Enough to Go By (Chapter 5) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic
Your best friend vanished on the same night his family was murdered, and even though the world forgot about him, you never did. When a chance encounter brings you back into contact with Shimura Tenko, you'll do anything to make sure you don't lose him again. Keep his secrets? Sure. Aid the League of Villains? Of course. Sacrifice everything? You would - but as the battle between the League of Villains and hero society unfolds, it becomes clear that everything is far more than you or anyone else imagined it would be. (cross-posted to Ao3)
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8
Chapter 5
You end up on a rooftop, you and Tenko and Kurogiri. Tenko has a pair of binoculars, and he lets you look through them before you have a chance to ask what he’s looking for. “We’re in Hosu,” he says. “The current location of the Hero Killer.”
“Are you going to fight him?”
“I’m doing what you said.”
You can’t remember what you said, except for your stupid joke. “Making him unfuckable?”
Tenko snickers, and somewhere behind you, Kurogiri does the same – which is extra weird. “No. Putting us back in the headlines.”
“Oh.” You don’t like this. “I’m not a strategist. You shouldn’t listen to me.”
“Why?” Tenko gives you a weird look. “You’re not stupid. Your ideas aren’t any worse than mine.”
“I don’t want you to get mad at me if it goes wrong,” you say. “I’ve heard you get mad at Kurogiri.”
Kurogiri chuckles. “That’s different,” he says. “Shigaraki Tomura. Tell her why it’s different.”
“Shut up,” Tenko says. He put the hand back over his face once he let go of your hand, but he’s turning red around it. Again. “Kurogiri’s not my sidekick. I don’t have to listen to him.”
“You don’t have to listen to me, either,” you say. “I don’t know anything about being – this.”
“You understand them better than I do,” Tenko says. He gestures at the expanse of Hosu before you. “What would it take to make you stop trusting heroes?”
You already don’t trust heroes very much. What would it take to move people like your parents or your siblings, who live in the other Japan, to where you are? “To see them choose wrong.”
Tenko gives you a curious look. “What do you mean?”
“Heroes can’t save everybody. They can’t be everywhere. They can’t be there all the time. But nobody ever thinks that the heroes won’t choose to save them,” you explain. “If you wanted to shake things up, you’d have to make it so the heroes choose wrong. For everybody to see.”
Tenko’s eyes light up, and the smile on his face this time looks less like your friend’s and more like the villain he’s become. “Then we’re in the right place,” he says. “This city is crawling with heroes looking for Stain. Let’s put them in a bind. Kurogiri, bring the Nomu. All of them.”
“Nomu?” you squeak, even as multiple portals open around you. “You have more than one?”
“We have lots. Sensei only gave me three.” Tenko gestures proudly at the monsters emerging from the portals. Everything about them looks like they’ve been put together wrong, from their staring eyes to their featureless faces to their pasty skin that smells like rot. The news reports about the attack on UA were clear about one thing – the Nomu that faced off against All Might was fast and extremely strong. “What do you think?”
One passes close to you and you cringe away, closer to Tenko. “They’re awful.”
“Exactly,” Tenko says. He stares down at the city, an expression on his face that’s somehow grim and vicious at once. “Let’s see what the rest of them think.”
The Nomus crawl down the sides of the building and vanish into the city. Tenko hasn’t given them orders, and neither has Kurogiri. You have questions – a lot of questions – but you’re not sure what it’s safe to ask. You’re Tenko’s sidekick, but that doesn’t mean his plans are yours to comment on. It feels weird to keep quiet, too. You and Tenko used to get in trouble for talking in class because you never ran out of things to talk about.
“You don’t look weird.”
You cough. “What?”
“You don’t look weird,” Tenko says again. You look at him, surprised, and find him looking straight ahead, peering through the binoculars. “I should have let you fix my shoulder the rest of the way.”
“What did you end up doing with it?” You reach over and part the cut fabric on his shoulder, wincing as you get a look at the bandaging job. “Next time, just let me finish.”
“Can you fix the rest of it?”
“I can’t do more stitches when it’s been open this long,” you say. Tenko grimaces but doesn’t swear at you. “There’s a chance it’ll get infected. If it does –”
“I’ll send Kurogiri to find you.”
“Tell him to give me a heads-up instead of just snatching me. I might need to grab antibiotics and I don’t want to make two trips.”
Tenko nods like this makes sense, which it does, except for the context. You’re standing here on the roof of a building in a city that’s already facing one villainous threat, while your childhood best friend turned aspiring supervillain has just released another – on your advice, no less. You try to rationalize it. Hosu is crawling with heroes, like Tenko said. If they’re good heroes, they’ll divert their attention to protecting the civilians. Heroes fighting Nomus will get Tenko the headlines he wants for the League of Villains, and if nobody gets hurt aside from the heroes who signed up for the job –
You need to be careful with that line of thinking. With that line of thinking, you could excuse what happened to the students during the attack on UA. “Can I ask you something?” you say, and Tenko nods. “Why did you go after the students?”
“I wasn’t after them. The point was All Might.”
“But you brought all those other villains,” you say. “On the news they said that Kurogiri moved the kids all over the training facility so the villains could kill them. And –”
You’re thinking of something else you heard, from Kazuo – that Tenko tried to kill at least three students directly, and All Might’s arrival was the only thing that stopped him. “He was supposed to be there from the beginning,” Tenko says. “All Might. Dividing the students up was supposed to distract him. Split his focus so he’d be more vulnerable to Nomu.”
You don’t know what you were expecting him to say, but it wasn’t that. “Those villains were weak,” Tenko continues. “The brats could deal with them on their own. It would have taken All Might two seconds. But two seconds is all we would have needed.”
“So it was – strategy.”
“Yeah.” Tenko lowers his binoculars, glances at you. “Do you believe me?”
The words leave your mouth before you can think better of them. “I’d believe you more if I could see you.”
Tenko was in the process of looking away. Now he glances back, and you can tell he’s startled, even through the fingers of the hand. You’re not sure what the hands are for. When he attacked the USJ, he was wearing multiple sets, but usually he only wears Father around you. You haven’t asked him to remove the hand before – only asked him where it was when he wasn’t wearing it, and when you think it over, you can’t see any commonalities between the times when it’s off and the times when it’s on. Maybe it’s the kind of thing you can ask about now that you’re Tenko’s sidekick again.
