Bakugou's a hardass.
Ah, home sweet home. I don't want to go back to the surface after what happened, but something tells me I'll have to someday. Anyway, we got back okay, and that's what matters. The documents should be useful to Kuzmich, and I'll have to see what he really needs them for. For now though, we have to worry about the bandit. Polis is strict, if not violent, when it comes to bandits. Having him cooperate with our plan should be number one on our priority list, but I think having him not blow up Polis should come first.
The trio made it back to Polis Station in one piece just as the sun disappeared from the horizon, much to their relief. The presence of their "comrade" was questioned by the Polis guards at first, but Kirishima made up a story of the bandit being a Stalker they found in the Library; convinced, the Polis guards let them through and Kirishima offloaded him to Polis' infirmary while Midoriya gave the documents to Kuzmich which he was paid a hefty sum of five-hundred bullets for.
After having his dinner, which was comprised of an amalgam of pork and mushrooms, Midoriya went to the infirmary to check up on the familiar bandit, and the curly haired boy sat on a bench beside his bed. The bandit rested peacefully on the bed with a blanket draped up to his neck while a heartrate monitor intermittently beeped, showing that he's still alive.
Polis' infirmary really resembled that of a prewar hospital, complete with gurneys, IVs, heartrate monitors, prewar medicines, clear lighting, and even an X-ray! It was very clean as well. Midoriya was rather grateful that he lived in this very station rather than the other far-off stations, who have resorted to primitive methods for doing everything.
Midoriya watched the gentle rise and fall of the bandit's chest, and he thought again of how peaceful and much more handsome his face appeared when he's not looking to kill. The thought of how familiar this very bandit looked constantly popped up in his mind as well.
Maybe he was part of the local community before but he left? Or perhaps I met him during one of my caravan jobs? Maybe even during my time in Teatralnaya!
...
Nah, who am I kidding. I barely remember my time in that station anyway.
"Oh! Midoriya!" Uraraka's voice suddenly bellowed out from behind Midoriya, startling him with a yelp; Iida's shushing of Uraraka followed up afterwards. "Uraraka! This is an infirmary! You must remain quiet as to not disturb the patients!" Uraraka let out a chorus of "okays" to satisfy Iida. Once that's done, Uraraka hugged Midoriya. "We saw Kirishima and Kaminari come back but you weren't with them, but when he told me that you're in the infirmary, we panicked! Are you okay, though?"
Midoriya rubbed a bandage on his cheek; the injury was when his cheek hit a metal drawer in the library. "Just this, Uraraka. I'm fine." he finished, smiling. Iida then rushed to his side. "Good to know that you're in one piece, Midoriya. But have you delivered those documents to Mister Kuzmich? He gets unpredictable when you keep him waiting." the bespectacled man asked, to which Midoriya nodded at. "Mmhmm Iida. They're with him already. I just dropped by to get this bandaged.. and to visit him." the curly haired boy looked at the resting bandit on the bed with a look of worry.
I hope he behaves when he wakes up. Polis doesn't like troublemakers, let alone bandits. I also hope I can convince him to go with our cover story too.
Uraraka's interest peaked at the bandit. "Oh? Who is he?" Iida went closer to get a closer look at him. "Is he the Stalker Kirishima told us about? I have never seen him before." Iida's tone was suspicious. Midoriya is quick to defend the bandit. "He's probably from some other station! We couldn't just leave him there, you know? He was still breathing." he finished with a stubborn look on his face. Iida and Uraraka backed off afterwards, with the latter "aww-ing" while at it. "How kind of you, Izuku! Really! Even going out your way to help strangers! Even though that's risky.." Iida nodded approvingly, accompanied by his usual hand motions. "Indeed, though it was Kirishima that carried him here, right? But for all we know, he could actually be a bandit or sabateour-" Uraraka nudged him by his shoulder at that. "You're ruining the moment, Iida!"
After a minute of awkward silence, Uraraka piped up again. "So.. were you able to get something for us?" she asked with giddy eyes. Midoriya shook his head sheepishly, to which Uraraka patted his back for. "S'okay. You weren't obligated to." Iida hummed in agreement. "Yes, your mission is of utmost priority compared to gifts."
