Chapter Text
A brittle tingling creeps across his fingers and toes. Like ants to a breadcrumb, there’s a constant skittering sensation at the tips of his extremities. Goosebumps raise, encasing his body in a shield of frozen skin. A chill runs like an arrow up his spine- entire torso trembling hard with it.
He curls his fingers and toes into fists- or at least sends the signals to do so. The digits are like stones at the ends of his hands and feet- lost to sensation. He tries again, barely feeling the pressure as his toes rub against one another. A soft sigh leaves his mouth, his body relaxing with it.
Hizashi knew the situation he was in before he even had the chance to open his eyes. A cold, hard floor beneath his side, numb fingers and toes, and a throb that echoed through his head to the rest of his body. While he didn’t find himself in these situations nearly as often as an underground hero like Eraserhead, he was certain that it was like a sick routine to most heroes- especially those in the spotlight.
A twinge of pain in his shoulder and numbness down his right arm tells him that he should probably reorient his position. He shifts his elbow in towards his chest, pain lancing down his entire right side with the movement. Biting his tongue, he stops the hiss of air he fights to release. He’s not ready for anyone to discover that he’s conscious yet.
As he lets the air out slowly through his nose, he tunes his available senses to his surroundings. His eyes remain closed, but he still makes out the features of the room he’s in. The damp chill of the room and hard floor tell him he’s most likely in a basement, but the cast of light over his closed eyelids tells him that it’s at least not a deep, damp, and dark one like he’s used to. There must be a light or window somewhere. While his eyes aren’t his best observing feature, especially as he wrinkles his nose- finding the absence of glasses on their bridge, he will still be able to use sight to his advantage because of the light.
His jaw is clamped tight from the cold, teeth gritting against one another, but he guides himself into a cursory movement as he slowly pulls it open. It’s difficult to unclamp with steady movements- shivers still wracking his body, but he’s relieved when he’s able to move it without obstruction. As a hero with a vocal-emitter quirk, he’s found himself in a tight pickle with some form of muzzle on more times than he can count. It’s honestly a bit more concerning that he doesn’t have one.
The tension leaves his body in waves the more that he surveys his situation. He’s able to move his arms and legs freely -ankles and wrists absent of restraints, and as far as he can collect without moving enough to give his rise to consciousness away, he should still have free use of his quirk.
He barely holds back a scoff at the realization.
Of all of the times he’s woken up to being kidnapped, this one seems to be the most amateur. Even without his support gear, which he wasn’t able to detect anywhere on his body, fighting his way out of the situation would be a piece of cake. Concrete walls were hardly his greatest weakness.
With newfound courage he opens his eyes and stretches his limbs, a cat recovering from a restful nap rather than one feral and caged. His eyes squint against the overhead light, and the lower half of his body jolts when his leg connects with something soft beneath him.
Hizashi’s breath catches in his throat.
With squinted eyes he pushes himself upward, fingers still fighting their uselessness against the numbing cold. He curls his legs back in, and his threaded cotton socks catch across the divots in concrete beneath them. In place of where his feet were is a child, lilac hair and eyes beaming against the gray room.
“Shinsou?!” Hizashi shouts in a whisper. The back of his throat burns with the familiar pain of quirk overuse.
The kid changes everything.
Shinsou looks much the same as him, stripped of his hero gear and left in nothing but plain gray sweats and a pair of socks. He’s sitting upright with his knees pulled tight against his chest, arms wrapped around their front. The boy is nothing more than a shivering ball of lilac and gray, but there’s a serious look behind his eyes as he traces them over Hizashi’s body.
“I was wondering when you would finally wake up.” His voice is dull in contrast with the tension his posture holds.
Hizashi follows the same routine Shinsou did with him, tracing the boy for any injuries. There’s a bump that swells the right side of his forehead, lined with blood that it looks like someone tried to smear away, but he appears otherwise uninjured on the surface.
“What are you doing here?!” Hizashi asks, and his voice raises as he becomes more frantic. Dragging himself out of a minor kidnapping was one thing, a thing that he was very familiar with and capable of considering the availability of his quirk, but rescuing himself and an unlicensed hero student was a whole different ballpark. The presence of the kid completely erased any opportunity he might have had to use his quirk without his hero gear.
Hitoshi sighs and rolls his eyes, and it reminds Hizashi far too much of his husband. He moves his arms from where they’re wrapped around his legs and extends his limbs into a stretch and yawn. He really reminds him too much of his husband.