Tenko grips the binoculars one-handed, reaching up to remove the hand with the other. “The brats weren’t the real target,” he says.
“But you still tried to kill three of them.”
“Yeah,” Tenko says, like it doesn’t matter, without care – and without malice. “They were right there, and I thought All Might wasn’t coming. Everybody had to see how he failed again.”
Again? You’re not the biggest All Might fan, but you don’t remember hearing about All Might failing to save children who were being held hostage. In fact, when All Might has to prioritize, he saves children first. Tenko is watching you now. “Do you believe me?”
“I believe you,” you say, and you see his shoulders relax. “You’re not a very good liar.”
He never was. When you were trying to get away with things as children, you did the talking. Tenko’s job was to stay quiet and not make eye contact with whichever adult was questioning the two of you. No matter how desperate he was not to get caught, a few seconds of eye contact was enough to break him. In the present, Tenko smiles slightly. “Lucky I’ve got you.”
You like seeing him smile, and you’ve seen it twice tonight. The knot in your chest relaxes, only to tighten again as a chorus of screams rise from the city below. Tenko lifts his binoculars eagerly and you twist your hands together, trying to contain your unease. You have your best friend. He wants you with him – his sidekick, just like you used to be. You still know how to make him smile. And he’s a villain, the kind of villain who, when his plan to kill All Might looked like it wouldn’t pan out, decided to kill three children instead. What are you doing here?
More screams from below. You wonder how many civilians are being hurt, how many heroes are protecting them versus chasing Stain. You know there’s a free clinic branch in Hosu, one that’s open overnight just like yours is. They’ll be busy tonight. At least you won’t have to worry about them treating injured villains as well as civilians.
Or will they? What are the Nomus, exactly? Where did they come from? Is that the kind of question you’re allowed to ask Tenko now that you’re friends again? “Um,” you start, but he doesn’t look at you, just keeps peering through the binoculars. Sometimes he focuses so hard it’s like his ears stop working. You remember that from when you were kids. “Tenko?”
He still doesn’t answer. You reach out, touch his shoulder, and he startles so badly that he drops the binoculars. If he grabs them with all five fingers, they’ll disintegrate. You catch them for him, since it’s your fault, and pass them back once he’s ready. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s – fine.” Tenko’s shoulder is tense beneath your hand. You’re still touching him, and you shouldn’t be. You pull your hand back. “What is it?”
“The Nomu,” you say hesitantly. “What are they?”
It’s quiet for a second. “Shigaraki Tomura,” Kurogiri warns. “You should not –”
“She won’t tell,” Tenko says without looking at him. He hasn’t put the hand back over his face. “They’re – I guess you could call them zombies. They’re made from bodies. Usually two or three bodies, and three or four quirk factors. It’s usually the same quirk factors. Shock absorption, regeneration, speed. I don’t care if you touch me.”
You’re too busy trying to wrap your head around the fact that somebody’s figured out how to raise the dead to catch the last thing. It takes you a second to get to it, and even then, you have to ask a clarifying question. “You don’t care? Or you don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind.”
Something is wrong with you. Something is really wrong with you that you’re more interested in why Tenko doesn’t mind if you touch him than in the fact that Tenko has multiple zombies at his disposal to turn loose on unsuspecting heroes and civilians. You try to focus. “Where do the bodies come from?”
“I don’t know,” Tenko says. He’s frowning slightly. A moment later, he puts the hand back on his face – but before you can decide if it’s because he’s mad at you, he hands you the binoculars. “Look.”
You look through them. You’re looking in the wrong spot, and after a few seconds of trying to give you directions, Tenko gives up and just covers your hands with his, moving you in the right direction. His index fingers are lifted, protecting you from his quirk. You see what he wanted you to look at quickly enough – heroes facing off against the Nomus. Endeavor facing off against the Nomus. It looks like the heroes chose right.
You can’t deny that it’s a relief. The civilians will always be your priority, and even if almost everyone has a quirk, most of those quirks are useless when it comes to defending against zombies with multiple quirks, and they’re banned from using them anyway. But you have the sense that Tenko’s not pleased, and when you look at him, you see him scowling behind the hand. “They’re making it look too easy,” he complains.
“These Nomu were not as strong as the Nomu from USJ,” Kurogiri says. “You were made aware, Shigaraki Tomura.”
“These heroes aren’t as strong as All Might,” Tenko snaps in response. “Master set me up – again –”
You spot something through the binoculars. Something Tenko needs to see. You push them back into his hands. “Look at that.”
Tenko’s still scowling, but he lifts the binoculars to peer through them. A second later he startles. Even without the binoculars, you can see a dark shape in distant flight over the city, something clutched in its claws. You don’t know who the Nomu grabbed, or where it’s taking them, but Tenko can’t fail to be pleased with that. Can he?
He can. A moment later he swears. “Fucking Hero Killer –”
Your heart sinks. “What happened?”
“He killed it. To save some hero brat.” Tenko’s binoculars are crumbling in his hand. You wonder if he even notices. “Fucking Hero Killer. Fuck!”
You’re pretty sure that’s not the end of the story. The Hero Killer saved a hero, after claiming that there’s only one true hero, and it’s All Might? You slide your phone out of your pocket, clear a bunch of notifications from your friends’ group chat, and navigate to Twitter. Somebody’s got to be reporting on this live, and sure enough, you find “Hero Killer” trending, plus a livestream of Stain’s arrest. He’s getting arrested, and with at least twenty murders under his belt, there’s no way he’s getting out of Tartarus in this lifetime. You touch Tenko’s shoulder again – after all, he said it was fine – and speak quietly. “Hey.”
“What?”
He won’t look at you. “Look at this,” you say instead, holding out your phone. “The heroes got him.”
“So?”
“So that’s it for him,” you say. “He’s going to prison for the rest of his life. All Might’s definitely not going to fuck him now.”
