Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Night City, city of dreams, and the worst possible place to live in the New United States of America. Overrun by corruption and cruelty, the textbook definition of dystopian. Corporations ran the show, leaving the city closer to a warzone than a place people could live. Even beyond the Corporations corruption, countless smaller factions vied for power, without a care for the lives lost in its pursuit. Beyond all this blood, gore, and moral decay, were people just trying to make a living.

One such person was a mercenary named V, a kid grown out of Heywood, Night City being all they’ve known for most of their life. Night City was in his blood, and he knew just how terrible life there was. His adult life was just one gig after another, helping them make a living. This changed when he met one Jackie Welles, after which his life took one hell of a turn.

This meeting would lead to a job gone wrong, simply meant to break into a corporation’s hotel and snatch a data shard from the penthouse suite. It ended with all involved in the job dead, in one way or another. Jackie bleeding out in the back of a car, and with V getting a bullet put between his eyes. Yet, V wouldn’t stay dead for long. The shard they tried to steal in fact held the digital consciousness of Johnny Silverhand, former terrorist and rockerboy.

Life would only get worse for V, Johnny was slowly killing him. Not in the conventional way, but in the way that would leave who he were dead, but his body fine. He spent what time he had left, desperately trying to find a way to keep this from happening, with him growing close to Johnny, with him eventually not wanting V to die just so he could have a new body again.

This led them to this moment, staring out across the skyline of Night City, having what may be his last conversation with Johnny, coughing up more blood as his time grew short. He had a choice to make, make a deal with the proverbial devil and trust Arasaka, the ones who made the shard that is killing him. Call up Panam and drag her and the Aldecaldos into a fight they had no stakes in. Or, call Rogue and let her and Johnny handle it.

Johnny knew it was a cruel decision, he knew exactly what V was thinking, he was thinking it too. A side effect of their minds and memories becoming one. He knew what he was thinking, but not the other way around. He grew to care for the kid, the two would kill and die for the other. If this was how their story had to end, why drag anyone else down with them.

So, he made the suggestion. V was dying, and he was already dead. No sense in dragging anyone else down with them except for Arasaka. It was a terrible idea, utterly suicidal and an idea no one who didn’t have a deathwish would come up with. But, when death is all but guaranteed regardless of the outcome, a suicide mission, just becomes a mission.

“Time to party like it’s 2023”

It started quickly, and started violently. The moment he crossed through the weapon detector, he took first blood. Johnny’s Malorian kicked like a mule, and hit like one too, reducing the poor gonk on guard duty that night to the first of many who would die that night. V’s blood was pumping, as he tore through the few Arasaka guards that were always on standby, with the alarms blaring around them. He moved quickly, only to get blocked by a locked elevator.

Johnny told him the simple solution. Kill people until one of them coughed up a card with enough clearance to get the elevator called. Mechs were called, only to turn on their fellow Corpo gonks as V wrought havoc with their Friend Or Foe presets. As more and more heavily armed and armored guards descended on the lobby, the mechs eventually were gunned down, just in time for V to grab a card off of one of the downed soldiers.

Ducking around the countless rounds that were meant to cut him down, V stressed his body beyond the limit. His cyberware was working overtime to keep up, his cyberdeck and sandevistan pushed to their breaking points. Not a moment too soon did the elevator arrive, giving him a brief moment to rest from the endless waves of gonks that were hurled at him. He was in rough shape already, and he was just starting. But Johnny kept him going.

He fought and killed his way through everything Arasaka could throw at his. Even the guards were terrified of him. Just one single merc tearing their way through the best Arasaka had, driven by nothing but spite and an ironclad will to survive. The relic’s malfunctions barely kept him down as he turned his enemies against each other, set their cyberware on fire, or just made them kill themselves.

Even the drone soldiers weren’t a match against V’s netrunning skills. Slowly but surely he whittled down what forces Arasaka had on staff, forcing them to call in backup from wherever they could, all because of one single merc on a mission. Soon he closed in on Mikoshi, and the end of this suicide run. Only to run into the one thing that could stop him.

“Smasher!”

Adam Smasher, a fully cybernetic psychopath. A murderous, hyper-competent one man weapon of war. V had no beef with Smasher beyond him working for Arasaka and them being one of the reasons for all this mess. Johnny on the other hand, still remembered vividly when Adam damn near killed him, and got him stuck in the relic.

