warnings: discussion of child abuse
because we have sought to cover up past evil
Naomasa Tsukauchi's coffee is tepid, over brewed and barely palatable. He drains the mug anyway, bitter granules and all, only just resisting the temptation to scowl at the file currently splayed across his own desk and half the neighbouring one.
It's been a while since he's worked on a case this tragic. Mother deceased, father incapable of caring for his young children. One brother missing, another comatose, and the third likely alone in the world.
The kid had looked like he'd known it too, in the car.
Naomasa stares at the papers laid before him. Missing isn't exactly conceivable; not after all this time. Expecting a positive resolution to a thirteen year old kidnapping case is a fool's errand, the hopeless optimism of a rookie officer, and Naomasa has no such illusions; not anymore.
His confidence wanes further when he considers the timescale—the three year old child of a family with a rich, famous history of powerful quirks, stolen from his home within days of his own quirk manifesting.
The entire, sordid tale has him written all over it, and the implications that his reach had extended so thoroughly beyond Japan is—
It's chilling, because it's been more than a year and Naomasa still dreams about his friend's broken, bloodied body. How many lives have been at the mercy of that man's destruction, who'd seemingly had the entire world at his feet?
A photo of the toddler sits atop one of the files, revealing a beaming smile and bright, golden eyes. It's painful, imagining that light snuffed out.
"Looks like a job for social services, Detective."
Officer Tamakawa raises a whiskered brow over his fresh—okay, Naomasa might have to fight him over that—mug of coffee.
"We are a social service."
Of a sort anyway.
"Someone's pulled a string, somewhere," his subordinate narrows his eyes. "So who's the puppeteer?"
"Eraserhead called," Naomasa presses a hand against his brow, because damn it, he's bloody tired, but if Aizawa thinks this is necessary, it probably is. "Apparently, I'm the string."
"No shit," Tamakawa frowns at the mess, contemplative. "Well, I mean, if it was him... Mind if I take a look?"
Naomasa stands immediately, because coffee. break. "Be my guest. I should warn you though, it's a heavy one."
It sure is weighing on Naomasa, at any rate.
"You know, I figured," Tamakawa says drily, picking up one of the files to flick through it. "You never do end up with the easy cases, Tsukauchi. It's all work and no play with you."
"Just do your job, Tama," Naomasa heads to the door, giving his subordinate a final, no less than genial, look, before slipping into the empty hallway and heading in the direction of the office breakroom. He glances at the document he'd swiped from his desk, the edges of stiff paper digging into his palm.
There's a number and a name: Izumi Curtis, social worker. Assigned watch over the Elric brothers after the boys' father began showing signs of alcoholism and neglect. Nasty, nasty case, really, because if Aizawa is to be believed, Van Elric never recovered, despite reports stating otherwise.
He'll stop by the coffee machine later, he decides.
He has a call to make.
Shouta Aizawa is no stranger to the dregs of society. He works at night, cloaked in the shadows of back alleys, hiding in the musty corners of darkened warehouses. When he finally sleeps, the atrocities he's witnessed leave him gasping awake, soaked with sweat and pulse thrumming. Hizashi wakes with him, a cool hand pressing against his brow, whispering comfort that Shouta can barely hear over his thudding heart.
Rape. Human trafficking. Drug deals gone south. It only takes one moment; a frightened almost-child clutching a gun, in too deep to ask for help. It takes one startle, one sudden movement, before that same child shoots himself, shoots someone else. Shouta has seen this time and time again. It's never justified.
He's bitterly aware of the irony; that most monsters are not born, but made; that the very people he is paid to take down have likely been shunned, walking a shadowed path before they'd even had the chance to decide who they wanted to be. In a fair world, they would be the protected, rather than the perpetrators.
But this world is not a fair one, and a monster made by man is still a monster. Maybe Shouta is playing into his own role in society; but the alternative is watching death occur before his eyes, and then turning away to enjoy his ignorance. He thinks that would be worse.
Shouta is an underground hero by choice. His quirk isn't exactly suited for daytime heroism. Erasure works best when he can get the drop on his opponents, and for that he prefers anonymity and a low enough level of light to obscure his presence. He doesn't have the temperament for the limelight, nor the patience for the resultant media circus. It's no secret that, after pro heroics, journalism has one of the highest fatality rates of any given career. Most of those casualties are kids, fresh out of university and high on the immortality of youth. Life's still a game at that age, and it only takes the one civilian, running towards a fight instead of away like they should be, before there's another dead body; another tragedy.