It’s quiet for a second, aside from a wheeze emanating from somewhere behind the two of you. It’s still weird to hear Kurogiri laugh. You don’t even know if he has lungs. Beside you, Tenko’s doing everything in his power to hang onto his scowl, and it’s not working very well. “Is that the only joke you know?”
You feel a surge of relief. “I’ll stop using it when you stop laughing at it.”
You hear the sound of helicopter blades in the distance, growing closer. Tenko can hear it, too. “Kurogiri, let’s go. We’re done here.”
You barely have a second to wonder where you’re headed before the black mist wells up, and you’re not entirely surprised to find yourself back in the bar. Kurogiri’s behind it already. Tenko’s sitting at it, the chair next to his kicked outwards. As you watch, Kurogiri sets two glasses down and lifts an unopened bottle of champagne. He opens it, pouring first Tenko’s glass, then the glass in front of the empty chair.
Tenko glances over his shoulder, spots you, and gestures impatiently at the chair. You sit down next to him and study the glass of champagne. Tenko’s already chugging his, but he stops halfway and glances at you. “Why aren’t you drinking it?”
You could lie, but you don’t want to. “I watched him pour it, and I don’t think you’d drug me. But I still have to be careful.”
Tenko doesn’t look offended. Instead he swaps glasses with you, and Kurogiri makes a discontented noise. “She doesn’t want to drink your backwash, Tomura. Even if you did brush your teeth before we left.”
“Shut up,” Tenko snaps at him. He’s turning red again. You look down into your new glass, trying not to laugh. “I brush my teeth all the time. You’re not special.”
That one gets you. You start laughing, and Kurogiri makes that weird wheezing sound. You’re starting to realize that unlike the villain you met earlier today, who was all over the place, Kurogiri’s got two distinct aspects – one that’s more formal, more severe, and another that’s significantly more relaxed. The second one sounds younger, too, and the impression only grows stronger when Kurogiri speaks again. “If you drink someone else’s backwash, it’s like making out with them indirectly.”
“No it isn’t! I didn’t ask you!”
Tenko is bright red and sputtering, and Kurogiri’s yellow eyes are crinkling, almost the way a person’s would. It occurs to you what this aspect of Kurogiri reminds you of – a sibling. You teased your younger siblings the exact same way, when you could get away with it. Well aware that you’re making some kind of statement about the whole thing, you pick up the glass that used to be Tenko’s and take a small sip. It doesn’t taste like anything but champagne.
When you look up, you find Tenko and Kurogiri watching you. Staring, more accurately – Tenko’s jaw is dropped. You will your face not to flush. “Thanks for switching with me. As long as you don’t pass out in the next half an hour, we’re good to go.”
“So you have to stay at least that long.”
He doesn’t want you to leave. You take another sip of champagne, giving yourself time to get under control. You don’t want Tenko to know how pleased you are with the thought, or how ambivalent you are at being pleased by it. “I guess I do.”
You stay for another hour and a half, reading over the news coverage of the Nomu attack and the Hero Killer’s capture until you can barely keep your eyes open. But you have an early morning, and even though Tenko complains that you have to go and makes fun of you for agreeing to take Yoshimi to her appointment, he doesn’t suggest that you back out of it. As Kurogiri is determining where to set a warp gate to send you back to Yokohama, you ask him why not.
Tenko gives you a weird look. “I know you,” he says. “That’s not who you are.”
He’s right. It isn’t. And as much as you’re pleased by the thought that your best friend still knows you after all these years, the disquiet lurking underneath it follows you home, curls up on your chest as you try to fall asleep. You’re not the kind of person who’d turn your back on a friend, or go back on your word once you’ve given it. But apparently you’re the kind of person who watches a villain turn monsters loose on innocent people and does absolutely nothing to stop him.
You might have made your choice already. You might have stepped over the line. But you have a bad feeling that you’ll be looking back over your shoulder at it until it’s vanished over the horizon, knowing you made the wrong call and knowing deep in your bones that there’s nothing else you could have done.
You’ve done basically nothing, but you still get the sense that you’re leading a double life. You comfort yourself with the thought that even if you went to the police, you’d have nothing useful to tell them. You don’t know where Tenko’s hideout is. You don’t know anything about who makes the Nomus or where they’re hidden. You don’t know anything about Kurogiri except that it seems like there are two personalities in there, and what Kazuo said about his quirk not being natural. You’re still not sure what Kazuo meant by that. Just like you’re not sure who Tenko’s master is.
The things you know would be absolutely useless to them. You know that Tenko recovered from his USJ injuries only to get immediately slashed up by Stain. You know Tenko likes champagne but can’t hold his liquor for shit. You know he’s smart and strategic, a lot more than the news gives him credit for, which is bad for them and probably also bad for you. You know he likes video games more than he did when he was a kid, but he likes you just as much as he did back then. You like him just as much, too. Probably too much.
You haven’t seen him again since that night in Hosu. You know he’ll send Kurogiri to find you if he needs you, and the fact that he doesn’t need you means he’s not getting hurt. But you’re watchful anyway. No matter where you’re walking, day or night, you find yourself keeping a close eye the shadows, watching from your peripheral vision in case one of them hides a warp gate. Or better yet, hides Tenko.
“Hypervigilance,” Kazuo remarks when he catches you at it, one partly cloudy day in early June. “A hallmark of traumatic stress. You could benefit from counseling.”
“It’s not wrong to be wary,” you say. “Things are more dangerous than they used to be. Don’t you feel it?”
“Another hallmark of PTSD. Persistent, negative cognitions about yourself, others, or the world, exemplified by statements like The world is more dangerous than it used to be.” Kazuo can be a real asshole sometimes. “But you’re correct. Crime rates have steadily increased as All Might’s taken a step back from the public eye.”
“You really think it’s All Might?” You glance sideways at Kazuo. “Not the League of Villains?”
“The League of Villains is a symptom,” Kazuo says. The two of you got to the park early; the rest of your friends are running late for your meetup. “I looked into the backgrounds of those who were captured in the attack on USJ. For the most part, I found petty crime – thievery, fleeing from the police, physical violence committed in the course of fleeing a crime scene or an altercation with heroes.”
