Work Text:
Hitoshi startles awake to the echo of a booming laugh.
It rings in his ears, around and around like an unlatched carousel, trying to throw him off but Hitoshi trembles through the ache in his back to face it.
Only there's nothing to face. It's just him. Rising up from the floor, prying away from the sand that sticks to his face and he can barely see anything two feet ahead of him—
“Fuck…” The gravel under him scrapes his knees somehow even though it shouldn't as he whips around to what he knows, for certain, is Mic's hoarse voice.
“Mic?” Hitoshi calls out.
“Here…” Mic croaks, he sounds both so near yet far enough that Hitoshi knows he couldn't reach out and touch him if he tried, “I think… It's too dark to tell where you are.”
He squints, reaching up to tap where his night visors should be and meets the dried blood caked to his forehead, he traces it down to his ear and his jaw, his chest then hip and, oh god, all his gear, it's gone.
“Mic,” He calls if only to make sure the man is actually there and hadn't been a figment of his imagination. Loosing this much blood; it's happened before—hearing things and seeing things. “Do you… do you have your gear?”
“My… gear?” Mic responds, he sounds as if he’s spacing out. From blood loss. Hitoshi can recognize the wan timbre overshadowing all the energy Mic carries on his sleeve. It’s an eerie feeling and sight, not one he even needs to see to know it’ll only make him panic more. Hitoshi tries to stand, his ears start to ring, forcing him back to the floor. “What about it?”
“Do you have any of them?” Hitoshi asks again, feebly, “Mine are gone and…” He pushes up again, to his knees first, squeezing his eyes shut as everything and nothing seems to sway, tugging at him like a dragging current, “I can’t… I can’t stand...” He rasps out, choking on a pained sob which echoes too loudly in the void holding them apart.
“Hey, hey, breathe okay?” Mic’s tired voice calls out, “I’m here. Somewhere. You can hear me and that’s something right?”
Hitoshi breathes, a whoosh of an exhale then an inhale in the same way they’ve practiced one too many times. The habit washes over him naturally. He can hear his own heart, hear the crunch of gravel every time he moves his leg, the steady, irritating dripping of a much too tortured tap and Mic. “Right. Yeah, I-I can.”
“Now. What don’t you have?”
Carefully, Hitoshi runs over his body again. Patting himself down from head to toe. He still has his boots and his belt, but anything and everything that had been hooked up to is gone. His vision googles are gone, his scarf too. His neck feels exposed-raw without it.
But the thing that strikes him the most, that creeps up like thorns in his throat, is that he’s missing his vocal modulator.
“Any emergency gear?” Mic follows up.
“Knife. At… at the bottom of my boots. A one use taser clipped into the mechanism of my belt.” But what good will that do? They don’t know where they are. Let alone whoever’s got them stripped down and kept in the dark as they are. “Did you hear that earlier? That laugh?”
“Not sure. I think so.” Mic fades off for a moment, his voice comes out hoarse the next time, “My throat hurts.”
“Your throat?” Hitoshi echoes, and its like he can hear his own stomach drop as Mic continues, voice dipping into a lower, gravelly note.
“It… my mouth tastes weird too. Kind of like metal.”
“Blood?” Hitoshi scopes, hoping, wishing, praying it isn’t.
But Mic neither agrees nor denies and Hitoshi knows, without a doubt, that he’s right. Mic’s silence is forever his most obvious tell. It lengthens, no reassurance bellying it. Hitoshi feels his lungs thorning to breathe and to listen to him.
How had they even gotten to scar Mic’s throat, to such an extent? How is he supposed to analyze the extent of the damage if he can’t fucking see? How is he supposed to keep calm? The ifs swirl, orchestrating, setting their stage for the worst because that’s the train of thought Hitoshi subscribes to; if they’re in here any longer… if Hitoshi can’t do something, the injury could worsen. Infection and contamination. Then sepsis. Mic strung up to a constant beeping record of his heart, wheezing around a mask because Hitoshi couldn’t figure it the fuck out.
He needs to focus.
He needs to try and get on his feet again and make his way towards where Mic seems to be.
“Is it blood?” Hitoshi asks anyway, pressing his palms to the floor, taking the weight of his trembling upper half before he shoves himself up against the sickly gravity. “Mic, just, just say it. Please. Talk to me.”