Smasher was a force of destruction, keeping up with V almost effortlessly. V threw everything that he had at Smasher, countless rounds were pumped into Smasher’s night indestructible mechanized frame. Even V’s Sandevistan couldn’t give him the leg up, as Smasher had his own. V was stuck being a rock and a murderous borged out lunatic, it didn’t help when more Arasaka soldiers poured in. V’s skills as a netrunner struggled to pierce through Smasher’s state of the art ICE, but it did buy him time with a short circuit of Smasher’s cyberware, bringing the beast of metal to his knees.

It didn’t take long for V to handle Smasher’s backup, only for him to get sent flying across the room but the now very pissed off Smasher. It would’ve been the end had he not managed to blow Smasher’s arm apart using a shotgun a fixer had pointed them in the direction of. It was the first thing that broke through Smasher’s frame, sending Smasher reeling back.

“Is this….pain?! I’d forgotten the sensation”

Flames spewed from Smasher’s body, his cyberware failing as the strain of the fight was finally catching up with him. V, despite having fought through all Arasaka had to offer before fighting Smasher, was somehow in better shape. This only pushed Smasher even further over the edge, rockets flew wildly and without a set target. Most of Smasher’s cyberware was still recovering from the short circuit, meaning he couldn’t lock onto V.

V took the advantage, giving Smasher no chance to recover. V’s Mantis blades crippled Smasher’s legs, slowing the hulking warmachine. Smasher swung at V, only for his only remaining arm to get wrenched from his body.

Smasher was finished, he was in pieces, his cyberware was failing, and he was experiencing all the sensations he tried to escape by replacing his entire body with cyberware. He was completely at V’s mercy.

“Regards from Johnny Silverhand.”

“Are you fuc-” He had no time to finish, as his head was torn apart by the last round V had in the Malorian. V was tapped, everything he had, right down to their cyberware was spent. He could barely walk, even as Johnny urged them on, his voice wavering as he saw the blood leaking from his nose. He had to drag himself toward Mikoshi, barely able to comprehend Alt’s instructions. The relic’s malfunctions were worsening, his vision was blurred, his head pounding, his heart stuttering. His time was almost up, but he hadn’t come this far just to flatline so close to the end.

Johnny helped him connect to Mikoshi, and was the last thing he saw as he sank into the coolant, the last thing he saw before it all went black.

V

V!

V! Damnit!

V! Wake up!

V! You ain’t dead yet!

He felt pain, an intense all consuming pain. Everything hurt, blaring sirens and shouting was all He could hear through the deafening pounding of his heart in their ears. He could barely see, lights blinding him as he struggled to even move. It was day, he was outside, on the pavement. Was this Mikoshi?

Not a chance

Saka fucks would never make a prison a nice place

Now get up! We ain’t finished yet!

He could barely move, yet despite the near blinding pain, he managed to drag himself to his knees. Squinting his eyes to avoid being blinded by the light, he saw blood pooling beneath them, leaking from his eyes, nose and mouth. He could hear shouting, in Japanese. It took a few moments for him to understand the words, even then it was all muted, like he was under water.

V, come on!

Ain’t the end just yet!

We ain’t in the clear!

He finally worked up the will to look towards the source of the sirens. Cops, he was surrounded by cops.

Look again

he could barely see properly, but he did note that the cops weren’t aiming their service weapons at him, but at someone behind him. It was an even greater hurdle to turn enough to see what they were pointing at. It was some Corpo gonk, judging by the suit at least. With a kid in his arms, couldn’t be more than a year old. Was he using the kid as a shield?

Seems about right

I’ve not a fucking clue what’s going on

V? V what are you doing?

He couldn’t let the kid get hurt, he sure as shit was not a hero, but he had limits to the casual cruelty of even Night City.

V, you can barely stand

The fuck are you gonna do?!

V did what he could. Using the last bit of his second wind, he used his Sandevistan. It took a good portion of its use just to get his feet, but he managed to stumble over to the gonk and the kid, quickly snatching the kid from his arms and dragging them both to the opposite side of a police car, before the Sandevistan wore off and he collapsed to the ground, barely managing to keep the kid from getting hurt in the fall.

Officers and some weirdly dressed people started to surround them, an officer taking the kid from him and to somewhere hopefully safer, as the sounds of the hostage taker being subdued faded away, along with everything else V could hear. The last thing he heard before they were completely gone was Johnny.

