"Thanks for fixing me up doc, if you ever need anything just ask," the man huffed as he stretched his newly healed arm, testing the limits of the muscle and skin you had just spent so much time skillfully piecing back together.
You had to refrain from scoffing at the display, you do the equivalent of a modern day miracle and here he was doubting your work.
"Funny, don't think you're the type of guy I'd run to in need of a favor" you practically mumbled as you eyed him.
The man,Yamaguchi, was a local kingpin after all, definitely not the type of guy you'd want to be indebted to for whatever reason. You definitely didn't want to be entangled in his world anymore than you already were either. You'd been tasked with fixing him up a few times over the years and each time he seemed to be brought back to you more beat up and mangled than before.
"Come on now, you know me," and don't you wish you didn't, maybe then you wouldn't have to spend so much time putting him back together every other week like some absurd jigsaw puzzle. After getting so mangled time and time again you'd have thought he'd hang up his title and get out of the seedy underbelly of the city while he still had all his limbs attached. Somewhere along the lines you'd probably fucked up, he probably was under the impression you'd always be there to piece him back together again."I ain't that bad of a guy."
You couldn't stop the scoff at that statement, "Nah, just a morally and ethically questionable one. No?"
You'd seen what Yamaguchi and his syndicate did to people who crossed them, you'd also seen all the havoc he'd brought into the community with all the drug trafficking and racketeering that had exploded in the area the moment he had decided to set foot into the ward. Of course the community had never been perfect, there had always been crime and with it gangs and syndicates looking to flip a dollar were never too far off, but since he came around with the new drugs he had brought with him it seemed as if all of the factions in the area had upped their antics in order to try and compete. It made you wonder the type of people he'd deem worse than him.
You were positive they existed, the man in front of you was no saint but Yamaguchi had never gone out of his way to hurt people uninvolved with his business and doings - something he eagerly reminded you of each time you saw him. You'd counter with the fact that he indirectly had involved countless people due to how interpersonal drugs and violence can be but he always shrugged it off with a wave of his hand and an insistence you were caught up in semantics. Either way. the fact your local boogeyman was saying he wasn't nearly as awful as he could be had you wondering of the types of characters he must have dealt with on the regular to give him the impression that he 'wasn't that bad of a guy'.
"Look at that," Yamaguchi exclaimed to one of his lackeys that had been sitting in the room while you worked on him, "she's starting to learn." The other man had been one you saw frequently during your visits. He was built more like a mountain than an actual human and his face was always frozen in what you assumed to be a permanent scowl at this point. A word had never been said between the two of you and you had been more than happy to keep things that way. He was there to make sure you didn't kill his boss after all, you'd seen the muscles in his face and arms twitch a time or two, usually when you'd said something that could've easily provoked your patient, and you'd felt your life flash before your eyes each time. Making his acquaintance wasn't exactly high on your to-do list….
You'd had similar conversations with the kingpin before when you were patching him up, honestly you were surprised he hadn't just killed you for your statements or questions. You'd heard of people dying for less when interacting with people like him and your mama always did say your mouth was going to be the death of you. Surprisingly, however, he seemed more amused by your comments than anything else. Each one always brought some odd look of glee and satisfaction to his face, and he'd always eagerly entertain your statements and do his best to incite a whole conversation with you.
Yamaguchi was talkative for a drug lord in your humble opinion, he seemed more than willing to tell you any and everything with little to no insistence on your part. He his nothing from you, often giving you names of specific people he worked with or police stations and hero agencies he'd paid off, or times and dates he'd be somewhere to pick up his product or who his distributors were. It was the type of information heroes and detectives across the country would give an arm and a leg for and here he was just tossing it out without a care in the world.
You'd wondered how he lasted as long as he had with such a loose tongue. You'd seen plenty of people come and go doing this type of business, what usually did them in is that they told the wrong person the wrong thing. However, from what you could see Yamaguchi ran a tight ship, and if something were to slip they'd know you were the snitch - with him having planted some of his own men in local police forces if you had even thought of giving them information he'd know the second you walked through the police station door. It seemed money and having the right people on his bankroll was able to solve any problem Yamaguchi had even if they were caused by his own negligence.