There are enough horrors in the world without throwing more fuel to the flames. Shouta considers the spectacle made of villain fights to be something akin to gasoline.
Perhaps the horrors are more apparent to Shouta. It's always the worst sorts that come out at night, the ones that treat human life as an expendable resource, as though the very concept of life as a right is meaningless. The shadowed underbelly of society isn't always visible in the light of day. Most live their lives unaware of it's existence, or at the very least, wilfully ignorant. They don't see what Shouta sees. They don't know what it's like to see the dull eyes of a child unable to believe that someone has come to save them, because they've been taught not to trust. They don't see the cigarette burns, the tears tracking down their pale, scarred cheeks, the fear.
Shouta knew a child like that, once.
The hospital lights are dimmer than the usual overwhelming brightness and the squeaky linoleum tiles are coloured. Glancing at little Edward Elric, curled under those scratchy, starched sheets, tiny and afraid and so goddamn young, he hates the horrors that brought them here. The horrors today, and those of six years ago. This boy is far younger than the broken kid Shouta had known—had known when he was barely an adult himself, and isn't that a trip—but that hardly matters. Children are children. They're innocent and vulnerable, and this is a world that rips the vulnerable to pieces.
He leaves Hizashi with the kid. He's a comforting presence; a skill Shouta has had to learn, though he still falls short of his husband's natural talent.
He makes his way through the corridors, retracing the steps they'd taken to the children's ward. The walls become whiter and the lights horribly bright as he walks. The recovery ward isn't far, and he slows as he reaches the room he's looking for, reaching out a hand and knocking sharply on the door.
A hoarse, familiar voice invites him in.
Shouta turns the handle, pushing his way into the room with maybe a little more force than is strictly necessary. A young man rests against the pillowed headboard of a hospital bed, legs splayed out on top of stiff, unused sheets. His hair is matted with what Shouta thinks is dried blood, and there's a distinct burnt aroma that makes him recall the time Hizashi accidentally set fire to his shirtsleeve. The man's eyes are underscored by dark half-circles that only accentuate the exhaustion apparent in his slumped shoulders and rasping breaths. There's a small, metallic figurine set down on the mattress beside him, which Shouta mentally files away as strange, but not the most pressing thing right now.
"You look terrible," he blurts, before he can even think about stopping himself.
Roy Mustang blinks at him for a moment, the corner of his mouth tilting in amusement, "That's nice."
"I mean it," Shouta lopes over, dragging a chair to the side of the bed and slumping down in it. He narrows his eyes, staring at the younger man. There are scorch marks along his pale forearms, and it takes Shouta back to another place—to another time, when the burns were small and circular, and the man—kid, all those years ago—impossibly thin. "What happened?"
"You were there, weren't you?"
"Not until the end, and then they were carting you off."
Roy grimaces, and Shouta can see how his fists clench, nails digging into his palms, "There were two victims. A boy and—and his father, and I couldn't—they were in such bad shape I didn't think there was a chance of backup getting there on time," his face darkens, then, his eyes flickering with anger as he softly states, "They—they were the only occupants, and Shouta, he—that man was drunk. I'm almost certain of it."
A memory, the bruised, fearful face of a little boy, is brought abruptly to the forefront of his mind, and Shouta wonders if rage is catching.
"He was," he can't quite keep the sourness from his tone as he reclines in his chair, finding little support in the cheap plastic frame. "The child's brother admitted that much," he hesitates. He's here for a reason, and it's not to discuss that particular tragedy, however much he might want to. "The doctor told me you were brought in for smoke inhalation, Roy. How the hell did that happen to you?"
His friend winces.
A sense of foreboding begins to creep up on Shouta, "What did you do?"
"I had to," Roy shakes his head, a trembling hand rising to cover his face as he speaks. "I couldn't let them suffocate. But I was trying to pull oxygen away from the fire, and the flames wanted it just as badly as I did, and I guess—" he cuts himself off, huffing a humourless laugh. "Well I wasn't going to let the kid breathe in the smoke, and the fire was fucking eating everything. There was nothing else I could do."