That tracks with the kind of villains you run into at work. Most of them have done next to nothing to earn the title. “Looking back further,” Kazuo continues, “I found poverty, substance abuse, quirk-based discrimination, childhood trauma. There were some among the criminals at USJ who sought violence specifically and consistently from an early age, but for the majority of them, it was far from inevitable that they would become criminals. It could have been otherwise.”
Thinking about what’s going on with Tenko, you’ve gotten in the habit of playing devil’s advocate. “And that’s on All Might? One hero can’t fix poverty, or childhood trauma –”
“No, they cannot. But the presence of heroes gives everyone else an excuse not to try to fix anything,” Kazuo says. He gives you a look. “There will always be some villains. The existence of enough villains to allow your friend to form a League of them means that society is failing.”
“You’re not wrong,” you say. Usually when you admit that Kazuo’s right, he moves on, but this time he keeps looking at you. “What?”
“At least try to deny it,” Kazuo says, and you know what he’s talking about. “One day I won’t be the one asking.”
You know he’s right, but as much as Tenko occupies your thoughts, you don’t have much time to dwell on him on a daily basis. Yoshimi’s sick, cancer in her lymphatic system, and with her family out of the picture and her shitty boyfriend dumping her the second he found out, you and your friends are on overdrive trying to support her. Since you’re the only one who works in the field, a lot of the daily stuff is falling on you. You’ve been taking some shifts at the central clinic so you can check in on her while she’s there for treatments, and since the high school students are all studying for their medical assistant exams, you’ve been grabbing fill-in night shifts at your regular clinic at the same time. You’re getting four hours of sleep a night, if that.
You’re exhausted. So exhausted that, when the shadows in the corner of your vision turn out to be mist as you’re walking home from the park, you keep walking straight into Kurogiri’s warp gate without a second thought.
When you arrive in the bar, Kurogiri seems surprised to see you. “I thought you might run.”
“I’m too tired to run,” you say. “Does he need me?”
Kurogiri nods, as much as a person with mist for a head can nod. “Follow me.”
You balk when you realize where you’re headed. “He doesn’t want me in there.”
“He asked me to bring you there specifically,” Kurogiri says. “Don’t worry. He’s cleaned.”
“Oh.”
The door to Tenko’s room is open, but Kurogiri knocks anyway. “Shigaraki Tomura, the girl –”
“You’re here.” Tenko appears suddenly in the doorway, the hand clamped over his face. “That was fast. You didn’t run away?”
“What kind of sidekick runs when their boss calls?” You look Tenko over. “Kurogiri said you needed me. Are you hurt?”
“My shoulder’s a mess,” Tenko says, unconcerned. “I needed to talk to you. Come in.”
He takes a few steps back, leaving room for you to step through the door. The memory of how Tenko reacted last time is still fresh in your head, and based on Tenko’s expression, he can tell. “I cleaned it,” he says impatiently. “Come in.”
In spite of the fact that your best friends have usually been boys, you haven’t spent a lot of time in boys’ rooms. The ones you have been in aren’t exactly standard. Kazuo’s room looked like an interior design magazine spread even before his mind snapped, so minimalist it was hard to imagine anyone actually living there. Sho’s room looks more like a girl’s room than yours does. Tenko’s room back when you were kids just looked like a kid’s room. Like how you would have wanted your room to look if you weren’t already sharing it with two siblings.
Tenko’s room, compared to the last time you saw it, is no longer filthy. You can see the floor, at least, and some rearranging has occurred. The desk and monitor setup has been shifted unceremoniously into one corner of the room, and on the wall where it previously sat is a flatscreen TV. You can see that it’s hooked up to a router, as well as a cable or smart TV box, and there are a few consoles and controllers strewn around nearby. Across the room from the TV is a coffee table. And behind that, a bed.
You gesture at it. “Was this here before?”
Tenko doesn’t answer. “Kurogiri, go,” he orders, and you glance over your shoulder just in time to see Kurogiri vanish from the doorway. “Sit down.”
You sit down on one end of the bed and Tenko sits on the other. He slides a collection of games across the coffee table to you. “I like all of these. You can pick which one we play first.”
“I’m not good at games.”
“I’ll teach you what you need to know,” Tenko says. He pushes the games at you again. “Pick.”
You start sorting through the games, searching in vain for any title you know while you try to shift the subject back into reasonable territory. “You said something was wrong with your shoulder. Can I look at it?”
“It’s not that bad.”
“You said it was a mess,” you point out. “Let me see.”
“Pick a game and then you can see it.”
You see exactly one title you know – Call of Duty. You hold it up and Tenko frowns. “We can play that one for a bit. In co-op mode. But after that –”
“Show me your arm.”
Tenko scowls, but he moves from the other end of the bed until he’s within reach. He’s wearing a short-sleeved shirt, oversized to the point where you can draw the neckline aside and reveal the wound. It’s clear that the stitches have been disturbed. The wound site is red and angry-looking and you can see scratches around it. There should be a scab on the part that Tenko wouldn’t let you stitch, but it’s clearly been peeled away. It’s either infected already or about to be, and either way, the healing process is going slower than it should be. A surge of frustration sweeps over you.
You look up at Tenko and find him watching you, unrepentant. “What?”
“You were scratching this.”
“It itched,” Tenko says. He gives you a weird look. “You never said not to.”
“I didn’t think I had to say not to scratch your open wounds.” Your frustration seeps into your tone. “You should have sent Kurogiri to get me as soon as the swelling started.”
“I tried. You’re always busy.” Tenko’s voice takes on the quality of a sneer. “Kurogiri’s been watching you for three days. You’re at that other clinic with that girl all the time.”
He didn’t use to be like this. He didn’t use to be jealous. “She has cancer. She needs someone –”
“She has other friends and doctors and parents and some loser boyfriend somewhere,” Tenko says. You start to argue that Yoshimi doesn’t have a boyfriend, courtesy of said boyfriend being a loser, but Tenko cuts you off. “She has lots of people. I only have you.”