Once the kid curls himself into a criss-crossed position, hands clamped over his biceps for warmth, he renews his interest in Hizashi.
“I was going to ask you the same thing. I don’t remember how I got here, and I definitely don’t remember hanging out with Present Mic before ending up here.”
It was a well-known, deeply cutting fact that Shouta’s mentee had yet to warm up to Hizashi. The kid only ever got the chance to see Present Mic at school, and that caricature was as far off from Shinsou’s personality as it could get. While Present Mic was a noisy cheerleader full of nothing but smiles, Shinsou Hitoshi was a tired, brooding, pessimistic teenager. Shouta assured him that he would love the real Yamada Hizashi underneath the hero getup once he got to know him, but they hadn’t had that opportunity yet.
He really wishes they’d already had that opportunity now.
He tries to recall his last memory before waking up in the basement, but nothing hero-related OR Shinsou-related comes to mind. The last thing he remembers is grading essays in his own living room, wearing his cat pajamas gifted from Shouta underneath a warm blanket on the couch. Anything beyond that is a blur.
He looks back to Shinsou, and finds a similar expression that he’s sure is mirrored on his own face. The kid’s brows are furrowed together, and his lips pull into a tight line across his face. He watches as the grip of his hands pulls tighter, the gray fabric beneath them rippling further. Shinsou is stressed, despite his reluctance to let Hizashi know as much.
“Well, all I remember is grading essays in Shou and I’s apartment,” he runs a hand over the bottom of his face, fingers stiff and cool against his lips “Sunday, I think it was. That’s usually when I grade essays since it’s my day off from the radio, and Eraserhead almost always patrols that evening,” he finishes.
“So we were kidnapped as civilians?” Shinsou’s words form a question, but he speaks them more as a statement of fact.
“Hmm, that depends, kid. Is your last memory as Mindjack or Shinsou Hitoshi?”
Hizashi knows that Shouta had started to take the kid on some of his patrols with him --more so to observe and practice traversing the city with his capture weapon than to actively fight– but he wasn’t entirely sure of how often he took the kid out with him. He crosses his arms over each other to fight the cold and lets his eyes wander the room as he tries to remember if Shouta mentioned anything about Shinsou that day, but he comes up blank. Everything about that day is fuzzy in general, and he barely recalls sitting in his living room grading essays.
“Uh- Shinsou Hitoshi. I sprained my wrist practicing with the capture scarf the other day, and Sensei was supposed to meet me at a cat cafe before patrol instead of inviting me that evening.” His left hand clenches tighter around his arm, but Hizashi can’t tell if he’s still in any pain from the injury or not. “I don’t remember if he ever showed. The cafe was pretty empty that day. It was just the owner, and he stays in the back sometimes.”
Hizashi nods and lets his gaze travel the room again. There are no windows- as he expected before he even opened his eyes. The walls are rough bricks of concrete, and the one’s closer to the ceiling are tinted slightly darker, saturated with moisture. Two corners of the room have shallow pools of water backed into them, and there’s a singular light hanging above them from a cord that leads down the wall and underneath a large metal door to the left of him.
The room is cold, but not cold enough to freeze water, and there’s no weak points in the walls to afford electronic wiring behind them. An incredibly sturdy basement, but at least not one that will immediately freeze them to death.
“Well, the matching marks on our heads tells me that we were clobbered upside the head instead of drugged. I’m sure you assumed as much, right?” Hizashi asks.
He doesn’t want to invoke even an ounce of fear into the kid if he can help it. He hopes that making their situation into a learning opportunity instead of a real life kidnapping helps.
“Yeah. I think they might have hit you harder, though. There’s… there’s a lot of blood in your hair.”
Shinsou’s furrowed brow loosens as he points, and Hizashi moves his hand to the side of his head that hurts worse. He runs his hand over the hair and finds it grouped together in crunchy lumps, like he used too much hair gel and forgot to wash it out. When he moves his hand pack into view, his fingertips are covered in copper sprinkles of dried blood. The reminder sends another wave of pain through his temples that he fights to avoid showing Shinsou.
“Ah, I’m sure Eraser has mentioned how hard headed I am before. They must’ve had to get a few good swings in to take me down! It’s nothing for you to worry about though, listener.”
