Work Text:
If Tachihara were being honest, his first ever infiltration mission could have gone a lot better. Unfortunately, it took a turn for the worse when the other Hunting Dogs discovered that this mission was more dangerous than they originally thought.
His job was supposed to be to infiltrate a deal between two smaller criminal organizations, taking place at the headquarters of one of them. He was only meant to disguise himself as a lackey and get information as to where the deal was going, but when he got the news that this mission was too dangerous for a newbie like him, things went south.
Tachihara and the other lackeys had been excused from the room, giving him the perfect time to actually respond to the communicator. Moments later, sirens blared and Jouno had snuck in through a side entrance and carefully made his way up to Tachihara’s location, avoiding the now-active, motion-triggered explosives that lined the halls. Tachihara was mentally beating himself up for not noticing them sooner.
Now there he was, practically being dragged by Jouno down the stairs of the building he was meant to be infiltrating. Tachihara could tell his senior was slowing down his pace for him to keep up, but he could also see the caution that Jouno was displaying.
With all the cleverly-hidden but not-so-cleverly placed explosives lining every corridor, Tachihara wouldn’t dare step even a pace outside of where Jouno was headed. While the younger of which was terrified, his senior seemed more annoyed.
It made sense, Tachihara thought, Jouno would survive being blown up, with his enhancements and all. Tachihara, on the other hand, would be turned to paste.
He could hear Jouno muttering curses under his breath, but if Tachihara were being honest, he was too intimidated by the man to ask, and now wasn’t the time to further irritate him.
Jouno pressed a finger to the communicator in his ear as he ran, but after a few seconds he hissed out, “ Shit! ” before skidding both himself and Tachihara to a stop, letting go of the boy’s arm in the process.
“Down this hall, turn right, left, then right, there should be an unlabeled door, it’s an emergency staircase. I took it up here, it’s probably an escape route they left open,” he ordered, already turning on his heel and making his way back in the direction of the enemy.
“Wait!” Tachihara said, almost out of instinct. Jouno wasn’t going to leave him
alone,
was he? “What happened? Where are you going?”
“New plan, Tecchou got preoccupied with a surprise attack, he won’t make it in timee,” Jouno huffed. “Just get going already, brat,” he turned his head back to face the younger, “I’ll be right behind you.”
Tachihara had to admit, he was scared, but he was a Hunting Dog now, he had proven himself worthy of going on these missions, he could do this!
“Good luck!”
Tachihara just barely noticed the way Jouno’s lips quirked up into what could barely be considered a smile, “Don’t waste time!”
And like that, he was off, already gone around the hall by the time Tachihara blinked. The young Hunting Dog turned down the hall they were originally heading down.
Jouno’s mission was to get him out of there, no matter how much he wanted to help it would be stupid to argue, he was so much weaker than the others, at this time it was best to fall back, or so he was told.
Right turn, left turn, right turn, unmarked door. There!
To be safe, he backed up slightly, holding his breath and turning the doorknob with his Ability. To his relief, Jouno was right, this area was clear, or at the very least this door. Still, however, he knew he had to be careful.
He had only made it down one of the flights of stairs before a sudden bang rattled the whole building. Tachihara felt the flimsy stairs begin to crumble beneath him, and soon he was falling along with them.
Panic set in quickly as the building crashed around him, he was barely able to gain his bearings enough to shove away any falling debris that had metal in it.
In the blink of an eye, however, something shot forward from the side and grappled onto him, and for a moment everything went black, the only sounds being the booming of rubble crashing around him as he was lowered onto the floor in a surprisingly careful manner, not the hard smack of pavement against his head and back like he was expecting.
When the rubble finally all hit the ground and he opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was Jouno leaning over him, obvious pain written on his face, brows pinched and teeth gritting together.
“ Shit… ” He hissed, one hand raising to cover his mouth as he coughed out blood, the other still straining to hold himself up, placed at the side of Tachihara’s head. Now, Tachihara noticed what was happening. Through the light from the clear night sky now above them he noticed the pile of concrete that had fallen around them like litter, a few of which landed right on top of the two of them. If Jouno hadn’t been there, Tachihara would’ve surely been crushed.