He has Kurogiri, his master, the doctor, the Nomu – or does he? Shigaraki Tomura has those people. Tenko only has you. You peel your eyes from the angry mess Tenko’s wound has become and look up at him. “If I had known you needed me, I’d have found a way to be here. You’re my best friend.”
“I know. I –” Tenko breaks off, frustrated. “I didn’t mess with it so you’d come back.”
“I didn’t think that,” you say. “I know you scratch sometimes. It seems like less than before.”
“Only when you’re here.” Tenko shifts in his seat. You’re about to tell him he shouldn’t worry about that when he speaks again. “I feel different when you’re here. Can you fix it?”
“I’ll need to take the stitches out and clean it before I bandage it up again, but yes.” You look around for the medical supplies and Tenko pries open a drawer full of them. “Then we can play the game.”
“I can’t believe you like Call of Duty.”
“It’s just the only one I recognize,” you admit, and Tenko laughs. You like hearing him laugh. “Get ready to lose all respect for me. You might want a better sidekick.”
“I don’t need a better sidekick,” Tenko says. “I’m good enough for both of us.”
Warmth floods through you, pooling in your cheeks and your chest and the pit of your stomach. He remembers. You pull on a pair of gloves and open the suture kit. The sooner you rebandage his wound, the sooner you can play a game with your best friend for the first time since you were kids.
But after you’ve taken out the stitches, as you’re bandaging his shoulder, you notice something. The other times you’ve seen Tenko and treated his wounds, he’s been wearing long sleeves, and when you’ve cut them to get a look at the injuries, you haven’t paid much attention to whatever else might be underneath them. Now, with his arms exposed by design, you can see things you didn’t before. Tenko’s always scratched. After fifteen years of scratching he’d naturally have scars. But when the two of you were kids, you never saw him scratch his forearms. And you’ve never seen scratches look so uniform, so evenly spaced. You’ve seen things that look like that before. They weren’t scratches.
You look up and find Tenko looking at you already. “Sensei had me do them. So I’d be stronger,” he says. Your heart seizes in your chest. “Not in a while, though. When I got strong enough he let me stop.”
“That’s messed up.” You’ve been careful not to speak against Tenko’s master, not when you know so little about him, but you can’t hold back this time. “Hurting yourself doesn’t make you stronger. It just makes you hurt.”
“What would you know about it?”
“Lots. I see it every day.”
Tenko gives you a look that tells you just how little he thinks of whatever you’ve seen, and you lose patience. You let go of his arm and pull up the sleeve of your own short-sleeve shirt. “I don’t mean at work.”
Tenko’s jaw drops behind the hand. “Who made you do that?”
“Nobody made me. I did it myself, which makes me a lot dumber than you,” you say. Tenko’s lines are even. Yours are jagged, because you were angry or crying or hurrying to finish up before one of your siblings needed the bathroom or your mom came back to keep arguing with you. “Was your master trying to make you stronger? Or was he trying to teach you not to show when something hurts?”
Based on the way Tenko’s red eyes flash, you know you’ve hit the nail on the head. “What were you trying to do, then? When you were being dumber than me?”
You were being really dumb. So dumb that it’s embarrassing to talk about. “It’s a reset, biologically. Injuries force the body to release endorphins, which make you feel better for a little bit. There was a while where I had trouble controlling my temper. It helped me do that. Or at least not show it.”
“A while,” Tenko repeats. “You should have had trouble the entire fucking time.”
“I did,” you admit after a second. “You used to tell me it wasn’t okay, what my family was like. It took a while to believe you.”
Half the reason you didn’t believe Tenko was because you knew his family was messed up, too. No matter what else your dad did, he didn’t scream at you or lock you outside without dinner. But as you got older, you realized why your parents didn’t do that: They needed you too much. They needed your help with the extra kids they shouldn’t have had, and the older you got, the more it started to infuriate you.
You saw evidence of it everywhere, in places it was and places it wasn’t. They didn’t wipe your memory because they cared that you were upset about your missing friend, they did it because they needed you to be quiet and helpful instead of sad. They didn’t let you choose your favorite snack or go to a birthday party once in a blue moon because it was the fair thing to do, they did it so you wouldn’t complain about all the times you weren’t allowed to. They promised they’d make it up to you every time they shorted you in favor of your siblings with quirks, hoping the apology would make you forget. By the time you were fourteen, you weren’t forgetting anymore.
Tenko’s watching you from behind the hand, but you don’t want to be watched right now. You focus on placing the bandage. Maybe if you do that, you can pretend this isn’t happening. “What happened?” Tenko asks. “With your family.”
“Nothing,” you say. Nothing like what happened to his. “They’re out there. They call me on my birthday. Every so often they ask me for money. Do you really want to talk about this?”
Tenko doesn’t follow up. On that, at least. Three of his fingers brush across your exposed upper arm and it takes every ounce of self-control you have not to jump out of your skin. “These are old, right?”
“Not as old as yours,” you say. “They aren’t recent, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I stopped, so you should, too.” Tenko’s palm covers your upper arm for a moment, then lifts away. “It wouldn’t kill you to control your temper less, anyway. When was the last time you got really mad?”
“Three days ago. Yoshimi’s boyfriend ditched her, so I called him and lit his ass up.”
“Sure you did. I bet you never raised your voice,” Tenko says. You look up, offended. “You probably sounded like some kind of evil shrink, telling him what a piece of shit he is and how you understand that he can’t help being an asshole but it would probably be best for everybody if he took a long walk off a short ledge –”
He’s mimicking the soft, semi-conciliatory tone you use when you’re trying to de-escalate a situation, looking at you from behind the hand with a smirk on his face. You’d get mad, except it’s a pretty accurate imitation, and you like the thought that he knows you well enough to pick on you like this. “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about getting really mad. Really losing control. When’s the last time you did that?”
You can’t remember. You shrug helplessly. Tenko heaves an exaggerated sigh. “It’s a good thing we’re playing Call of Duty next. If getting your ass kicked in a video game can’t wind you up, nothing will.”