"Well if that's all...," you said as you began to collect your things and move towards the door. Your patience that day had been tried and tested and you had no interest in entertaining this conversation with the drug lord any longer. You had been on your way home before some of his lackeys had tracked you down and demanded you give their boss a house call. All you had really been wanting to do since stepping foot into the room had been to high tail it out of there and get home to your loving bed that was waiting for you.
"Yeah, yeah," Yamaguchi said waiving an arm in your direction, "I can have some of my men take you home," he suggested, "it's getting late, the regulators are gunna be out soon."
"No, no, no," you quickly interjected, "Thanks for the offer but it's fine. They won't bother me none."
The thought of having to share a small space with some men, all on high protein diets and prone to violence, didn't really sound like a good time to you even if it was just for a few moments. Besides, regulators in the area had learned to avoid hassling you if they wanted their friends or themselves to be patched up so you'd much rather take your chances walking home. It was just a few blocks away from where you currently were, practically a hop and a skip - you'd be home in no time, probably before the street lamps finally came on.
"Suit yourself," he relented easily enough, "but I don't know how I'll be able to focus on my work when I'm worried my sweet little doctor had to walk home all by herself."
Having the kingpin joke with you and talk so familiarly with you had been alarming when it first started happening. You remember how you had practically choked on your own spit the first time it happened from the shock of it all. However, now it was nothing new.
"My heart bleeds for you," you said with a roll of you eyes and a slight wave in goodbye as his laughter followed you as you eagerly made your exit.
Finally making it back to the outside world you let out a breath you hadn't known you'd been holding and all the tension in your shoulders seemed to melt away. You'd been dealing with folks like him for years now, hell living in this ward you'd grown up with plenty of the folk. That was probably what caused you so much anxiety, at least with others in the area you had grown up with them and there seemed to be a mutual understanding of what you would and wouldn't tolerate. With Yamaguchi, however, there were just too many variables at play, you didn't know him like you knew the others and that's what made working with him so dangerous.
Kicking a small pebble along on your walk home you couldn't help but get annoyed that the only reason you had to interact with the man was entirely your fault. You had been the one to want to start using your quirk for people in the community. That had been entirely your idea after all, Yamaguchi was just using a service you freely offered to people in the area.
Growing up in the ward, there had always been a lack of decent medical care for its residents. There were no doctor's offices or clinics present, hell the closest hospital was twenty or thirty minutes away depending on if you took public transportation to get there or not. Most medical institutions were unwilling to set up facilities in the area due to the high levels of crime and villain activity and the inability of the local government or hero agency's to control it. You supposed you could understand an outside perspective somewhat, going to work in this ward and having to deal with trauma patients day in and day out would get taxing, not to mention expensive for the institution. With the median income for the ward being well below the national average that only further incentivised the medical field to avoid the place. They weren't interested in helping unless they were going to be making money off of it. Clinics and the likes had been started by members of the community to try and combat the issue but with how underfunded and high in demand they were it wasn't long until the clinics had become unable to keep up with the pressure and eventually it's doors would close. You had seen numerous preventable illnesses spread like wildfire throughout the community as well as individuals in pain and suffering from injuries or conditions that could be easily treated if they were able to get to a hospital, or doctor, or somebody.
It rattled you to your core on occasion when you thought of just how neglected and disposable to people of the ward were being treated.
With your quirk you knew you could help alleviate that struggle, at least a little bit so a little over three years ago that's what you started doing. It had first started with just your neighbors in your apartment complex, you had offered to give them check ups and fix whatever you could fix during certain times and days should they choose to seek you out - no questions asked or judgements made on how or why there were certain injuries that looked to be results of activity in violent crimes. Soon enough, word had spread about your work and how you were willing to keep quiet on certain things and next thing you know you're basically the resident doctor and taking care of bullet wounds or quirk related injuries occured as often for you as treating a child's cold.
You just wanted to get these people on their feet and feeling better again. There wasn't much you could do to try and help aside from that, you weren't a cop or a hero, you were just...well not a doctor either but your quirk sure as hell made you qualified enough in your own right to stick to just healing the body and mind- you didn't know how to do anything else.