Goddamnit V

Chapter Text

Aizawa had one hell of a headache coming on. Just as he was about to get his first nap of the day, he got called to help deal with a situation. A father, a well known and respected CFO, had recently been found to be financing some drug smuggling rings, along with several of the higher positions at the company. It was when this was discovered, a raid was ordered, and all had gone as planned until it came time to arrest him. He’d known he was made, and he wasn’t going to make it easy.

And that led to Aizawa needing to step in, he’d beaten his wife and kidnapped their year old son. He was needed because of the father’s quirk, Yoink. It allowed him to steal anything he could lock his eyes on, it was how he managed to grab his son and how he managed to get into a hostage situation.

None of the officers could risk drawing their service arms so long as he could use his quirk, so Eraserhead was called in to get a handle on things. He did manage to keep any of the officers’ weapons from getting stolen, but with the blade held firm against the infant’s neck, no one could make a move.

The hostage negotiators were doing what they could to convince the father to stand down, but weren’t getting anywhere. All the shouting clearly wasn’t mixing well with the infant, who burst into tears from all the noise. It was clear to everyone present that the kid was distressed and didn’t know his father was trying to hurt him.

Were the blade not held to the kid’s neck Aizawa would’ve taken the bastard down already. Things felt like they would’ve gone on for hours, had he not blinked for just a fraction of a second. Quite literally in the blink of an eye, a teenager appeared between them and the father. The kid was in rough shape, blood pooling beneath him. He thought the kid was dead for a moment until he saw him struggling to move even slightly.

He had no idea where he had come from, but it definitely seemed like he wasn’t there willingly. None of them could make a move to move him to safety, not with the father still holding the infant hostage. Once the teen managed to struggle to his knees, Aizawa got a good look at him. He looked like he’d be through hell, bloodied and beaten. In what felt like an instant, the teen was no longer on his knees, and the infant no longer held hostage. Turning to his right, there was the kid, blacking out, with the baby in his arms.

Not wanting to waste any time, Aizawa struck quickly. His capture weapon disarmed the father and he kicked the man unconscious, not giving him the chance to finish his frenzied rant. The other officers closed in to arrest him, while Aizawa went back towards the now unconscious kid. The Medics had already taken the infant from him to check for injuries. The kid was already strapped into the back of an ambulance, likely heading off to the same hospital as the infant and his mother.

That would’ve been the end of his involvement, but around 3 days later, he got a call to head to the hospital in question, apparently the mother of the baby, a well liked member of the Hero Public Safety Commission, wanted to thank both him and the teen. It was the weekend, so he had time for it in between naps.

Hizashi said knowing the front desk workers at the hospital’s on a first name basis wasn’t a good thing, but it had its benefits. The doctor on the floor the teen was being held on knew him well enough to get him up to speed on the kid.

Apparently, he had a mutation quirk, seeing as most of his body was cybernetic. It made treating him quite the hassle, but with the mother of the infant he had saved footing the bill, he got the best treatment available. The cybernetics he had were quite advanced, several doctors were coming and going at almost all hours of the day. Seems they were able to find a way to get an understanding of his innerworkings.

Aizawa had no idea what any of the equipment they had connected to the kid did, but the doctor did say he was in stable condition now. The one issue was a chip he had in his head, apparently the chip was damaged, and removal was out of the question. They did however manage to get the data on the chip more stable.

“So the kid’s gonna live?” He asked, all the in depth explanations the doctor wanted to give him were completely flying over his head.

“Yes yes, we were able to stabilize a majority of his internal systems, some effort has been made to prevent the damage from the faulty chip from progressing any further.” The doctor told him. “I’ll tell you this, had he arrived an hour later, he almost certainly would’ve gone braindead. We still haven’t figured out the encryption behind the chip yet, what we have done however was ensure the preservation of the data held within. Once we managed that, the worst was over for him.”

Aizawa looked the kid over, he looked around the same age as his class. But, judging from the look of the x-rays, this kid was a swiss army knife. “He's filled to the gills with unique tech. An active optical camouflage built into his skin, blades in the forearms, and something else.” He ushered Aizawa over to a nearby computer.

“While we were attempting to stabilize him, we couldn’t get a proper diagnostic done due to a firewall, we even had one of the best network operators available try and break through it, and she was only able to get a bare bones overview.”

“So, what’s next?”