It’s been a while since you played an actual video game. You were bad at it then, and you’re really bad at it now. Tenko makes you play a round in single-player mode to see what you’re good at and where you’re weak, and he spends the entire time laughing so hard that you’re worried he’s going to dislocate a rib or fall off the couch. It takes you way too long to hide away from the enemies onscreen long enough to ask Tenko a question. “What’s so funny? I know I’m not doing it right –”
“You’re just –” Tenko wheezes, then makes an effort to get it together. “Up here in the corner of your display is the map. The dot is where you are. And then everything in front of you is your point of view. That’s why it’s called a first-person shooter.”
“I know,” you say. “The display –”
“You control that on this side of the controller. And that’s where your trigger is, too. The other side handles motion,” Tenko says. His shoulders are twitching, like they do when he’s trying to hold in his laughter. “I’ll watch the map for you. Just go where I tell you to go.”
“Okay.” You adjust your grip on the controller and prepare to be humiliated.
Tenko directs you to move straight forward, which you do. Then you make a left turn and jump up on a crate for a better firing angle, at which point someone shoots at you. “Shoot back,” Tenko orders. You press the trigger. “Nice work. Okay, now jump off the crate and –”
You jump off the crate as requested, but then you get your buttons jumbled, and instead of running in the direction Tenko told you to run, you find yourself bumping into the wall repeatedly with your viewpoint stuck directly upwards. “Tenko –”
Tenko is howling with laughter again. The hand dislodges and falls off his face, and you see his eyes crinkling at the corners, his smile just a little too big. Some girls in your class said his smile was creepy, but you always liked it. You liked that you always knew which of his smiles were faked and which weren’t. “I’m stuck,” you say, and he laughs even harder. “What did I do?”
“If you were doing what your character is doing right now, you’d be doing this.” Tenko mimics pointing a gun straight up at the sky, and suddenly you get why he’s laughing. “You’ve been running around like this –”
No wonder you keep running into walls. Now you’re laughing, too. “You weren’t kidding,” Tenko says, shaking his head. “You really are terrible at it.”
You set the controller aside and wipe your eyes. “You sure you don’t want a different sidekick?”
“I have the sidekick I want.” Tenko glances at you, almost shyly. “We’ll need allies, though. I want you to meet them.”
Your stomach lurches. “Do you have them already?”
“One of the brokers is bringing them. He finds them through the black market.” Tenko sets the controller back down in your hands, adjusting your fingers to the right buttons. Then he unpauses the game. “Once I have them all – go right. No, your other right. Once I have them all, I want you to meet them. I need them to work together, and to stay calm instead of fighting each other. You’re good at getting people to do that. Watch out, there are – nice work.”
He’s giving you a strange look. “What?” you ask. “I didn’t get killed yet.”
“You’re better at shooting people than running around. That’s weird.” Tenko’s expression stays odd for another moment; then he grins. “Works for me, though. As long as you don’t mess with your viewpoint too much, we can play together.”
“Works for me.” You’re still going to be pretty useless, but at least you can protect Tenko’s back. That’s more than you’d be able to do in a real fight. The thought kicks off a flood of anxiety, and before you can stop yourself, you find yourself speaking out loud. “Tenko –”
He pauses the game mid-switch to co-op mode. “Yeah?”
“I don’t know if I can help you the way you need me to,” you say. He gives you a skeptical look. “Medical stuff is one thing. I’m good at that. If your allies need help with that, I’ll help them, too. But the rest of it, I’m not – planning, getting people to follow you –”
“I can do that part. But villains fight all the time. Like kids do,” Tenko says. He smiles slightly. “If you can handle me, they’ll be easy for you.”
“But I know you,” you say. “It’s different.”
“So you’ll get to know them, too.” Tenko’s confident, just like you remember him being. Once he’s decided how something will be, it’s hard to shake him. “Come on. Let’s clear this level.”
It’s an easy level, or you think it’s supposed to be. You spend most of your time running backwards, keeping one eye on the map so you don’t lose track of Tenko and the other eye out for enemies of any kind. On reflection, you do think your accuracy with shooting is a little weird. Between this level and the next one, you rack up a decent number of kills. “You’re already getting better,” Tenko says, grinning. “I bet we can beat this thing if we keep playing.”
“I’d like that,” you say – but you’re still thinking about Tenko’s semi-crazy idea that you meet a bunch of villains for crowd control. “About the allies – you trust me, but they won’t have any reason to. I’m still a civilian.”
“You’ll need a disguise,” Tenko says, which wasn’t what you were hoping he’d say. “Something that hides your face. “If any of them have a problem with you, they can take it up with me.”
You don’t know what to say to that. The idea of Tenko getting into it with other villains over you makes you feel sick. “I don’t want you to get hurt because of me. I don’t want you to get hurt at all. You’re my best friend.”
“I’m not your boss,” Tenko says, which doesn’t make any sense. Your confusion must show on your face, because Tenko elaborates. “Earlier. You said sidekicks don’t run from their bosses, but I’m not your boss. I don’t want to be your boss. I want –”
He breaks off, clearly struggling with what to say. There’s a patchy flush coming up in his cheeks, and you see his hand rise, twitch toward his neck – then fall back. “I don’t want to be your boss,” he says again, looking everywhere but into your eyes. “I want – you should –”
“Shigaraki Tomura.” Kurogiri’s voice issues from behind you, and you and Tenko both jump. “Your master wishes to speak with you. You are overdue.”
“Shit,” Tenko mutters. His grip on the controller tightens, and you lift it out of his hands before all five fingers can touch it. “Where’s – I need –”
“Here.” You pick up the hand from the floor and pass it to him, feeling a chill go down your spine as you touch it. “Go talk to him. It’s okay.”
“I’m late. It isn’t.” Tenko settles the hand back over his face. His free hand rises again, clawing at the side of his neck, and something about the image, the situation, feels uncomfortably familiar to you. “I’ll send Kurogiri to get you again soon. For another date.”
“This was a date?”
“Of course it was.” Tenko gets up, heads for the door. “Remember. Find a disguise. I’ll see you soon.”
He’s gone, and a second later, so are you – Kurogiri drops you in an alley off the street you were walking on. He lingers for a moment, and the question explodes out of you. “It was a date?”