Sometimes you would be able to bargain with some of the syndicates, it was never a good situation and you felt like an idiot sticking your neck out and just hoping it wouldn't get removed from your shoulders. However, for the most part, while they weren't very eager and you had been on your fair share of threats of violence for it, they had agreed to your terms however begrudgingly. So far you'd manage to make them agree to only having their regulators out after the street lamps came on - giving enough time for children or the elderly or anyone else to get inside so they didn't become collateral in some turf war or dispute between factions. You'd also managed to get some to agree to keep away from certain areas, naimly school's, religious institutions and playgrounds. Both cases had you nearly at your wits end dealing with the various leaders and higher ups of each syndicate but eventually a majority of them had agreed to the terms you required in order for you to keep fixing up their people.
It wasn't as if these were wild terms to agree to to begin with, many members of these organizations lived in the area and had a family or loved one's in the area who they wanted to protect. In the end, even if it did disrupt their business or how they handled things - it seemed most of them could acknowledge that changing the way things were done could prevent them from losing someone they cared about so it had been enough of an incentive, on top of a pretty much guaranteed one stop shop for healing any would, for them to agree. A few cases here and there had them going against the terms but honestly you were just happy something had changed, even if just a little.
At the end of the day these people were your patients, if you agreed with everything they did was besides the point. You had just grown so tired of seeing people hurt and sick when you knew you could do something to stop it. Even still, at this point if you denied your services you're fairly certain you and the people you care for would quickly become a target, you didn't want to be endorsing their behavior - not even passively- but you were in far too deep at this point to back out now. All because you had to go and stick your nose into other people's business.
'The road to hell is paved with good intentions all that,' you couldn't help but think bitterly as you practically had to drag yourself home. Yamaguchi had been your fifth patient that day, not to mention you had been at work for eight hours prior, needless to say you were exhausted. Your quirk didn't have too bad of side effects for you, you had healed people with much worse, but it sure as hell left you drowsy beyond all belief. There were only two more blocks until you could finally fall into the comfort of your bed. That was the only thought motivating you enough to actually keep moving and not crash where you stood. Just two more blocks and you could finally wrap yourself in your favorite most plush blanket and have yourself a well deserved siesta.
Your daydreams about the rondevu with your bed were interrupted when you heard the sounds of shuffling followed by what sounded like metal banging together and a low groan. Your face fell and you cursed whatever god had decided to give you a far too curious and altruistic nature.
A few feet ahead of you was the entrance to an alley you passed everyday on your walk to and from work. There was no doubt in your mind the noise had come from there and that those groans were definitely groans of pain. Dealing with as many injured people as you did the sound became pretty easy to distinguish for you. However, you stayed firmly planted where you stood.
To help, or not to help. Now there was a question that could potentially be the death of you. This could just be a front, some people could just be waiting on some air head with far too kind of a heart to help someone in need only to end up jumping them and robbing them. Realistically, even if it wasn't a front, this person wasn't your responsibility. It was far more likely you didn't know them and had no ties or obligation to them. You were just some civilian heading home, things didn't need to be more complicated than that.
Or at least that's what you tried to tell yourself. No matter how hard you tried to convince yourself it wasn't any of your business the thought of just walking away left you downright nauseous and had your gut twisted in the worst of ways.
"If this is how I die, I swear to god…," you grumbled to yourself as you inched your way towards the mouth of the dark alleyway. Here you were knownlingly walking straight in to some cliche out of a movie script. How many times had you yelled at the T.V. telling the actor to just mind their own business and keep it movin? Yet here you were, you were stupid for doing this. Whoever was hurting had crawled into an alley for a reason, they obviously didn't want to be found. Who were you to deny them their privacy?
As you peered around the corner, the fading light of sun and the overhanging shadows of the buildings caused you to have to squint just the slightest in order to make out the figure hunched over by a dumpster and some garbage bags tossed haphazardly near it. They were hunched over and facing away from you, they seemed to be using one arm on the dumpster to keep themselves somewhat standing with their other arm pressed into their side to, what you could only assume would be an attempt to, apply pressure to a wound. You couldn't make much out from their appearance, just that they stood a good few inches taller than you and that they appeared to be a man.