“Well, now that he's not going to die on us, Ms. Miura has ordered that we not allow anyone besides her, you, or official hospital staff to see him. It’s been a trial keeping people not on said list out. Detectives, and reporters, as well one very determined paparazzi. You’d be surprised how many times we had to have that one escorted off the premises.” The doctor sighed as he rubbed his eyes. “At this point, until he wakes up, we can only study his physiology and ensure he won’t die.

Aizawa continued to look over the various x-rays and pictures regarding the kid’s body. Whatever this kid’s quirk was, all he knew for certain was that he would be one hell of a threat in the wrong hands. He wasn’t sure what half of what he saw was, but he could at least piece together some of what was in their arms. There were of course the blades hidden within his forearms, but also what appeared to be a projectile launcher. The doctor saw him looking over the x-rays of the kid’s arms.

“Along with the blades, we found that the arms themselves are heavily reinforced, synthetic muscle fiber capable of incredibly high amounts of force, and carbon fiber built into the skin around their knuckles. We even found what one of my fellows could only assume was a computer jack.”

“Meaning?”

“It could connect directly to any computer and likely connect remotely to any device connected by the same wireless network. He does have a similar cable in his opposite arm, except this one appears to serve as another weapon, with it connected to what appears to be a battery which uses his heartbeat to recharge. All I can say is if Ms. Miura hadn’t had us put him on lockdown, countless support agencies would be pounding our door’s down for a chance to see him.” The doctor then realized something. “Now that I said that, it makes me wonder how many of the specialists we brought in are going to keep quiet about this. I need to bring this up to the others. I’ll be right back!”

And so Aizawa was left watching an unconscious swiss-army knife teenager as the doctor left in a hurry. It wasn’t how he intended to spend his day, but besides the beeping of the heart monitor, it was mostly quiet.

Just when he thought he could sneak a nap in, the door to the room opened. Judging by the light babbling of a child, it wasn’t the doctor. This was confirmed by the squeal he heard, followed by a female voice trying to shush the baby. Begrudgingly he opened his eyes to see it was Chiyo Miura, well-respected and now well known member of the HPSC, and her son, who seemed far better than the last time he saw him.

“Oh! I didn’t keep you waiting that long did I?” She asked, seeing Aizawa stretch slightly in the chair he was in.

“No, I just had my eyes closed. You don’t seem worse for wear”

“Thank you, it’s gonna take a lot more than him to take me down.” She said, smiling as she adjusted her son in her arm. “Dealing with the fallout has been worse than the beating. Well wishes are nice, but I shouldn’t need to sneak out of my own house just to get to work. Reporters are relentless, now I know what you heroes go through.”

Aizawa gave a small chuckle at what she said. “That's why I prefer night shifts. Even reporters need to sleep.”

She shook her head. “You think that until they’re starving for a story.” Her son grabbed at Aizawa, with Chiyo adjusting him once again. “Sweetie, what do you say?” Her son, Yoshida, as Aizawa now knew him, looked at his mother for a moment, before he looked back at Aizawa.

“Plice?” He asked with his head turned to the side.

Chiyo only gave a sigh that changed into a chuckle. “Close enough. Mr. Aizawa, Yoshi wants to give you a hug. Can he?”

Aizawa shrugged in response. “Fine by me.” Chiyo lowered Yoshida to the floor, letting him take a few wobbly steps towards Aizawa, wrapping his little arms around Aizawa’s leg. Aizawa ruffled the kid’s hair as Yoshida giggled into his leg.

“Glad to see he’s none the worse for wear too”

“For the most part.” She sighed. “He’s been asking where his father is. I only hope he understands once he’s a bit older.”

“He’s young, I say just be honest with him. Once he’s older, that is, he’s a bit too young to understand right now.” Yoshida let go of Aizawa’s leg and waddled around the room for a bit, while Chiyo sat down across from Aizawa.

“What have they said about our friend here?” She asked him.

“Kid’s got a mutation quirk, tons of cybernetics. You having him closed off may have been for the best. The doctor’s worried about some of the people they brought on to help, letting it leak about what the kid’s packing.”

“That’s not great.” She told him. “It’s been hard enough keeping some of the higher ups at the Committee out of the loop. He's been roughed up enough, he doesn’t deserve to be treated like an experiment.”

“Bap! Bap!” Their attention was turned over to where Yoshida was, who was lightly slapping his hand against the kid’s face.