After a minute of hushed chattering between the three, a pair of heavy footsteps made themselves audible from behind the trio. Looking behind them, they found out it was Shouto in his usual gear and gasmask, minus filters. Uraraka greeted him first. "Hey Shouto! How's your trip?" Iida also extended his hand to the Stalker; Shouto waved at Uraraka and shook Iida's hand. "My latest trip was to a mall in Red Square, it was okay. Um, which reminds me, may I talk to Midoriya, please?"
Uraraka clasped her hands together. "Sure! Which reminds me too, me and Iida have a job in Arbatskaya so we gotta get going anyway!" she grabbed Iida and dragged him out of the infirmary. "Do svidaniya, you two!" she added. From outside, Iida can be heard chastising Uraraka for improper conduct; by improper conduct, her dragging him through the hallways.
Once Uraraka and Iida were out of sight, Shouto sat on the bench, beside Midoriya; the Stalker looked at Midoriya with worried eyes, which the curly haired boy noticed. "I'm okay, Shouto. Just this scratch." he touched the bandage on his cheek; Shouto sighed in relief. "You worried me, but it's good to know that you're okay." he said before he started to rummage under his vest. "Well, I'm here because I found something that you might like. You're still into All Might, right?" Midoriya nodded with increased interest, though his eyes drifted to Shouto's face, gasmask still on.
I really do wonder why Shouto needs to keep on wearing his gasmask here. Is he hiding something?
Shouto brought out a rather scratched All Might comic in English from his vest, and he rubbed at the cover to get rid of any loose dirt and dust on it; Midoriya's eyes glinted with happiness and surprise. "I found this in a small comic store inside the mall. Most comics were covered in frost and beyond repair but I found this in the store's backroom, free of any serious damage." he extended his hand with the comic towards Midoriya, who is still awestruck and looking at the comic. "Here you go, Midoriya. And no, you don't have to pay me. It's another gift from me."
Midoriya slowly grabbed the comic from Shouto, then he stared at it for a while before putting it on the bench. He then hugged Shouto, catching the Stalker off-guard. "Thank you Shouto! Thank you so much!" Shouto, being not very touchy-feely, wasn't used to hugs, but he tried to hug Midoriya back, which ended up being awkward due to his gear. "All of these All Might comics, my sneakers, you could've sold them but you're giving them to me instead! I feel so special." Shouto retracted from the hug, then he ruffled Midoriya's hair. "A friend is worth more than a bunch of bullets. You deserve it." Midoriya smiled back at Shouto, which made the Stalker's day much better.
Curious of Midoriya's comrade, he looked behind the curly haired boy, seeing ash blonde hair and a resting face. "Is he the Stalker you guys brought down here?" the Stalker asked, to which Midoriya nodded in confirmation. Shouto looked at the bandit on the bed much closely now, his squinted eyes scrutinizing the bandit's face. "Hmm.. he looks familiar. I think I've seen him during my trip in Polyanka.." Shouto's tone suddenly dropped into a hostile one, worrying Midoriya; the Stalker's eyes looked angry as well. "He shot at me and burned the left side of my face with his quirk. Apparently, this asshole was trying to get my stuff." Shouto then placed his hands on Midoriya's shoulders, as if to lock him in place. He then spoke in a gravely serious tone that put the curly haired boy in a state of unease. "Midoriya, why did you bring a bandit in here?"
Shit.
Midoriya then tried to put on a brave face, but he looked like a baby about to cry instead. "He surrendered to us. He did put up a fight but he surrendered. Kirishima injured him so we brought him back down here." Shouto didn't look satisfied with that, so Midoriya continued. "He's still a human being, Shouto! Like any other good-natured person, you wouldn't leave your two-legged brethen to the mutants or the radiation now, would you?" Shouto grunted and eyed the bandit angrily. He stood up, but Midoriya's sudden grip on his wrist didn't let him go anywhere. "Don't tell anyone. Please don't. They'll throw him out or kill him if they find out. Please Shouto!" Midoriya pleaded with his crying eyes, hoping his "supposed quirk" would work on the stoic Stalker.
Shouto hummed, and looked at Midoriya; he sighed afterwards. "No promises, Midoriya." he yanked his arm away from Midoriya, who now looked dejected. Before he would walk off on the saddened Brahmin however, Shouto quickly hugged Midoriya then walked away. "Have a good day, Izuku." he stated before he's out of Midoriya's sight. With Shouto gone, he returned his attention to the bandit on the bed, who started to shuffle a little.