“I told him it’s not a date unless both people know it’s a date.” Kurogiri looks vaguely uncomfortable, and his voice is in the other register – the one that sounds more like an older brother than a servant. “Next time I’ll tell him I can’t find you.”
“Don’t do that,” you say at once. Even reeling like you are now, you’re sure that you want to see Tenko again. “Just – warn me, if you can. If it’s a date or something else.”
“I can do that.” Kurogiri vanishes, but his voice lingers for a moment more. “You protect him, too.”
What does that mean? Maybe it means that Kurogiri sees you like he sees himself – a protector of Shigaraki Tomura, although if there’s anyone you’re trying to protect, it’s Shimura Tenko, your best friend. Your best friend, who’s in a lot more trouble than you thought he was.
You’re standing in the middle of an alley. You need to get moving before someone peeks in here and starts asking questions. You slide your phone out of your pocket, raise it to your ear, and lower it as you step back out into the flow of traffic on the sidewalk, like you were taking a call that just ended. Your apartment’s not far away, so you’ll get there, and then you can think about all of this. The villains – the date – the scars on Tenko’s arm that look too much like yours – the scratching that didn’t start until after the hand covered his face. The hand he calls Father.
And that’s when you realize what it reminded you of, what happened when Kurogiri told Tenko his master was waiting for him. He was himself when you spoke to him, even after he put the hand back over his face – right down to how he reacted when his master called for him. Because his reaction looked the same as his reaction to his father calling for him when the two of you were kids.
You had a bad feeling about Tenko’s master, and now it’s worse. You have a bad feeling about what your involvement with Tenko means now, because he wants you to back him up when it comes to dealing with other villains, to take the de-escalation and conflict resolution skills you learned the hard way and put them to use keeping a band of villains together under Tenko’s control. You have a bad feeling because Tenko’s told you to find a disguise, to hide your identity like the villain you aren’t. You aren’t a villain. Are you?
Maybe you aren’t a villain – yet, a voice in your head whispers, you aren’t a villain yet – but there’s something wrong with you. There must be. Because knowing all that, knowing that you’re getting drawn further into Tenko’s plans, doesn’t do a thing to dampen your excitement at the thought that he wants to go on dates with you. That he likes you. That your best friend, who you always thought you’d have developed a crush on if the two of you had gotten to grow up together, might feel the same about you as you do about him.
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◭𝑳𝒊𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒔◮
༻༺
Rs: Tomura Shigiraki(Tenko) x GN!reader (afab/amab)
Warnings:
Major character death, sexual depiction, NSFW,
unrequited love?, blood,
betrayal, avoidant attachment
Summary: You, number three hero encounters Shigiraki on multiple occasions. Sometimes the people around you aren't always what they seem.
wc: 1.9k
A/N: justice for Tenko! :(
༻༺
When Shigiraki saw you for the first time, he wanted to kill you almost immediately.
You were a pro-hero, a strong one to be in-fact. You were there at the USJ when it attacked, protecting the students. Your sense of reassurance kept the students calm and he didn't like that. He wanted everyone to be in fear, even you.
When he wasn't watching Eraserhead get obliterated by Nomu, he would glance at you just to see your reaction. Your face had drained of color and it had a sickening wrinkle to it, it made him smile.
Those stupid students just had to get in the way, along with All Might. He swore he felt his face get hot when he saw you cradling Eraserhead. That longing look on your face told him everything.
And when everything at the USJ didn't go according to plan, he swore one day, just one day, he'd get you when he came back.
Unfortunately, you weren't at the training camp. But he managed to capture one of UA's first years, one who achieved top high score and stood out from the rest because of his power. Katsuki Bakugou.
The capture of a student had you enraged, you being one of the many heroes who came to their hideout. It seemed not only Eraserhead was important to you, but this student too? Maybe he was a pupil.
He was grinning ear to ear when he saw your face that was twisted in anger, but you were composed. His stomach made five backflips when you had pinned him against the counter while he was caged by Kamui's wooden chain prison. He nearly started laughing when he saw a Nomu throw you to the ground, breaking maybe two or three ribs?
Later then, when All for One lost a fight with All Might, he took a stroll through Deika City with a black hoodie to cover his face. He's thought of killing the civilians around him. To create massacre. But he honestly didn't expect you to exit through a bakery store, bumping into him.
"Ah... My apologies." You bow respectfully towards him, a weak smile displayed on your face. Your breath hitches when you see his face. He would've thought you'd recognize him but oddly enough, you didn't. You just kept staring at him and it made him uncomfortable. "It's fine," he waves towards you, shoving a hand back in his pocket.
He watches the way you scratch your cheek as your face turns pink. "So... what's your name?" He just stares at you. Are you really trying to get to know him? "Tenko. Tenko Shimura," he dryly says. His real name leaves a sour taste in his mouth. "My name is (Y/N). (Y/N) (L/N)." You hold your hand out towards him.
He doesn't return it.
You awkwardly laugh, quickly taking the hand back to rub the back of your head. "Well! Uh.. I'll see you around? Wait- uh.. maybe exchange numbers..? Or socials! Either one!"
He chuckles at the way you get flustered before giving you his number. Why did he do it? His encounter with you was all he could think about. Maybe getting to know you was good. Maybe it could help the league and give them the upper hand. His thoughts are put to a quick stop when he hears a 'ding' from his phone.
Weird pro ଓ!
hi! It's (Y/N) from earlier. :)
Do you remember me? Pro-hero from the bakery?
ヾ(^-^)ノ
He snorts at your message before typing.
Tenko ঞ
Yeah. I remember you.
He stares at his text message, debating on whether he should send another. When he starts to type, your message pops up again.
Weird pro ଓ!
I was wondering if you wanted to grab some coffee in the morning? ٩( ᐛ )و
He cocks an eyebrow at your text. He starts to debate again. Should he? Maybe he should. Just for the sake of the league, right?
Tenko ঞ
Yeah. Sure.
Don't you have to do your pro-hero stuff?
Weird Pro ଓ!
Well.. Yeah! But I'm pretty sure I have time in the morning. Is 9:10 okay? At the coffee shop by the bakery.
If not, we could just do 10 or 11 :)
Tenko ঞ
Yeah, no. It's fine at 9:10.