“Sweetie! No no! We do not slap people who are sleeping!” Chiyo moved quickly as she scooped her son up, who was still trying to get a third slap in.

Aizawa couldn’t help but laugh at Yoshida’s determination to try and wake the kid up. Only for another sound to catch his attention.

“Nibbles I already fed you, lemme sleep” Was all the kid said before he managed to roll over in the hospital bed, pulling out several cables and wires, setting off more than just one alarm.

Aizawa knew he should’ve taken some painkillers with him before he left his house today.

Chapter Text

There were plenty of times V wished he’d never woken up. The ride after Konpeki, and every moment from then up until he first met Johnny. He could now add waking up to the blaring of hospital alarms and quickly being surrounded by a metric ton of doctors and nurses.

Everything immediately after that was a blur, he felt like hell, he probably didn’t look much better. But, he wasn’t surrounded by Arasaka goons holding him at gunpoint, and it didn’t feel like he was stuck in a BD, or some other kind of mind fuckery that he expected to follow after hooking into Mikoshi.

It only took about 2 hours for things to calm down, especially when the Head Doctor noticed V looked about ready to snap from the constant noise and movement. So there he was, sitting in his sterile hospital room, with less wires and tubes in him then there were when he woke up. he would have made a break for it if it weren’t for a number of factors, such as his entire body feeling like they had a stroke, and him presently being strapped down.

The Head Doc left for only a few minutes before he came back with someone who looked straight out of those old pulp fiction BDs Vik would let him borrow. He looked as stereotypically detective-like as you could get, trench coat and matching fedora included.

‘Christ are they even fucking trying anymore?’ chimed Johnny, his glare burning into the side of the detective’s head, not that he noticed.

“I understand things are a bit confusing.” Were the first thing the detective said to him.

“B-” V coughed hard, a mixture of red and yellow gunk splattering against his hand. “Bit of an understatement there choom.”

The doctor was quick to hand him a box of tissues, which he took, whipping his hand clean.

“I think it might be best that we take things slow, better to start with introductions than get straight into questions. I’m Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi, I was informed about your situation and was brought in to help clear things up.

‘Don’t tell this Badge a damn thing V, this shit reeks from here to hell’ Johnny added.

“N-name’s V, and ain’t I supposed to have a lawyer ‘fore you get to incriminate me for anything?” This got a chuckle from Naomasa who quickly ushered the doctor out.

“If you were being detained for questioning maybe, but at the moment, you’re just a victim, and that’s what I’m here to figure out.” Naomasa pulled a chair up beside V’s bed. “If I may ask, is V your real name?”

‘He’s playing you’

“Everyone calls me V, so yeah.”

Naomasa’s face seemed to become dour for a moment. “There’s no need to lie, you aren’t in trouble.”

‘Fuck V he’s reading you like a book’

“How the hell do you know I’m lying?”

“My quirk, it lets me know when someone I’m near is lying.”

‘The fuck is a quirk?’
“The fuck is a quirk?”

He had no idea what the hell he was talking about, and his words seemed to make the man pause, as if he was thinking. It took another few moments before Naomasa spoke again.

“It seems we should start a bit simpler. You’ve been through a lot, so I’ll explain things slowly. A quirk is something like a super power. Most people have them, just like you. There’s three types broadly speaking. Emitter, where you can project something from yourself, like shooting fire or ice from your hands. Mutation, where your body is altered dramatically from the norm, like with yourself. And there’s Transformative, where you are able to change some part of your body at will.”

Clearly V must’ve been looking at him as if he grew three heads, as Naomasa seemed to go back to thinking for a while.

‘Either we flatlined and this is hell, or something is really fucking wrong’

“Ok, let’s do this over, shall we? What’s your full name?” Naomasa asked again, and V had a feeling that he wouldn’t take just V for an answer.

“Fine, if it means you’ll start making sense, Name’s (Y/N) Valentine Pondsmith, ‘cept nobody calls me that except the Padre when I’m in deep shit. Just call me V, won’t answer otherwise.”

Naomasa nodded, seemingly happy with his answer. “Alright V, now I’m going to ask you a few questions, after which I’ll leave you be, sound good?”

‘Don’t tell him the full truth, he can tell if you’re lying, so lie by omission, always helped me with gonks like him’

“What is the last thing you remember before you arrived at the hostage situation?” Naomasa asked.