For the first time since he woke up he puts his Present Mic smile on his face. It makes the scowl return to Shinsou’s own.
“I already checked around the room while you were out. The only way we’re getting out of here is with your quirk, or if someone opens the door and we’re able to make a break for it using mine.” Hizashi winces when he hears that Shinsou has come to the same conclusion as him.
“My quirk should be able to bust through that door easy peasy no doubt, but that’s not an option for us right now.”
Shinsou’s eyes widen like saucers. He moves his hands from their grasp around his arms, smacking them palm-down onto the floor.
“Is your quirk-?” he cuts himself off, mouth agape. Hizashi realizes his concern immediately and moves to rectify it, shaking his open palms towards the kid.
“No no, nothing like that! I’m pretty certain I still have it!” His hands drop back down to his lap. “I thought I’d be able to use it before, but once I got up and saw you there, I knew that it was a no-go. The amount of power I’d have to put behind it would surely deafen you! And there’s no gear here to protect you from it.” He hopelessly glances around the room again. There’s nothing in the small room he could use to truly protect the kid’s ears.
“But what about you?” Shinsou asks. Hizashi perks to his question. Finally, some interest from the kid. He isn’t sure what he’s asking at first until he realizes his own exclusion from the damage from his quirk.
“Oh, don’t worry about that, I already deafened myself long ago. There’s not much more damage I could possibly do to my hearing.” He reaches to his right ear, removing something small from the canal that matches his skin tone. “I can only hear because of these hearing aids. Actually, come to think of it, I’m really glad they didn’t notice that I have them and remove them! Let's keep that a secret, yeah?”
The shock doesn't wash from Shinsou’s face as he works to return the hearing aid to his ear.
“It’s not something that I really advertise to people, so don’t feel weird for not knowing. But I’ve been deaf long enough to not really think about it!” The device beeps as it settles back in his ear. “Regardless, I can’t use my quirk without any directional equipment or protection with you here. I’d never forgive myself if I hurt you, and I’m sure it would be grounds for divorce if I hurt Shou’s favorite student!”
Hizashi takes the light blush that grows across Shinsou’s cheeks as a small victory.
He uses the time they have unchecked to further explore the room. His right shoulder aches when he shifts to stand, and there’s a sharp pain in his right hip that he has to bite back a wince for when he puts too much weight on that side, but it’s far from the kinds of injuries he’s accustomed to. Usually a kidnapping situation would have him waking up with bound arms and legs, a muzzle, at least one major laceration draining blood from his body, and confusion from drugs to cap it all off, but he and Shinsou have it suspiciously easy in their small basement.
He knows that having it easy actually means having it much, much worse now.
As he walks the perimeter of the room, observing the nooks and crannies of their concrete enclosure, Shinsou rises to join him. They make a 2-caboose investigation train as they pace in a line against the walls. Hizashi almost feels the anxiety radiating from Shinsou from where he walks behind him, despite the boy’s flat affect.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Hizashi asks. He turns, and Shinsou pauses behind him. “You officially transferred to the hero course not too long ago, right? Give me your observations.”
Shinsou doesn’t move an inch, but maintains his sharp glare directly at Hizashi’s eyes.
Hizashi throws a hand to his chest. “Geez, kid. I might not be the heroics teacher, but I am a teacher of heroes. That’s not even taking into account that I’m a hero myself. I may not be the almighty Eraserhead, but I’m sure there’s something I could find to teach you besides English, yeah? ” He caps the sentence off with the English word and a smirk. Shinsou doesn’t budge.
He’s a tougher nut to crack than he thought.
Luckily, despite his reluctance and apparent disapproval of Present Mic, he moves ahead of him in their walking observation train around the room. Hizashi’s shoulders drop- a sigh in relief.
“No windows, concrete floors and walls, low temperatures, and a buildup of moisture on the floor.” he points to the puddles in two corners of the room. “We’re clearly in a basement.” His arm drops back down to his side, disinterest still clear on his face.
Hizashi absolutely beams.
“Those are great observations, kid, but definitely not the only ones you need to be making to exclude any other possible locations we could be in! There’s one thing you missed, and it’s the only foolproof indication that we’re underground!”
He gives Shinsou a few moments to take the room in again. He looks around each corner once more, lilac hair bouncing atop his head with each turn, but he doesn’t respond. Hizashi is glad that, at the very least, that his stalling has been working. It’s only a matter of time before the kid realizes that they’re not escaping of their own volition without getting hurt. Even worse- that their kidnappers have ill intentions with their civilian personas, which are only connected by one thing: Eraserhead.