There's always something, the teacher in Shouta wants to lecture. There's always something you can do besides hurting yourself.
But there's a time and a place for that conversation, and it isn't today, under the harsh blare of hospital lights. Shouta imagines smoke in his eyes, and flames at his back, standing between death and those fragile lives, and he understands.
Still. Smoke inhalation. How desperate had the situation become?
And for someone with an oxygen manipulation quirk to—
Wait.
"You used the air from your own lungs," he croaks, unable to keep emotion from bleeding into his tone, because that isn't okay. It's reckless and stupid, and—
He could've died.
"At the end," the words are spoken steadily, a hint of heated resolve buried within them. "For the kid."
"Don't do that again," Shouta pleads; unfairly, he already knows.
Roy's gaze turns steely, "You know I can't promise that."
They stare at each other, a silent impasse, before the younger of the two grimaces, glancing away. His tone is gruff when he finally speaks, giving voice to a question Shouta has been dreading, "The boy. They won't tell me anything. You said you spoke to a doctor, right? Did you find out what—"
"Yes," Shouta interrupts quickly, "but Roy—"
"I want to know."
Shouta swallows heavily, hating that he has to be the one to tell him—that the man has to be told at all, because this should never have happened. "Comatose. They say it's unlikely he'll recover."
"That's—" Roy's breathing stutters, his shoulders visibly stiffening, before bowing as though under a great weight. Unfiltered horror plays across his face, and Shouta can see the very moment he shuts it down, burying the cacophony of emotion under a shroud of blank detachment.
"It isn't your fault," Shouta offers gently.
Roy freezes, and Shouta can't help but feel like he's fucked up somehow. "No, I—" he blinks, something imperceptible in his dark eyes, the mask flickering ever so slightly. "God, Shou, it is. I should've called for backup. I would've been faster with only the kid—"
"You saved his father's life," Shouta reaches to grasp his friend's shoulder, and he shouldn't be shaking a hospital patient, but Roy's breaths are coming in quick, harsh gasps, and he needs to bring him back. "He's alive, you know. He's going to be fine. You kept that child oxygenated, which is all the ambulance crew were able to do anyway. It's all they've been able to do here. The kid was likely gone before you got there, and it's not—" he swallows, catching his own, startled breath, "it's not hopeless, okay? He isn't braindead. They've got him under observation, and they're still doing tests, but they know what caused it now. It was oxygen deprivation, Roy. If anything, your presence there is the reason he even has any hope," he pauses in his rigmarole, closing his eyes to dull the pounding in his head, "If you'd left the father, he'd have ended up like the boy—or worse. You made the right call."
He can feel the way Roy shifts under his grip, the way his shoulders finally relax. He can hear the trembling exhale and the soft curse he mutters, and when he opens his eyes he can see relief, amidst the grief and exhaustion of his friend's countenance.
Shouta understands. He can't even count the number of times he's needed to hear those words after a mission with a body count; needed to know that he'd done the right thing, that he'd been up against powerful enemies and impossible odds.
He understands the injustice. A man who has clearly done nothing but bring harm to his children has been given a second chance at life, while his own son is fated to suffer. A life has been saved, but he can see the sorrow in his friend's eyes, and he's sure it's reflected in his own. It feels very much as though the life saved was the wrong one, but—
Who are they, to decide who deserves to be saved?
"You made the right call," Shouta repeats, and his voice is steadier this time; surer. Good. "You did everything you could. Sometimes that's not going to be enough. It's not your fault when that happens."
There's a watery laugh, and he watches as Roy pulls away, swiping a fist under his eyes, before lifting his gaze to meet Shouta's own, "Once a teacher always a teacher, huh Shou?"
"I was never your teacher."
"But you still taught me things," he cracks a grin then, and Shouta blames Hizashi entirely when he says, "It's good to know you haven't lost your penchant for melodrama."
"Don't be a brat."
The laugh he receives in response is light, the smirk on Roy's face tinged with sincerity, and Shouta revels in the momentary win. In some ways, it's meaning reaches something beyond just a smile, because Shouta remembers everything.
He remembers who Roy Mustang used to be, remembers the day they met; Shouta was in his third year of UA, and Roy in his first.