That’s when his eyes moved back to Jouno, who was muttering curses to himself as he tried to move the rubble off of himself, only to hiss in pain once more. He probably noticed Tachihara’s staring at this point, turning his head to face the boy.
“Don’t give me that look,” Jouno chuckled despite how obviously it hurt to do so. “I said I’d be right behind you, didn’t I? I’m many things, but a liar isn’t one of them.”
Tachihara didn’t know what to say, frozen in shock as he simply watched Jouno lift his own hand to his stomach, and that’s when Tachihara noticed the blood.
A piece of rebar had gotten itself impaled through Jouno’s side, just barely missing Tachihara and imbedding itself in the ground beneath him.
Blood pooled seemingly endlessly from the wound, coating the cement and Tachihara’s shirt and pants. The younger’s eyes widened as panic set in. That was a lot of blood, too much blood, what should he do?
Tachihara scooted back a bit in panic, fine enough to move himself, but Jouno seemed to be stuck there. He needed to get help, right? Where was his communicator? Did he lose it when he fell? Should he just go on foot? He didn’t want to just leave Jouno there–
“Kid!” The snap of Jouno’s voice brought him back to reality. “Breathe, your job’s not finished yet.”
Tachihara could only bring himself to nod. He was a Hunting Dog, if he couldn’t handle this how was he going to avenge his brother?
He took a deep breath that barely calmed his nerves, but it was better than nothing. He then slowly pulled himself out from under the rubble entirely, getting up and kneeling just in front of his senior.
Jouno took the time to lower the piece of rubble slightly, taking some weight off of his back by letting an edge hit the ground, the other side still being held up by the rebar, which bent slightly now that more weight was being added to it, causing the older Hunting Dog to hiss.
“Can you lift this with your Ability?” Jouno questioned, trying to hide the strain in his voice. Tachihara knew where this was going.
“I-I don’t know,” Tachihara stammered. “Can’t you get out with your Ability?”
“I learned the hard way not to use it with these types of injuries unless absolutely necessary,” Jouno huffed, adjusting his hold on the cement he was holding above himself, wincing as the metal piece in him shifted. “And even if I can lift this thing, trying to shove it off with this metal piece in me will only cut up my insides.”
Tachihara understood, as disturbing as the imagery was. Throwing the rubble in any direction will angle the piece of rebar, which will most likely end up tearing through skin and organ, enhancements or not.
“Just try,” Jouno ordered, his impatience growing.
He did, he raised a hand up and tried to lift up the rubble, but it just didn’t seem to be enough. The metal itself wasn’t that heavy or hard to move, but there was far too much stone weighing it down.
He shook his head, speaking with a tense voice, “I can’t.”
“Then try and snap the rebar.”
“Snap it?”
“You heard me, break it off at the base, I can handle the rest.”
“What if I end up hurting you?”
“Your concern is adorable, Tachihara,” Jouno teased, and Tachihara could see the annoyance peeking out through the pain. “But I would much rather that than keep holding this thing.”
So Tachihara tried again, lifting his hand and focusing his Ability on the piece of metal. He tried to go slow, to hopefully not put more pain on his senior than necessary, but it seemed that Jouno had gotten impatient.
“Hurry!” he snapped, startling Tachihara.
In an instant the metal snapped back , breaking at the base of the rubble with a yelp from Jouno, his face pinched in pain.
Jouno quickly and swiftly shoved the rubble up and off of him, pulling himself out of the rebar still embedded into the ground out of himself as he did so in one swift motion before letting the debris fall back to the ground.
He only managed to stand for a couple seconds before collapsing back down to his knee, one hand landing to put pressure on his wound, the other lifting to his mouth to catch the blood he was coughing out.
“Mother fucker, ” he cursed, lifting a hand and fumbling with his cape in an attempt to pull it off. “Tachihara! Don’t sit and stare, come help me with this.” It was an order, but Jouno’s voice was weak.
Tachihara immediately hopped up and went over to his senior, helping him take off his cape, which Jouno promptly shoved towards him. Confused, Tachihara just stared at the cape, then back to Jouno, who was easing himself to sit back.
“Don’t act so confused,” Jouno hissed, both in pain and annoyance. “Help me use it to stop the bleeding.”