“Look over here.” He stands behind Shinsou and places a hand on his shoulder. Their heads hover beside each other as they look at the area he’s pointing to. “If you look closely at where the ceiling and walls connect, the concrete bricks are a shade darker there. That’s from the condensation and humidity of a room being underground. Any room can have no windows, a concrete floor and walls, and puddles in the corners. Only a room that’s actually underground will have those telltale marks!”
His observation doesn’t go very far to change Shinsou’s attitude, but he can feel the irritated tension releases in the kid's shoulders from beneath his palm. He’ll count it as a win, for as hard as it is to get those from Shinsou in his book.
“I didn’t know that. Thanks.” He mumbles.
Hizashi swears the note of appreciation nearly warms his entire body a degree or two.
Shinsou returns to his position as Hizashi’s shadow as they circle the room for observation again. He doesn’t expect to find any cracks in the concrete or faults in the door hinges for them to use to their advantage, but he hopes that it lets Shinsou at least think for a while that there’s a glimmer of hope in the hero busting them out. The walking also functions as an outlet for his own nervous energy, as opposed to letting the kid watch him anxiously bounce his knees and fidget with his hands while they sit across from each other on the floor.
“You don’t have anything on you except for these lovely complimentary prison pajamas, right?” Hizashi asks. He continues leaning into the frame of the door, squinting to see the finer details of the hinges bolted there.
“Oh yeah, sorry, I forgot to mention the chainsaw in my back pocket. Or were you asking about the cell phone I have with 4 bars of service?” His tone is flat when he says it. Hizashi can’t help the twitch that shutters his left eye.
“Tch. Once we get out of here, I’ve gotta pair you up with someone that has a better sense of humor than Eraserhead,” he replies.
His back cracks like a glowstick when he straightens it to stand. The entire right side of his body twinges with the movement, sending sparks of electricity through his nerves.
“Well, it seems like we’re in it together for the long haul. There’s no way we’re getting that door open, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not to the point where I’m ready to start clawing at a concrete wall with my bare hands quite yet.” He raises his arms above his head in a stretch and groans when his shoulders pop, releasing the built up tension there.
“We can’t just give up.” Shinsou mutters, but his voice is as hard as a brick. Hizashi lowers his arms back down to his sides, glancing back at the boy.
“Uh- yeah, we can kid. Plus, this isn’t giving up. This is admitting defeat! Very different concepts when you think about it.” He sits back down on the floor. The concrete instantly sends chills through his backside. “There’s nothing we can do without injuring you, and we’re not currently in danger, so we won’t be making moves anytime soon. Once the situation changes- like if that door opens and someone comes through, then we will reevaluate. Very quickly, of course.”
Shinsou moves to the same spot he was in when Hizashi woke up, but he remains standing. With arms crossed over his chest and legs at shoulder width apart, he’s squared for a fight.
“Look, I know you don’t like the idea of sitting down without putting up a fight, but sometimes that’s a part of being a hero,” Hizashi adds.
Shinsou’s lilac eyes roll in his head like turntables.
“Gosh, you’re a tough nut to crack. Since you disagree with me, tell me what you think we should do?” Hizashi asks. The kid turns back to face the door.
“We know that your quirk can open that door,” he states.
“Mhm. But not without-”
“Not without giving me permanent hearing damage, right?” Shinsou looks at him from over the back of his shoulder. Hizashi gestures for him to continue.
“If we use our clothes as padding for my ears, that should offer enough protection for you to use your quirk and break that door open.”
The plan is one of many Hizashi has already run through his own mind. The padding would potentially protect Shinsou from permanent hearing damage, but not the damage using his voice quirk would cause to his organs at that level. Another tidbit of information he hid from Shinsou. It was a risk he was willing to take on himself in hopes of recovery girl healing him, but not one he would take on a child.
“That’s great thinking Shinsou, but there are a few reasons why that won't work.” The kid turns to face him again. “In order to bust through a metal door like that, my quirk would also cause some minor organ damage. It’s nothing recovery girl shouldn’t be able to fix right up, but still not something I’m willing to risk with you here.”
“Why? Why will you take that risk with your own body but not mine?” Shinsou snaps.
