesmerizing. The tender tenor tone reverberated in his chest, calming the rapid pace of his heart enough for words to leak through to his mind.
Hizashi was singing softly; something with a slow rhythm, something so unlike the things he usually sang at home that he could only assume it was a lullaby. With the recognition of his partner squeezing him softly, his body sagged in relief and all the fight from moments ago fled his systems with a shuddering exhale. A hand on his chest prompted him to inhale deeply, through his nose, and the index finger upon the hand began to tap the very slow tempo of the lullaby in his ear. The gentle thrumming against his breastbone ground his mind further in the present moment and any remaining tension that his body was holding began to ease away.
A leg came up on either side of him, and he was dragged in further against his partner’s chest as Hizashi leaned back against the headboard of the bed. He sank into the warmth of his husband and his head came back to rest upon the shoulder behind him, Hizashi rested his chin down upon Shouta’s opposite shoulder. He focused on the lyrics Hizashi was singing and closed his eyes at another careful exhale; the exhaustion of the panic attack and the serenade of his husband in his ear dragged him back down to sleep.