"Hello," you called out taking a step into the space. You've approached strangers in dark alleys before due to your work, some in these types of situations tended to be volatile or hostile so you were a bit weary of getting too close. You were fairly confident you could handle yourself, your quirk could damage people just as well as it could fix them and with them being injured it would be more difficult for them to try and pull something fast by you. However, people in these situations were unpredictable, adrenaline without a doubt flooding their system and their mind racing a mile a minute, there was no real way of knowing if they would attack you or not until they did it.
The moment the word had passed your lips their head had whipped up at the sound so quickly you were slightly concerned they may get whiplash from the action. Bright turquoise eyes had turned to face you and suddenly all of the anxiety you should've been feeling before came bubbling to the surface. The eyes were focused solely on you with such an intense look it had been damn near overwhelming, you were rooted in your spot for a moment before you were able to recollect yourself and remember just what it was you were doing in this damp and dark alleyway to begin with.
"You're hurt," you had meant for it to be a question but looking at the man the pain he was undeniable. His breathing seemed labored and heavy and blood soaked through his clothing, if it was his or not you could exactly tell. However, the way his face was screwed up and how he seemed to be gritting his teeth told you all you needed to know.
You held your hands up in what you hoped he'd take as a non-threateningly gesture, it was so hard in this day and age of quirks to know what gestures would signal an attack, as you took a few small steps towards him.
He gave a sudden jerky movement, if he meant to move towards you or away from you - you weren't exactly sure, but his legs gave out from under him soon enough and he let out a mumbled expletive as he fell back against the dumpster. His breathing devolved into a series of labored wheezing and coughs and it was clear that this man wasn't moving by himself any time soon.
"I can help you," you said in what you hoped was a calm and confident tone. You weren't so sure anymore. Your heart rate had spiked from his quick movement, you don't know this man or if he had a quirk that was dangerous, and your tongue felt heavy and your mouth dry as you took another few steps towards him. You still had your hands raised as you approached him like you would a wounded animal. He certainly looked the part, disheveled as he was and his eyes sharp and wild looking as they were.
When you were less than a few feet from him, he had raised the arm that had been against his side and a bright blue flame erupted from his hand. It hadn't been enough to touch you or harm you, but you could feel the sweltering heat from where you stood. The warning in the action was clear.
He went to say something but his body was soon overcome with a coughing fit that had the fire extinguished and him doubled over again. You took the opportunity to go to his side and help support him as you assessed his condition.
"Look I don't care why you wound up beat to shit and left in a pile of trash, that's not important," this speil had practically become second nature to you, as if you were on autopilot as the hand you had placed on his back and the one on his injured side began to glow with the activation of your quirk. Plenty of patients you had to deal with had been far more hostile than he was being, you took what little comfort you could from that fact, "Just let me help you and after we can both pretend like this never happened."
Your quirk allowed you to manipulate the biological structure of organic matter, while the practical uses were far more reaching than fixing body tissues or helping fight off illness you had never cared to use it to harm another unless given no other option. Taking his quietness and lack of resistance as a good sign for future cooperativeness, you used your quirk to feel about the various tissues and cells in his body and quickly the issue became apparent. Aside from some cuts and bruises he had traumatic pneumothorax. A blow to his chest undoubtedly had resulted in a few ribs breaking and one of them had punctured his lung causing it to collapse.
"Look, I'm sure you could've guessed but you're not really in a good way right now," you began as you started to gather the energy you needed to heal his injuries, "Pretty uncomfortable right? Well, I can help you out and you can walk out of this alley yourself or i can happily leave your ass here. You'll probably die of fluid build up in the lung but shock is also a bitch to deal with, but with how heavy you're breathing you also seem to be having trouble getting enough oxygen so passing out before all of that is pretty likely," you said. You didn't normally like talking with patients in such a tone but with the more hostile and bullheaded one's it tended to get them to listen to reason, "We can do that or I can help you out of the goodwill of my heart, but you just can't go about setting me on fire, alright?"
You searched his eyes for any sign of aggression or resistance. You really hoped the idiot just sucked up his pride and agreed. It really wouldn't sit right with your conscious to just leave him here.
He seemed to debate it for a moment before giving a less than enthusiastic nod. It was more than enough for you and you let out a breath you hadn't realized you had been holding. Relief flooded your system that he agreed to cooperate and that you could do your job and didn't have to worry about if he was gunna reduce you to a pile of ashes or not.
