#Yuu’s adventures in babysitting (an actual child)

[britishassistant]

(Wow!! I’m frankly humbled and awed that we’ve managed to reach 500 followers!! Thank you all so much!! As a huge thank you, have this short Harrassed Villain Yuu drabble!!)

There is a bookshop in the City.

It’s not part of any of the larger chains that can be found on the street corners and serve overpriced coffee and brownies that shouldn’t be as good as they are.

It’s a quiet little place, sandwiched between an apartment block and a bakery. There’s no food served there, on pain of a gentle but disappointed chastisement, but there are quite a few stray cats running around outside that are welcomed in on a regular basis. It takes and sells secondhand, but only after they’ve been throughly vetted by the more irascible of the two owners, as if there’s anything more to be feared from them than a few squashed foods between the pages.

It is, in short, one of the last places that a big shot lawyer like Azul Ashengrotto would be caught dead in.

So it’s painfully obvious he’s out of place as he and the Leech Brothers duck through the threshold to the tune of a tinkling bell.

A large, rotund man with a shock of white curls turns around as they enter, juggling books in his arms from the reshelving he’s been doing, judging by the large gaps in the bookcase in front of him.

“O-oh, hello!” The older man says, catching a book that attempts to escape his grip, glasses slightly askew over his slightly nervous smile. “Welcome to Daisy Chains Bookstore, how can I help you? Is there anything, anything in particular you’re looking for?”

Azul resists the urge to curl his lip and gives his best customer service smile. “Ah, now that you mention it, yes. I thought I spied a friend of mine ducking into here. I was wondering if you’d spotted them? A person about yea high, wearing a top hat…”

The older man sucks in his teeth, the sound making Azul’s eye want to twitch in irritation. He hems and haws, tapping his fingers on the books in his hold, even turning around and sliding a book or two back into its place on the shelf as he babbles. “Um. Well, do you mean, like, an actual top hat? Or one of those cute little ones, you know, that you see on hairbands nowadays, because the Darlings‘ oldest boy was wearing one of those earlier, he was really pleased with it, but he’s only a year or two above my Elena in school, you probably don’t want him, right? Uh, let me see, there was that older lady a few days ago…”

“You’re talking way too much, gramps.” Floyd groans, eyes going flat from boredom. “We just wanna know if Shrimpy came by here, didja see them, or didn’t ya?”

Azul has seen Floyd take this tone with people countless times before. He’s seen people try to straighten up in a futile attempt to cow Floyd right back, shrink in on themselves defensively as if that won’t make Floyd want to “play” with them further, try to edge away as if Jade won’t be right there to cut off their escape attempt.

Even with Floyd looming at him, the man in a jumper decorated with fluffy orange cows barely seems cowed to Azul’s experienced gaze. He hunches in on himself, sure, but he keeps meeting Floyd’s gaze steadily, and while his voice goes higher and wavery, he doesn’t actually stop blabbering.

“Uh, well I don’t know if anyone by the name of Shrimpy, per say, has come into the store? I mean, we’ve had a Mx. Crustacea, and Ms. Crevette, but they haven’t come in for over a month. They’ve got a bit of a tiff going on for a while now, you see, about Mr. Ramsea’s cookbooks, so whenever he publishes a new one, each of them’re practically camped outside to buy the first issue we’ve got in stock, I mean, Jon says it’s patently ridiculous, but I think it’s just them having some harmless fun, practically flirting almost, it’s rather sweet really, so what’s the harm, in the grand scheme of things? But honestly—”

“Enough.” Azul interrupts. “Just, have you seen anyone with a top hat coming in today? Into the store.”

“Oh, today?” The man says, blinking widely. “Oh, no. There’s no one in here today with that. I mean, you can look around if you’re quiet, and don’t disturb the other customers, but I don’t know what to say. I’ve not seen anyone with one today.”

Azul exhales, scanning over the few patrons in sight. None of them are wearing anything even vaguely resembling a top hat.

Jade smiles, blinking placidly at the man. “I’ve never heard an accent like yoursbefore. Where did you say you were from?”

Out of the corner of Azul’s eye, the round man tenses as he laughs nervously. “Oh, well, you know, my husband and I are from across the pond, if you know what I mean, um, we came here maybe a few years ago or so? Got started from nothing, really, had a hard few first years here, but we’ve built up a respectable group of regulars now, and we get by quite comfortably if I do say so myself, and, ah, Elena’s very happy in school and is doing very well in her classes, we’re both so proud of her, honestly, have I shown you a picture—”

“No, thank you.” Azul cuts him off, instincts finely honed from redirecting some of his more scatterbrained (if insultingly rich) clients. “We’ll just be leaving now. Jade, Floyd.”