Mic’s laugh has always been such a sweet, belling thing. A part of him that Hitoshi likes to pull out of him until he can barely speak around his giggles and snorts, but now, it sounds like the broken records that Mic refuses to throw away even though they play the worst wonkiest screeching riffs. “You know it is.” Mic manages, coughing wetly, “It’ll be fine. Just a scratch, right? Something Recovery Girl can fix up in no time. I’ve been through and gotten through—”
“If you say worse—” Hitoshi heaves out, clutching his head and reaching for a wall to lean on where there is none, “Don’t say worse. Don’t. Talk about something else.” The spots are insistent, clashing with his vision, “I’ll come to you, just keep talking.” He’s good with sound. It’d be disgraceful if he wasn’t with a quirk like his.
Mic switches topics smoothly, laughing even though he shouldn’t as he asks, “You finish that paperwork I gave you?” It’s such a non-sequitur but it’s exactly what Hitoshi had hoped for. His shoulders shake between pain and a drawn and tired out chuckle.
“No,” Hitoshi says, fixated on the low protests that Mic grumbles out, his feet move even though his body says otherwise, Mic’s words and voice are glowing stepping stones, leading every aching step of the way, “why would I when I have you to tell me exactly what to do?”
“Brat. It was only about that stupid mandate… that…” Mic huffs, breathier than before. Only a sound Hitoshi has heard when a fight has drawn out too long and hard.
“Mic?”
Sound sticks out so easily when it’s the only thing that hasn’t been singled out. Loud wheezing is obvious. Three times as loud as its all Hitoshi can hear as he picks up his speed above his unsteady legs. “Mic, Mic, talk to me, please—” Something grabs for him, gripping at his leg, Hitoshi curses in surprise before his ear register how close Mic’s panicked breaths are now.
Sinking to his knees and taking Mic’s hand into his, he squeezes down around it, “Here, I’m here. Just listen to me now, okay? It’s my turn to talk your ears off.” There is no forthcoming laugh apart from Hitoshi’s strained and quickly waning one.
In the darkness, the best he can do is feel for the damage Mic has taken. He’s not of a talker with anyone else but Mic. The words leaving his mouth are nonsensical. Gossip he can barely recall, things he’s had on his to-do list for months and keeps promising himself he’ll get to doing—he catalogues the injuries on Mic’s body as he trenches on.
Three scars on his right arm, two cuts that sparingly bleed—and even though the injury is mostly clotted up, there’s still the grime, dust and possible infection to consider when they’d both been unconscious. His stomach is, thankfully, untouched and so are his legs. Hitoshi exhales harshly, coercing his breath to follow along, to calm and flow the way it should. He doesn’t want to probe Mic’s aggrieved throat with shaky hands.
Not when his breathing has finally also descended into a stuttery yet calm enough lull.
“Tell me how much it hurts. Every touch, and don’t lie.”
“Yes sir.” Mic rasps.
The length of his neck, at first touch, is cold. Hitoshi flinches away, purely by reflex. “What… Mic, are you feeling cold?”
“No.” Mic mumbles, “The opposite.”
“Okay.” Okayokayokayokay—What exactly is that supposed to mean? If it were an infection, it would be reversed. Not whatever the fuck this confusing mess is. “Does it hurt here?” There’s a scar that Hitoshi feels immediately sitting at the base of Mic’s throat. It’s neither long nor short, it’s worryingly in between and feels more like a nick than a cut. It’s the fact that it’s obvious, however. That Mic’s answering hiss is evidence enough that it does hurt something awful that Hitoshi’s fingers can feel him choke nearly most of a sob down.
His fingers trace upward, grazing expanse of Mic’s long neck for anymore scars. He doesn’t feel any other apart from the one at the start. Yet, Mic flinches into his cradling hand and hisses as Hitoshi goes on towards the sharp start of his jaw. “Is it mostly inside? You said you tasted metal, earlier.”
“It hurts to swallow.” Mic murmurs, “Kind of in the same way when I go overboard with my quirk.”
“Sore and clogged?”
“That and… more bloodier, than usual.”
“Did… you swallow something? Do you remember swallowing something before you passed out?”
“Can’t remember.”
It’s a terrible habit, how he bites his lips until they bleed, but Hitoshi does it anyway. Thinking, gathering the pieces of what he knows so far together. Which is nearly nothing but if Mic’s skin is cold and he’s feeling hot.
“Maybe it’s their quirk. Whoever… they are…” Hitoshi says, “Maybe they did something when we were both… But how come I don’t feel anything?” Apart from the nausea and light-headedness, which are all tokens of being a hero, Hitoshi isn’t in pain the way Mic is. Barely anything any other afflictions apart from a couple of scratches and a clotted wound. That’s the usual. Not even the worst case scenario.
Mic’s shaky, tired breath tells him he’s too tired and troubled by his pain to make Hitoshi’s roughly sewn together theory make sense. Let alone try to make it make something up.