Weird pro ଓ!
Okay! Goodnight, Tenko.
Tenko ঞ
👍🏻.
You sigh when you see his 'thumbs up' text, pouting. What a bummer. A cute guy like him seemed like he didn't want your company. But hey, at least he's going? You just hope he was going because he wanted to, not reluctantly.
You arrive at the exact time, checking your phone. Your eyes lit up when his message pops up.
Tenko ঞ
Look to your right.
As you did so, you meet his eyes. He was sitting at a booth with tiramisu sitting in the middle of the table, wearing the same black hoodie as the day before. "Hey! What's this?" You sit down in front of him, licking your lips. He notices. "It's tiramisu. Italian desert," he mutters. "Can.. Can I have a bite?" Your cheeks slightly turn pink, eyeing the dish below. He starts to think you're cute. "Yeah, go ahead. I bought it for us to eat anyway."
You dig out a spoon from the folded napkin, quickly scooping out a piece, hesitant to envelop it in your mouth. He's just watching you eat. It was kind of embarrassing to be honest. You take it in your mouth anyway, eyes lighting up the room. "Wow, I- it's so delicious!" You quickly scoop another, shoving it in your mouth. You do another until both of your cheeks were perfectly round, resembling a squirrel.
Your eyes glitter in excitement. "Ith sho goof!"
His lips twitches upward, almost snickering. He fiddles with the lint in his pocket before putting it upon himself to grab a utensil, putting a spoonful of the desert in his mouth. He nearly perks up. You weren't lying when you said it was good.
Blood rushes to his ears when you swallow, licking off the remaining whip cream around your lips.
"So.. Shimura."
He freezes when he hears his surname roll out of your mouth, looking up at you when you smile sweetly at him.
"What are your hobbies? Do you have a quirk?"
He hears a few bystanders in the café comment about you, pro hero (Y/N) being on a date. His ears turn hot at that but he pays no mind. "Uh.. I play games.."
He pauses, hanging his head low before giving you a grim look. "I can tell you about my quirk another time.
You slightly flinch when he stares at you with his red eyes in some certain way which had you grow a small uneasy feeling. He sort of looked familiar. It was off-putting. "I see. Well.. As you know me, I'm pro-hero #3! I like to draw on my free time sometimes. Or just go out shopping." You awkwardly chuckle, looking away to pretend that small weird moment ever happened. Shigiraki sits up straight, slightly scratching his wrist. "Is that so? How much do you like your hero job?"
"Well... Not a lot, but I do like it.
Don't tell anybody this but.."
You lean in over the table, a finger over your mouth with a hushed voice.
"Sometimes I wish I didn't join the hero's side." Shigiraki's eyes go wide at your statement, nails halting to a quick-stop.
You blink before quickly sitting back, waving your hands around defensively. "Not that I'm saying I would join the villain side! But.. Just to live a normal life.. y'know? The burden of being a hero.. It's a lot. Of course I love saving lives but.. Should I have to risk my own? I want to live my life too.."
You mutter under your breath, laying your head to the side on your arm, playing with the spoon. "I just want to live a normal life. Get married, have kids, and grow old. I can't help but be selfish." His breath hitches when you look up at him with a hopeful expression before sighing, sitting up straight again, stretching. "But a person can dream, am I right?" You wink at him, your usual smile spreading on your face.
Shigiraki stares at you, completely surprised. He had absolutely no idea on what to say. You? Number three hero wants to quit hero life? He doesn't know if he wants to do this anymore. "Yeah..." Time passes as you two continue to talk. He doesn't share a lot of information about his life.
He checks his phone. 10:14 AM.
"I think.. we should go. It's 10:14."
You blink at him in surprise before chuckling, rubbing your head. "Wow.. Is it really? I gotta get to work soon anyways before the media starts talking about me stalling on some hero duty bullshit.." You mutter, yawning. His lips twitches upwards again when he hears you curse.
Next thing he knew, the both of you started to go out more often, starting to call them dates. And after that, he would end up in your bed.
"T-Tenko!" You whimper, clutching onto his back. You drag your nails down his back, leaving red marks behind. Shigiraki huffs, slamming into you at a constant brutal pace.
"ffuckk.." Shigiraki's lips meets yours, muffling your whines and moans, balling his fists tightly at the sides of your head. He disconnects his lips from yours before thrusting in you one last final time, grinding his hips deeply before completely bottoming out. Your thighs shake from the high, shudders escaping you when his his lips ghosts over your throat.
"Tenko.. I.." You choke out, pulling him closer.
"I love you, Tenko." You whisper against his shoulder, closing your eyes. You both lay there for a few minutes. And when he doesn't respond, you slowly start getting anxious. "Tenko..?" You gasp when he pulls out with a 'pop', getting off the bed to put his clothes on. You watch him in awe as he pulls up his pants, saying nothing at all. Of course he didn't have to say anything back but could you really help it after all this time of spending time together? You thought he would've at least felt something as you did.
Your eyes follow him when he goes to the door. "Tenko?"
You're met with silence when he looks back at you one more time, his face turned into a solemn expression. When he leaves, he quietly shuts the door; leaving you alone.
You felt so naked. You felt stupid. How could you possibly think a guy like him would've actually feel for you that way? He was childish. Rude. Ignorant. Irrational. How could you even fall for him? You sob, throwing punches at your head. Why did you ever even try?
Your heart literally breaks into two when you found out Tenko Shimura was Shigiraki this whole time. Your head went into spirals, his whole being breaking your soul.
So when you went on the battlefield, you both fought. But of course, you lost. Was it all on vain? To die in his arms?
He stares blankly into yours with wide eyes, a few hair strands falling past his cheek. You were slowly dying, parts of your body decaying away by the touch of his fingers. He was holding you in his arms, cradling you close. "Tenko..
I love you." Words he was most afraid of escape past your lips. His hand that was coated in your blood reaches up to your cheek, that part decaying too. He squeezes his eyes shut. He wish he could cry. He really does, but he can't.
"I love you too."
༻༺
A/N:
EDIT: man I really gotta stop making the tragic loved ones stop saying I love you in the end.
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