Oh, he's waking up.
He anticipated the bandit's awakening with wide eyes, observing the furrowing of the bandit's eyebrows, then he planted himself firmly on the bench. Then the bandit's eyes fluttered open slowly, which turned into a squint due to the infirmary's bright lighting; he grunted as he took in his surroundings of white tiles and the beeping of the machine beside him.
"Um, hello." Midoriya spoke from beside the bed. On hearing the curly haired boy's voice, the bandit looked to his direction with squinted and red eyes; his eyes widened a little, and his mouth formed into a sneer. "Y-you.. you brought me here to this.. fucking clinic.. didn't ya?" Midoriya nodded, to which the bandit grunted again and went to look at the ceiling, his eyes adjusting to the light. "This is fucking Polis, isn't it? All of these bright-as-fuck lights.."
"Yeah, you're in Polis.." Midoriya replied. The bandit visibly flinched with wide eyes, and so tried to stand up due to the eply. "Oh I get what you're fucking getting at. I am not giving you fuckers a single bullet, unless it's to your heads!" he tried to yank off the cords attached to his arms, but Midoriya pushed him back onto the bed. "No! I-I mean I paid for you! They're not gonna charge you anything! Stay, please!" he pleaded desperately to the bandit, who, on the other hand, stopped moving and looked at him in disbelief. "That's a lie! I'm too familiar with how you rich stations work! Like I asked for your damn help anyway!" the bandit stated angrily.
Midoriya continued holding the bandit down; it's a good thing that he's stronger than he looks. "I promise you, I paid for it. They won't charge you a single bullet. Just stay here for one more day and you'll be good to go." he looked at the bandit with his eyes, hoping to put his "quirk" to use.
The bandit flinched, and looked away from him. "Stop fucking looking at me like that. You're like a fucking kid that lost his teddy bear." he glanced back to the curly haired boy, who was still looking at him like that. "Is something wrong in that fucked-up brain of yours or something?" Midoriya didn't back off, so the bandit huffed and relaxed back on the bed, watching the heartrate monitor instead of the "kid".
Midoriya backed off afterwards and sat back down on the bench, watching him. "What's your name?" he asked the bandit. "None of your business, freckle-shit." the bandit retorted, still looking at the monitor; Midoriya audibly sighed.
About ten minutes have passed with the bandit just staring at the white ceiling with Midoriya watching him intently, with only the beeping of the heartrate monitor filling the atmosphere around them. Then the bandit grunted before he spoke. "I'm fucking hungry." Midoriya perked up instantly and stood up before him. "I can get you food!" the bandit was quick to react, grabbing the curly haired boy's wrist before he could depart, and tried to stand up himself. "Do I look like a fucking charity case? I'm gonna get my own food and- arghh!" the bandit clutched at his stomach from the sudden pain that came from it due to him standing up. Midoriya gently pushed him back to the bed. "You can't stand up without your stomach hurting so please let me. It's the least I can do for getting you there anyway." Midoriya then turned to leave.
The bandit grabbed Midoriya's wrist again before he could leave. "Why the hell are you like that? Did you forget that I tried to fucking rob you? Or did the radiation fuck up your little brain, huh?" Midoriya put on a serious face. "You were just doing what you can to survive, right? You don't sound.. inherently evil. And I trust Kirishima's judgement." the curly haired boy then yanked his wrist away from the bandit and left; he heard the bandit grunt loudly enough as he left.
Midoriya is on his way back to the infirmary with a bowl of the same pork-and-mushroom amalgam that he had for dinner, this time for the bandit. He then entered the bandit's ward, who appeared to be staring at the heartrate monitor. Midoriya coughed to gain his attention. "Um, I have your food here." he placed the bowl on a wooden end table beside the bandit's bed. The bandit looked at Midoriya questionably, then he moved closer to the end table to scrutinize the food and to take a whiff of it; him eyeing it widely somewhat meant that he liked the smell, so he grabbed the bowl and a spoon from Midoriya and started to eat.