However, just when you had gathered the energy needed to begin healing his more serious injuries his free hand suddenly grabbed one of your own. You couldn't fight back the flinch as his quick movement startled you. So much for cooperative..
Playing hot and cold with someone on their death bed wasn't exactly how you had imagined your night going and if he was just going to keep this up he could get himself out of this situation. "Look, If you don't want me to-" you began irritable.
"They're going to come looking for me…" he said between his heavy breathing. His voice deep and gravely as it grated on your senses that where already overstimulated from the adrenaline pumping through your system due to how fond he seemed to keep giving you jump scares.
You considered your options and couldn't stop your hand from running down your face as you realized there really was only one in this situation. "Normally I have men buy me a drink before I take them home…," you sighed. Well you supposed the other option could just be to cut your losses and leave him here. To bad your mother raised you to be a decent human.
Hauling him to his feet was a difficult task, but not impossible. Luckily he wasn't heavily built but unluckily he was much taller. One of his arms was slung around your frame as he leaned over you with your arm wrapped around his waist to keep him propped up. His face was practically buried in your hair and he was hunched over due to the height difference, but it would have to do. As you made your way to the last block towards your apartment it probably just looked like you were helping him home after a...Wednesday afternoon spent drinking. A bit odd but not entirely out of place in this ward.
You tried to move him as gently as possible but you really didn't want to be out on the street with him like this any longer than necessary. Drawing any type of attention to yourself would surely get a regulator's attention and depending on who had fucked him up so badly things could get ugly from there quickly. You could tell he tried to restrain his groans as shudders raked through his body from the jostling the walking did to his ribs.
By some miracle you had made it to your apartment complex without anyone stopping you on the walk over and you wanted to cry in relief at the fact none of your neighbors were out and about. Getting him inside the apartment had been a cakewalk outside of the shuffling for your keys. You're pretty sure he had let out a chuckle at your groans of annoyance at having to fiddle with the lock and twist the door knob this way and that to get the damn thing to actually open, but you couldn't be sure.
You mourned for your couch as you laid him down on it and began to work your magic. He was covered in grime and dirt and a few blood stains, getting all of that out was going to be a pain in the ass. You had bought it new and everything, what a shame.
You were quick to get to work, your hands glowing and illuminating the dark room as you set about putting him back together, and thankfully he didn't seem too intent on stopping you anymore.
You made quick work repairing the damaged cells and clearing his body of debre and fluids so that the tissues of the lung could repair and the bone could be shifted back into place and fixed. At some point between you starting and ending the healing process he had fell unconscious. You weren't sure if it was the shock and fatigue finally setting in or if he had been worn out from whatever fight he had been in but you were thankful to be saved from what would've probably been an awkward conversation after you had finished.
Taking a moment to breath you leaned back and you were finally able to actually observe just who it was that was posted up on your couch. His eyes had been the only thing you had focused on before, they had been so striking in his intensity, but now that you were finally able to actually see him, even in the darkness that had enveloped the room due to you not turning on the light when you rushed him inside, you noted just how striking the rest of his features were.
He had what looked to be burn marks long since scarred over that left a purpilish color covering a majority of the visible skin you could see. Surgical staples seemed to be holding the scarred tissue to the undamaged skin and you wondered vaguely if you should go about healing those wounds as well. His hair was dark and disheveled with sweat sticking it to his forehead. You had seen his face screwed up in pain since you first laid eyes on him but here, sleeping as deeply as he was, you were able to truly see the various contours of his face so much more clearly.
You let out a soft hum in thought as you got up from your spot beside him and moved to get a blanket for him. You didn't have the heart to wake him up and kick him out after all of that, besides your bedroom door locked and any attempt to bust that in or burn it down would surely wake you up. It wasn't that big of a deal anyhow, plenty of patients as dangerous as him had spent the night before with little incident.
You quickly wrote down a note for him giving him your name and explaining the situation in case he woke up disoriented and left it on the coffee table in a way you would hope would get the stranger to notice it before he decided whether or not to burn your apartment down.
Throwing the blanket on him you were quick to exit the room as if you were the one intruding and make your way to your bedroom. Hopefully you'll be able to get some sleep before your shift early in the next morning.