He'd struggled that year, hardly able to even look at the younger students; kids full of optimism and naïve hope, because he'd see them and feel like crying, knowing that they were going to die, grinning the way Oboro had been, smiling, wide and frightened, still small—
But the scrappy little winner of the first years' sports festival had been so different. Shouta, along with everyone else in the stadium, had stared in shock as the young boy lifted a clenched hand, watching, waiting as each opponent quietly keeled over.
He'd won, of course, with that terrifying display of power, but there had been no light in his eyes.
Shouta found him shivering by the side of the school's running track three days later, bruised and blistered, covered in cigarette burns and flushed with obvious fever. His only friend, a bespectacled little kid from general education, had looked almost ready to bite Shouta when he'd tried to get closer.
Not once had Shouta looked at the younger boy and seen Oboro's bright eyes staring back at him.
"Where's he going to go?"
He startles, abruptly uprooted from his introspection. "What?"
Roy scoffs. "The kid," he emphasises, gesturing aimlessly with one hand. "The one you brought in. He'll be discharged soon, right? What's going to happen to him? You—" his voice breaks a little. "They won't give him back to his father will they?"
"Of course not," Shouta replies. "That's not how it works. He'll be arrested for neglect, at the very least—"
"It's not how it should work," Roy corrects, face dissolving into a scowl. "You know as well as I do that there are kids who fall through the cracks."
"We won't let that happen," this, at least, Shouta can assure. "Tsukauchi managed to get a hold of their case file. The kids have an uncle; their father's brother apparently. Estranged, but he's a doctor, so he's likely a semi-decent person. Tsukauchi is running the background check now. If it comes back clean and he agrees to sign the custody papers, that boy won't spend even a single night in foster care."
"And if it doesn't?" Roy presses, his dark eyes glittering with an emotion that Shouta can't quite place. "If he refuses?"
"Hizashi and I still have our licenses. We'll take the child until we can find him a more long term placement. It shouldn't take long."
"A foster family," Roy spits, like a curse.
"It'll be safe," Shouta tries. "We'll vet the family ourselves. You know we've never done anything less."
Roy shakes his head stiffly, "That's just the thing, it isn't safe. It can't be safe. You don't—" he grimaces, knuckles white around the bedding clenched in his fists. "You don't know what goes on behind closed doors. Sometimes it's impossible to know. People like that, they're good at lying, and they're good at making the kids lie too. Some of the children don't even know they're treated badly—" his voice begins to shake and he cuts himself off hastily, gaze lifting to meet Shouta's own.
Shouta senses a minefield. "What happened to you was wrong," he ventures, hesitantly, "but that doesn't mean the boy will suffer the same way. You don't need to—"
"This isn't about me," Roy's expression rapidly darkens.
"You're letting past experience cloud your judgement."
"And you are allowing ignorance to cloud yours. "
Shouta clamps his jaw shut, turning away in an effort to suppress his frustration. Quarrelling won't help anyone, least of all the kid. It's obvious to him that Roy is allowing his emotions to dictate his reasoning, but—
It's not as though he's necessarily wrong, either. There's just nothing they can do about it.
He exhales slowly, weariness sinking deep into his bones as he raises his eyes to meet his friend's dark gaze. "What do you suggest?"
Because it's easy enough to claim injustice, but it's so much harder to actually do anything about it. It's uncharacteristic of the younger man to fall into this trap, because Roy has always been the sort to actually think things through instead of rushing blindly into situations, which is as invaluable as it is rare when it comes to hero work, and has the added effect of making Dante one of the few pro heroes Shouta actually trusts in the field.
"If his uncle refuses to sign, I'll take the kid."
The words are laced with determination, and there's a spark in Roy's eyes that dares criticism. It's spoken quickly; a prepared response, and Shouta wonders if the man has been leading up to this all along.
It wouldn't surprise him.
But he trusts Roy to make the right call; has done so time and time again, under the worst of circumstances.
It's this, more than anything else, that has him sitting straight in his chair, eyes focused and judgement cast aside. Tsukauchi wants him back at the station soon, but there's time enough for this.
He pays no mind to the toy-like figurine, now clasped disturbingly between the young man's pale fingers; ignores the image of the broken ten year old, held by those hands in much the same way. It doesn't really matter, in the end, because—
"Convince me that this is a good idea, and I'll help you."
Notes:
Tsukauchi has stumbled upon a mystery...
Mustang is probably the closest thing Aizawa has to a bratty little brother.