Jade looks oddly disappointed. “I’ll be back to see if you have any volumes on fungi.” He tells the bookstore owner.

Floyd just groans. “Jaaade, c’mon let’s goooo~ This is booooriiiing.”

The older man bridles as they’re walking out. “O-oh, well I hope you find whoever you’re looking for! Have a nice day! C-Come back soon!”

Azul waves a hand like he’s shooing a fly, a disingenuous smile on his face. “Hm. You too.”

The trio exit the bookstore.

There’s a long moment of silence.

“Right.” The older man raps on the counter with his fist twice. “I think they’re gone for now.”

The top hat emerges into view before the head of the person wearing it. The most prominent supervillain in the city peeks over the edge of the counter cautiously. “You’re sure?”

He crosses over to the window, looks down the street in both directions. “Hm. Not any sign of them out there, but I’d wait a few minutes before leaving, just in case.”

The Supervisor heaves a gusty sight of relief, climbing out from under the counter entirely. “Thanks again, Mr. Blackwood.”

“Please dear, I’ve told you several times now.” The bookstore owner chastens gently. “You’re more than welcome to call me Martin. Between me and Jon, “Mr. Blackwood” just gets confusing for everybody.”

“Well, you can call me Yuu, then.” The supervillain says, with the air of someone rehashing an old and well-worn argument.

“I do.” Mr. Blackwood bickers back fondly. “It’s Elena you need to get through to.”

Yuu sighs. “I try, but it never seems to stick.”

The bookstore owner chuckles, replacing the last of the books he’d grabbed off the shelves just before the lawyer walked in. “Well, she has got a serious case of hero-worship for The Supervisor. She’s still keeping that mask and cane by her bed, you know. Right next to that toy crow you gave her.”

“How can she have a case of hero-worship for a supervillain?” Yuu flops forward over the counter, tone despairing. “I-I’m terrifying! And dangerous! And, and evil!”

Mr. Blackwood hums.

“I am!” The supervillain protests.

The sudden chiming of a phone interrupts the bookstore owner’s snickering. Mr. Blackwood pulls out a cheap, older model from his pocket, staring down at the screen. “Oh, blow.”

“What?” Yuu straightens up, craning their head as if they could see the screen from a few feet away.

He frowns down at the phone in his hands. “Babysitter’s just cancelled. And it’s mine and Jon’s anniversary too…”

“Oh.”

The Supervisor fidgets for a moment, shifting their weight from one foot to the other and back again.

Mr. Blackwood sighs, tapping on his phone screen. “And the Palmers down the hall can’t look after her because they’ve got that Bingo night…I should probably cancel our reservations now. Maybe if I close up early, I can get to the supermarket in time to make something nice…hopefully they’ve not sold out of…”

“I-I could watch Elena, if you want?”

The bookstore owner blinks owlishly behind his glasses at the supervillain. “Beg your pardon?”

“I-I, it was just an idea I had!” Yuu backtracks, hands flirting in front of their face nervously, nearly knocking their top hat askew. “I mean, I wasn’t gonna do anything other than work on some inventions tonight, so it’s not like I had plans or anything,”

“Yuu?”

“And Diavolo always likes how Elena spoils him, the lazy bird, and Azul’s probably gone home for the day, and Malleus and Idia should be busy tonight, and Riddle and Leona and Jamil usually wait until it’s earlier to break in, so it should just be us with none of them causing trouble,”

“Yuu.”

“But, but I understand one hundred percent if you don’t want to, heck even I wouldn’t trust me with a kid, I mean, I’m The Supervisor, a supervillain’s just asking for trouble, plus given my father’s track record, yeah, no, you know what this was an awful idea, just forget I—”

“Yuu.”

The supervillain snaps to attention at the stern tone, head ducked meekly.

Mr. Blackwood’s face is creased by an exasperated smile. “Honestly, you’re as bad as my Jon sometimes. I was just going to say there sounds like a lovely idea. I’ll need to call him to see if he’s alright with it, but I’m sure he will be.”

He shoots the supervillain a conspiratorial wink as he taps on his phone screen and holds it up to his ear. “Plus he’s doing the school run right now. I’m sure Elena’s puppy eyes will make it hard to say no.”

“…oh. Right. Right.” Yuu becomes very focused on tracing the wood grain of the counter as the bookstore owner focused on talking to his husband and daughter over the phone.

The excited squeal that suddenly erupted from the other end made the supervillain startle. “…right.”