‘Shit, nearly forgot about that. Wonder if they flatlined the gonk after you dropped’

“I was fighting, trying to get through a facility. Every person I ran into was trying to zero me, so I did what I needed to.” Was all V told him.

If Naomasa had any thoughts on the matter, he didn’t make them known in the slightest. He simply moved onto the next question. “Alright, do you remember where you lived? Who is your immediate family?”

‘Worst place on Earth and a gun?”

“Heywood, outta Night City, my folks are dead, was raised by Padre Ibarra. He has raised me since the day I was born.”

Naomasa wrote more down, neither V or Johnny could see what he was writing. “I see.” He trailed off as he spoke. Once he finished writing, he continued. “This Padre Ibarra, was he someone important? You seem to hold him in some esteem.”

“Padre was a choom nobody who wasn’t a gonk wanted to fuck with. He saved my life a lot growing up. He even paid to get me chipped when I turned 15”

“Chipped? What do you mean?”

“Choom you trying to fuck with me? Chipped, getting chromed, ya know?” when Naomasa shook his head, V was thrown for a loop. “Shit, choom you think I was born like this?

Naomasa looked once again lost in thought, before he looked back at V. “Let’s move onto another topic. Do you remember what you did before you dropped unconscious?”

“I drop half dead in the middle of a police standoff with some gonk holding a kid as a shield. I did what I could and thought that was how I’d go.” Was a genuine answer.

“I see, well, despite your heroic actions, there has been some push back due to unlicensed quirk usage. But I think I’ve got the jist of it now.” Naomasa said, pocketing his notepad and walking towards the door.

“I ain’t gonna have to bust outta here ‘fore you can take me to jail right?” V asked, which got a real laugh outta Naomasa.

“Despite your apparent misgivings with law enforcement, we aren’t exactly ones to let a good deed go punished. Though you do still have some recovery ahead of you. I think someone else might wanna have a talk with you first.” As Naomasa closed the door behind him, V tried to listen in on what he was saying to the person outside, only for a headache to start coming on.

‘As much as I trust a badge’s word, you ain’t in any shape to bust outta here.’ Johnny helpfully added, walking over to the chair beside the hospital bed. ‘I’d offer to play you a tune, but I’m as fucking spent as you are, so flick on the Tv and let’s see what kinda shitshow we’re stuck in now’

V had a stretch a bit to reach the remote, more than his body wanted judging from the sharp pain in his chest and the Heart Monitor beeping faster. The channel the TV was tuned to seemed to be a news channel, but he didn’t really get a chance as three people entered the room.

‘Christ, aren’t we popular today?’

The tallest was a scarfed man, decked head to toe in black. V would’ve thought him part of Arasaka Counter Intel, but he seemed way too tired for that. The number of stimulants Counter Intel were on kept them alert damn near 24 hours a day. The other two were a mother and her child.

‘Ain’t that the kid ya nearly flatlined saving? Must be his mom. Damn good looking at that.’

The woman was clearly relieved to see that V was alright, while her son toddled over to him, before promptly slapping his little hand against his forearm.

‘Precocious little shit ain’t he?’

“Sweetie! What did mama say about slapping people, even if they aren’t asleep anymore!” She hurried over to her son.

Her son looked at V and just mumbled, “Bap bap” at them, before he was scooped into his mother’s arm. V would’ve laughed if he didn’t see the look on the man’s face.

V didn’t need Johnny telling him to know that they were going to be dealing with this for a lot longer than he wanted to.

Chapter Text

There were a lot of things V could handle, getting shot, hit by cars, the crushing guilt of the Konpeki Plaza Heist. But, out of everything he could handle, dealing with Johnny whining in their ear, while also getting dressed down by someone who wouldn’t look out of place working the graveyard shift in Counter Intel for Arasaka. Guy looked like he was being denied some much needed sleep, just judging from his overall demeanor. Clearly V had fucked up somewhere because where as Detective Naomasa was at least understanding that he was clearly too beaten to be lectured too, this guy wasn’t.

V had to deal with it for felt like forever before the mother of the kid he'd saved finally stopped him.

“Mr. Aizawa please, he clearly isn’t in a state for this. I understand your frustration, but it ended well enough right?” She asked him, Aizawa as V now knows him.

With a low grumble Aizawa appeared to calm down a bit. “It was still reckless, he's lucky he isn’t dead because of it.”