The kid is seething beneath the surface. His muscles bulge at his cheeks from the intensity of the clench he has on his jaw, and his hands once again take fistfulls of fabric into their grasp at his biceps. Hizashi’s sure their situation is only causing stress to boil over into anger, but it’s still the most angry he’s ever seen him.
“Because the only way we’re sure to get out of here is if you’re able to use your quirk on anyone we run into once we get past that door, and trust me, it’s real hard to keep control of a quirk when your lungs are shutting down. If you could drag my helpless body out of here that would be one thing, but we can’t both crawl out of here after sustaining that kind of damage. It has nothing to do with me doubting your abilities, kid. There’s just no safe option with our current circumstances, so we have to sit, and wait for those circumstances to change.”
Before he realized that Shinsou was with him, he was sure that he’d be able to bust himself out, despite the damage his quirk would do to his body. The way they left him– no bindings and no muzzle to suppress his quirk– had him convinced that it was a bunch of idiots that kidnapped him. Ones that he would be able to blow through like a breeze. But Shinsou’s introduction to the equation created an entirely new confusing mess. Instead of Present Mic being targeted by some low-ranked criminals, it was Yamada Hizashi and Shinsou Hitoshi kidnapped as civilians for their connection to Eraserhead. Whoever grabbed them knew Eraserhead’s address, knew both of their schedules enough to predict when Hizashi would be home alone, and also knew that Shinsou had an unofficial internship with Eraserhead. They also managed to find out that Shinsou arrived at the cat cafe first, which in itself was a difference to his and Shouta’s regular schedule of meeting late on Sunday’s for patrol. Whoever kidnapped them knew all of them incredibly well- well that Hizashi suspects they were all stalked for quite some time without realizing it.
“But you were going to drag yourself out of here alone before you realized that I was here. Don’t act like that makes sense, because it doesn’t. Something about me being here has changed your plans,” Shinsou says.
“Yeah, but it’s not about you Shinsou, I promise.”
“Then what is it?! What could it possibly be if not you thinking that I’m weak or stupid? Or are you just too incompetent of-”
“That’s enough!” He uses his quirk just enough to cause a pinch of pain in the kid’s ears. Shinsou’s eyes clench closed and his shoulders raise all the way to his ears. A chunk of concrete falls from the ceiling to the ground beside them.
“I’m not just an idiot with a big smile on my face and a bunch of stupid jokes for no reason. I put up that front because I’m a hero, and I use it to keep people calm and make them feel secure. I don’t think you’re stupid or weak, but I have been trying to keep the gravity of our situation from you. So stop pissing me off to dig it out of me, ya hear? I’m trying to keep you from freaking out, because that’s the last thing we need right now.”
Hizashi moves to the opposite corner of the room from Shinsou with his back facing the kid. He expands his chest into a slow, deep breath through his nose, and blows it out into the air in front of him. The breath turns into a cloudy mist. Just as he feared, the room is progressively be dropping in temperature. It’s a good indicator that they are well into their first night in the room.
His hands clench into the muscles at his hips as he holds them there. Despite his own anxiety and the irritating nature of the kid that he’s trapped with, it wouldn’t pay to lose his cool with Shinsou. The kid was irritating as all get-out at times, but he was a teenage hero. Hizashi should’ve expected his ego to be through the roof in this kind of situation, especially given that he’s been out on patrols with Eraserhead for a while. In his mind he’s a full-fledged hero, ready to take on the world.
He turns back to Shinsou. The kid is just as tense as before, but there’s a softness in his eyes that he’s not sure he’s ever seen before. He hopes that also means he holds at least a crumb of readiness to listen now.
“You don’t like the Present Mic persona, I get that. But now that you’ve pushed my buttons enough, I’m sure you’re ready to hear what kind of predicament we’re actually in.” His tone is low, something below even the usual Yamada Hizashi. He hopes it convinces Shinsou to take his words seriously. “Sit down with me. And don’t worry about anyone coming through that door, I don’t expect them to for a while, because their concern isn’t actually with us.”
The two of them sit in their usual spots, legs criss-crossed beneath them with arms crossed over one another for warmth. Hizashi watches the tremors that wrack Shinsou’s body that match his own. The temperature is dropping- and quick.
“Whoever did this is much more concerned with getting their hands on Eraserhead. We’re just the bait. And the fact that neither of us are tied up or muzzled tells me that we must be the least intimidating bait on the planet to them.”