“Seems like your partner is too out of it to even try and remember me.” The same booming laugh from possibly hours ago pierces through Hitoshi’s ears. “Then again, I’d only caught him in my line of fire for a short time before Eraserhead arrived on the scene. Not much time to feel the effects like he is now.”
Hitoshi stands, tugging against Mic’s frail grip, “Who…” he starts but the voice doesn’t let him finish.
“No names need to be shared when yours are the only important ones here.” The voice continues, there’s the slightest drag of cloth to Hitoshi’s left. Damingly out of reach. There’s another loud thud—metallic, partly rusted, possibly a door given the groan of its weight.
In the dark… the murkiness, the rust, how there’s more gravel than floor. Are they underground?
“Anyway, it’s be a good start to the experiment. I didn’t expect to also get my hands on the blossoming hero NightHide. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” His booming laugh easily follows once again, “Though, I’m sure you can’t say the same.”
Hitoshi grits his teeth, circling on the spot, trying to see something even though he’s tried before. It’s no use. It’s just that dark and his eyes have adjusted to what they already can. He can see pipes, the broken bits of gravel close to him, his hands, Mic’s limp hair falling past his shoulders in unruly tufts. He can smell only blood and hear nearly everything.
The person speaking to them breathes with all their might. Like someone excited would.
“What do you want? With us?” Hitoshi knows it’s a useless question but he needs to get the voice talking somehow. Nonsensical questions that will push the voice to boast. They sound like the type. Well, Hitoshi hopes they are.
The voice doesn’t respond immediately. He’s aware then, of exactly how Hitoshi’s quirk works. What he needs to strike. The footsteps closing in on them don’t cease despite the man’s continuing silence. A quick peek towards Mic tells him that Mic is not only clueless but dazed. Aware but fighting to stay conscious. It could be that their captor’s distance from them has worsened it or…
Hitoshi swallows, “Whatever it is, we can’t really help you if you don’t tell us what you want from us. And, experiment? What’re you, a doctor?”
It wouldn’t be anything new—coming upon a criminal with a degree who’d decided to use that degree for selfish, harmful intentions. People are people. There has to be something their captor wants from them apart from experimenting on them like a bunch of lab rats.
There’s always a catch.
There has to be this time. Because Hitoshi really doesn’t know what else he’s going to do when he can’t focus, or fight what he can’t see. All he need is a a sliver of recognition. He’s been through all the files and records. Purely Eraserhead’s advice. His mind is a collection of nearly all he’s ever read. It’s like a video game on the street sometimes. If you know a villain’s stats, where to focus your damage then he’s cuffed before any further causalities can happen.
Hitoshi likes to be prepared.
He also desperately wants to get out of here and those two things don’t get along so well.
“Mic.” he tries again, low, prompting for something—anything. Mic always remembers all the injuries he’s ever gotten.
“Don’t bother. He’s in pain. Talking will just make it worse.” Another heavy metallic thud. Hitoshi assumes its still so far away until he notices a pair of eyes. Trained right on him. Glowing in the dark.
“Now Mic,” the voice mocks, “on a scale of one to ten, can you tell me whether you can still feel the pain or has it become a numbing weight?”
On the floor, Hitoshi hears Mic choked and cut off sob as he heavily swallows down his spit.
“This isn’t funny.” Hitoshi grits out, “What did he ever do to you?”
He somehow sees the figure shrug in the darkness. Moving closer to what Hitoshi makes out to be bars. Another sharp whine of metal being tugged open. They’re getting closer and whatever he’s doing, he doesn’t plan on stopping. Not for whatever cruel, sick pleasure they have planned.
Hitoshi scrambles forward, ready to fight, ready to hold down whatever miserly defence he has left in him.
It’s panic that keeps him so worried that he misses it.
The slow inhale Mic takes before he lets loose. Hitoshi barely has time to stop him before his trying balance collapses into nothing and he falls to the floor and Mic—his barely there composure, cracked open as he screams; raw and too loud. Whatever he can summon of his quirk through the pain and the blood that Shinsou feels spurting forward and onto his face as his voice shakes the building. Old rock crumbles around them, pouring down like rain. Getting heavier and heavier. Bigger and they’re going to be crushed.
But it’s the only way out of here. They’re sitting ducks.
Hitoshi bares his teeth, his fingers uselessly plugging his ears as the volume only booms louder that the structure around them cracks; clearly shaken, trembling. Fissures shooting out all around, the darkness peels away. But Hitoshi closes his eyes around fat tears through it all as Mic’s scream echoes even louder.