Midoriya is watching him get a spoonful, but before the bandit could put the spoon inside his mouth, he stopped midway and put the spoon back on the bowl. "Is something wrong?" he asked. The bandit then placed the bowl down on his lap and he eyed the bowl with a confused expression, which confused the curly haired boy. "Why are you like that, a good-fucking samaritan? Isn't your focus on making money?" the bandit stated lowly and not angrily, which sounded different to Midoriya. The curly haired boy sighed then spoke. "I care about people. I don't know what Polis or Hansa did to you but I don't follow the same principles they do, it's just how I am. Money is important, yeah but, you know what's more important?" the bandit turned to look at him with furrowed eyebrows, but not in an angry sense. "What?"
Midoriya smiled wholeheartedly at him. "Having friends, and making the people around you happy. That's what I think anyway. Maybe those people you encountered were so focused on money that they did some things? Well, I don't think like them, and neither do my friends. Which reminds me.." Midoriya began to fish in his jacket's pockets for something, but when the bandit heard sounds of little metal pieces, he figured out that they're bullets. Midoriya brought out about five thirty-round metal clips of military grade rounds, and placed them on the table; about one-hundred fifty bullets. "I only keep enough money for necessities, and store the rest. I have enough for myself right now so.. I um, I thought you'll be needing these more than me." he finished, smiling at the bandit.
The bandit, however, didn't appear to have liked the gesture, and instead, he got mad. "Didn't I tell you that I'm not some fucking charity case, dipshit?! I never asked to be fucking bandaged! I never asked to be brought to this shithole of an infirmary! And most of all, I never asked for any of your fucking bullets!" he angrily lashed out at the bullets, sending them down to the floor with one swipe of his hand, as if his pain was never there. "I never asked for your kindness, so take a fucking hike and get eaten by a Demon!"
Midoriya visibly looked hurt with what the bandit had done. He lowered his head from the bandit's view; he was sniffling. "Okay.." he slowly stood up from the bench with his fists clenched on his sides, visibly trembling. "When you leave, tell the ranger with red hair and he'll vouch for you.." Midoriya then turned his back on the bandit, and walked out of the infirmary, leaving the bandit alone with the bowl of food and the beeping of the heartrate monitor.
Midoriya brisk-walked back to his room at Borovitskaya, ignoring the glances of the people he came across, notably Kirishima and Kaminari. Once he's back in his room, he locked it tight and plopped himself on his mattress, his tiredness coming in all at once to lull him to sleep.
The following "day", Midoriya woke with his eyes feeling sore and wetter than usual. He yawned and sat up a little, and saw a little wet spot on his mattress from where his eyes were.
I must've cried myself to sleep.
He cleaned his eyes with a cloth from his pocket, and fully sat up on his mattress, leaning against the concrete wall. He pulled his legs closer to his body and hugged them, resting his head on his knees. He let out a hefty sigh as the memories from earlier surfaced again.
I guess not everyone can be influenced with kindness. Well, living in these conditions, it's understandable. For one, someone's act of kindness could be just them getting in someone's way. They didn't need it, didn't ask for it..
Why do I even bother?
"Because I like seeing people happy." Midoriya says to himself while sniffling and hugging at his knees much tighter. His watch beeped, but this time signalling to him that it's time to go to work; while most of timekeeping was rendered irrelevant, like day and night, the hours and minutes are still relevant to keep track of schedules. He hastily cleaned his face with the clean rag, pocketed it, and he stood up to get out of his room. Once he has locked his room, he stepped out into the bright Polis lights once again.
Along the way to Arbatskaya, his workspace, he overhears the Polis Council announce that the treaty with the Nazis and the Communists broke down, and were now fighting again; they also announced to the Polis public to avoid going to the Communist and Nazi stations for the time being due to the starting war, and that they're also closing Alexandrovsky Sad's and Biblioteka Im. Lenina's tunnels to traffic since their tunnels connect to the Nazi and Communist stations, respectively.
His thoughts come back to the ash blonde bandit, and he figured it wouldn't hurt to see if he's still there at the infirmary. Curious, he took the steps to Lenin Station instead of Arbatskaya. Once he's up, he brisk-walked to the infirmary, and once inside, he took a peek at the bandit's ward; the bed is empty and undone, and on the table is the bowl Midoriya gave him, which is now empty. Midoriya sighed.
Of course he left. He didn't want to be here in the first place.
The bullets were also nowhere to be found. Once Midoriya left the infirmary, he ran into Kirishima, who told him that he just disappeared. Knowing better that he left, he thanks Kirishima in a monotone voice and makes his way to Arbatskaya.