“Choom, ya think I don’t know that?” V asked him. “Compared to where I was, it was a heaven and hell difference.” V tried to move a bit, only for a flare of pain to shoot through their lower back, he just hoped he hadn’t fucked up his Sandevistan.

Aizawa took a moment to think after what he had said. It took him a moment to speak again. “That’s what concerns me, Naomasa mentioned your family and-”

“No no” Yoshida said as he gently swatted at V’s arm. “Bad bad.”

‘Color me shocked V, swearing in front of and getting told off by a toddler. For Shame’ Johnny mocked from behind the kid’s mom.

V knew he had a bad habit of speaking to Johnny out loud, so he simply flicked him off mentally, to which he responded in kind.

“Sweet pea, he isn’t feeling so good, but I’m sure he's sorry for saying a bad word.” She then gave V a look that he’d gotten from the Padre more times than he could count.

‘Well? Say sorry V’ Johnny said, with a grin that if it were any more shitting eating you’d think he was into coprophagia.

“Sorry bout that kiddo, force of habit.” V swore the kid glared at him, as if trying to figure out if he was sincere.

Aizawa cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention back on him. “As I was saying. Naomasa told us about your family and current….. ‘Situation’ which means what comes next is complicated.”

“I already told you! It doesn’t have to be, he’ll just come live with us.” the mother countered.

“And I already told you, it isn’t that easy. Especially with the media all over this. A kid with no identity, no living relatives, and just appeared in the middle of a hostage situation. If you thought the reporters were relentless before.” Aizawa realized his raised voice might scare Yoshida, so he took a deep breath to calm down a bit.

“I’m more than aware of the risks and annoyances, but do you think letting the Commission handle him will end any better?” She countered, which made Aizawa pause for a moment, seemingly seeing her point.

While the two of them were arguing about what to do with V, Yoshida tried his best to clamber up onto the hospital bed. With Johnny doing his best to pretend to help, V slowly helped him onto the bed, doing their best not to strain their back any worse. The kid seemed very curious about V’s arms, constantly poking and prodding at them, he seemed very interested in the tattoo Johnny gave him while on his bender.

The rest seemed to happen in a blur, the kid was happy just poking at him, while Aizawa and the kid’s mom went back and forth with each other.

At some point it was decided that once V was in a state to leave the hospital, that he’d be officially ‘adopted’ by Ms. Chiyo Miura, she’d funnel a story to the media to keep them off their asses, something about wanting to make sure that he grew into a proper hero. Johnny gagged hearing it, meaning it would work 100% with the Culture Vultures.

It was about another week or so for V to actually be able to stand under his own power, Ms. Miura and her kid were his only real visitors, with Aizawa telling him he’d be in touch if the need arose. It was during the down time before he was allowed to leave that V finally got the chance to figure shit out about wherever they wound up.

Johnny for once actually was willing to believe this wasn't an Arasaka ploy, for two reasons. One, nobody was sucking Arasaka off here, and two, Arasaka weren’t this creative with prisons. Superpowers and shit like that, no wonder they marked V for having a quirk, being as chromed out as he was, to these people was a simple explanation.

What didn’t have a simple explanation was how the hell he even wound up here, from Mikoshi to the middle of a super powered Japan. But, what the hell could he do about it? He was about 13, maybe 14 again, and despite the shape he had showed up in, he actually felt more alive than he had in Night City. Hell, he hadn’t had a seizure since he arrived, apparently one of the docs they had working on him managed to stabilize the chip. Something that was apparently impossible back in Night City, but a quick job here. V wasn’t complaining, he wasn’t dying anymore, at least he didn’t think he was, and Johnny wasn’t getting sent to digital oblivion beyond the Black Wall.

The only real hang ups he had was everyone he had left behind, Panam, Judy, Takemura probably wanted him dead now so not much of a hang up there. The only memento he still had from Night City save for the scars, trauma, and not an insubstantial amount of lead poisoning, was the necklace he always had on since he woke up after Vik put him back together again.

Speaking of keepsakes, Johnny had realized they likely confiscated his Malorian, to which he spent the next 3 hours after realizing this swearing violently while V tried to tune him out long enough to sleep.

V had no idea what was waiting for him, this place was a whole hell of a lot different from life in Night City or hell, their Earth in general. So while he tried to sleep, he hoped that life would be a bit more peaceful for him here.