Tachihara mouthed an ‘Oh,’ before he began his work, his hands following Jouno’s as the two of them worked to bandage the injury.
“Did…” Tachihara began, “Did you call for help?”
“I lost my communicator in the fall, too,” Jouno replied dully, more focused on keeping pressure on the wound. “My tracker should have signaled that I was injured, but last time this happened it took a whole ten minutes for them to find me, can you believe that? I’m not sitting and waiting.”
Tachihara had the feeling that Jouno was about to go on a tirade about the response team, and he really wasn’t in the mood to listen to that, not when his heart was still pounding after all that. So instead, he changed the subject.
“We didn’t… fail this mission, did we?” His voice was strained, as if his body wasn’t ready to accept the possibility that yes, he had failed his very first mission.
“I doubt it,” Jouno shook his head, tucking in the edge piece of his cape to secure the makeshift bandage. “We learned that the man this group was meeting with was a high priority target, and this entire scheme was basically a suicide bombing to take out an enemy.”
“S-suicide?”
“The target pulled a grenade from his jacket and blew up both himself and the other leader,” Jouno explained with an uneasy casualty. “By the time I made it there it was already too late to stop them, and I had to rush back to make sure you didn’t die.”
“There weren’t any other casualties?”
“We can’t be sure of that yet,” Jouno shrugged, “But the neighboring buildings are all offices, and I doubt anyone is working at this time of night.”
Tachihara didn’t like the idea of civilians getting caught in this, and while there was a fair enough distance between this much-smaller building and the neighboring ones, it was still concerning. Looking up, half the building had collapsed in on itself, it was surprising that part of it was even still standing.
“Jouno,” Tachihara began.
“What is it?”
“Thanks for saving my life.”
For the first time - that Tachihara had seen, at least - Jouno looked almost lost for words, eyebrows raised and a light dusting of pink on his face. Was he embarrassed?
“Don’t thank me,” Jouno turned his head to the side. “It would be ridiculous for the new kid to die on their first mission, what kind of senior would I be if I let that happen?”
“You’re not hurt anywhere else, right?” Tachihara asked, and Jouno shook his head.
“My back is most definitely bruised, but don’t concern yourself with me,” Jouno took a deep breath before quickly shoving himself to stand, one hand putting more pressure on the injury. “You’re lucky, you only got out of this with a few scrapes and bruises.”
“Hey! You shouldn’t get up yet!” Tachihara urged, trying to usher him back to sit. “You lost a shit ton of blood!”
“Backup arrived, I can hear them.”
“Yeah, but you still have a hole in your gut!” Tachihara reminded him. “They can get here on their own.”
“Yes, but I’d rather them not take forever to find us,” Jouno shook his head, “Besides, I’m fine enough to walk, no need to concern yourself with—“ as if on cue, Jouno stumbled, a hand flying to clutch his wound once more with a curse.
Tachihara stepped forward to catch him up, taking one of his senior’s arms and putting it over his shoulder for support, the other hand grabbing onto Jouno’s side.
“This isn’t necessary,” Jouno groaned, not even the sudden bout of pain being able to contain his annoyed tone.
“Hey, you’re the one who insists on walking,” Tachihara retorted.
Tachihara had to admit, Jouno wasn’t exactly light, and the height difference between them made him a bit harder to hold, but Tachihara could handle it. The two of them making their way through the rubble, it was harder in the dark, but Tachihara managed with the moonlight.
The cleanup crew, as Tachihara remembered Jouno refer to them as in the past, met them half way through, taking Jouno off of Tachihara’s hands and leading the younger off to get checked over.
Before he went off with them, however, Jouno called out his name. He turned around to look at his senior, unsure of what to expect. He wasn’t in trouble, was he? If he was, Jouno would have surely chewed him out a lot earlier. Teruko had said that Jouno had a soft spot for him, but Tachihara wasn’t quick to believe that.
Jouno smiled, something more genuine than that sadistic grin Tachihara saw far too often.
“For your first mission gone wrong, you did alright.”
A compliment, from Jouno of all people.
Tachihara figured he must have actually hit his head a bit too hard. As he was ushered away by a medic, he felt a warm sense of pride bubble up in his chest, and he couldn’t keep the smile from tugging at his lips.