Once he's at Arbatskaya, he runs into Shouto at the escalator's steps, who briefly greets Midoriya and notifies him of a new batch of books that have arrived at his workspace. After mumbling a quick "thank you" to the Stalker, he quickly makes his way to his workspace, hoping that the work would distract him from his thoughts.
He brings up the box to his desk, and starts cataloging the books, writing down the authors and the books on his clipboard. "Asimov..."
"...Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel. The Lord of The Rings." Midoriya sets his pencil aside and leans back on his chair, heavily sighing. "Hah.. And that's that!" he stated victoriously as he wiped off some sweat off his forehead using his jacket's sleeve.
It was five hours of non-stop cataloging, but his work did accomplish to distract him from those thoughts pertaining to the previous "day" since he went from sulking to utterly focused that put his mind on his work. Being a dedicated worker, he made enough money to live in Polis, with some left over for other luxuries which he uses most of the time to purchase post cards or comics from merchants.
After taking the box with the catalogue to Kuzmich, he's paid his daily fifty bullets, and he goes back to Borovitskaya, now feeling more at ease. Once there, he stops by his usual food outlet, orders dinner there, and chats with the cook slash owner of the outlet; today's topic was about rumors of some psychic mutants threatening the outlying VDNKh station that came from Botanicheskiy Sad, the Botanical Gardens. Midoriya shook it off as one of the many stories the stations come up with so they don't get attacked. Once he's done eating the usual amalgam, he says his goodbyes to the cook and goes back to his room.
He settles in his room, taking his sneakers and jacket off to be comfortable. He turns on the little wall lamp on his room, illuminating it with white light, then he sits on his mattress and grabs the All Might comic Shouto gave him the other day. He had only gotten to reading the intro when two knocks suddenly sounded on his door.
Weird, unless it's Mister Kuzmich..
"It's open, come in!" he says cheerfully. When the door opened, his mood immediately dropped since the person appeared to have ash blonde hair and red eyes; the bandit. "Never mind what I said. Leave." Midoriya stated as coldly as he could, redirecting his eyes to the comic and fixing them there.
"I have something to say-" the bandit said, but he was cut off by Midoriya's angry look, which looked even more foreign on his face than anger on Kirishima's. "Oh I'm sorry, unfortunately you have exhausted all of your chances to talk, so please leave. That's what you wanted to do anyway, right?" Midoriya stated angrily with a hint of snark. The bandit didn't back off, and instead went inside the room, shutting the door behind him while growling; that irked Midoriya even more, but he can't help but feel scared, the bandit did try to kill him at the library. "I asked you to-" he placed his comic on the mattress and turned to look at the bandit, but he was caught off-guard with the bandit's sudden proximity. "-leave.."
The bandit's proximity absolutely terrified him. He scrambled to the other corner of his room, away from the bandit. "I-if you kill me, people will know! They saw y-you come in here and t-the rangers will shoot you on si-" the bandit shushed him with a hand on his mouth. Midoriya looked ready to cry.
"You're fucking loud, shut up." the bandit then retracted his hand from Midoriya's mouth after a few seconds, who gulped as he looked at his red, fiery eyes; he couldn't find any malice in them, though. "I'm not gonna fucking kill you, so let me talk, huh? You and your shitty bravado." the curly haired boy quickly nodded.
The bandit sat down on the floor and sighed before he spoke. "Yeah. I fucking need your money, but I'm not some shitty charity case that you have to take fucking pity on. I don't like it. I don't like being pitied.. being viewed as some kind of shitty weakling that needs free help." the bandit looked away and grunted while furiously scratching his head. "What's your point?" Midoriya perked up, honestly wanting this over with.
The bandit blinked and looked back at Midoriya with his eyebrows furrowed, yet he didn't sound or look angry as a whole. "When I get something, I have to fucking work for it. I want to fucking work for it. That way, it feels fucking worthy getting it, like everything should be in this damn metro." he started to rummage at his pockets, then he brought out five clips of military-grade bullets from said pockets; they're the same ones that he sent down to the infirmary's floor. He placed said clips on the floor's small space between him and the curly haired boy, which surprised him. The bandit looked back at him with a determined and slightly pent-up gaze.
"So, what I'm trying to say is this; the name's Bakugou Katsuki, let me fucking work for you."
Thank you for reading as always! Feel free to leave a review! I love those! Do point out any errors too if that's alright!