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lanormie · 7 months ago

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blipped - mcu crossover au (pt. 6)

what if? the event of Thanos snap happened in the BNHA universe? you're forced to navigate the aftermath of The Blip, where half of the population get thrown back into existence after disappearing for five years. pairing: pro-hero!Shouto x f!pro-hero!reader (ft. slight katsuki x reader) read on AO3 previous part

Two months flew by, and the apartment search is going nowhere. The government has quickly seized up a large number of empty housings and facilities to turn them into temporary shelters, and now any new listing would immediately get scooped up as soon as they are posted, no matter the cost. Not like you or Shouto have time to stalk the market anyway, when crimes have been on a scary uptick for the past few weeks. Hawks has been apologetic about all the overtime, but you all know the world is far from peaceful.

An anti-nationalist group called The Flag Smashers has been on the rise. They’ve been gaining more and more followers everyday, vowing to restore the world order to how it was before the re-emergence.

A world without borders and patriotism. Even as a pro-hero, you can’t say you disagree. But when the line between ideology and violence blurs and innocent people get hurt, you refuse to stand by.

“Here’s the address of the juvenile shelter on 42nd, please tell Mandalay I said hi when you drop him off.”

You hand the piece of paper to the sidekick who just showed up for the night shift, then turn to the small frame that’s clinging to your belt like super glue, tiny hiccups escaping from behind the mop of unruly hair that conceals most of his face.

Even though you can’t make out his features, you can tell he’s just a kid. A kid who had no family left when he returned, a kid who met the wrong people and got swept up in doing the wrong things. He was a lookout for a store break-in when you finally intercepted the group, and the grown men he was with had no problem turning him into a bargaining chip.

Nothing you haven’t seen before, sadly.

The standoff ended pretty quickly, with the men hauled off to the authorities. Your decision of keeping the little one from getting sent to the youth detention center thankfully didn’t encounter much resistance.

Everybody is too busy to care.

You send him off with a promise to visit once you find time, then take off towards the agency, the short conversation you had with him playing in your head like a record.

“Miss," The little guy meekly muttered in between sniffles. “When will things go back to normal?”

When?

Will they go back to normal?

“I don’t have the answer to that, I’m sorry. But in the meantime we can make the best of our new normal.” You emphasized the last part, but for him or for you, you didn’t know.

And you still don’t. If making the best of your new normal is working yourself to the brink of collapsing then do it all over again the next day, you’re doing great.

As the agency rooftop comes into view, you glance at the clock on your phone. It’s 3:30 AM. Looks like the sleeping bag under your desk is your friend again tonight.

There’s a warm light coming from the small covered patio on one side of the rooftop, and your eyes zone in on the figure sprawled out on the hammock, an open book resting on top of their face. Red and white locks peek out from under the book, or more accurately, the manga volume, now that you’re closer to see it. Broad chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm, the arms resting on it coming along for the ride. You chuckle to yourself as you land. Shouto really does sleep like a mummy.

You lightly tap on the manga volume before lifting a corner of it. “You didn’t go home?”

Shouto squints at you sleepily. “I just finished the report–” He pauses to yawn. “Report backlog. And we have a shift at 7, so I figured it wasn’t worth it. Plus,” He picks up the manga and tosses it onto the coffee table nearby. “This is surprisingly comfortable. Here, try it out.”

Shouto slightly scoots over and stretches out the fabric to make space.

You should’ve known how much of an ordeal it is to get into a hammock with another person already in it. It takes a lot of maneuvering not to fall directly on top of your friend, but in the end you still end up smushed against Shouto’s left side. Despite that, he was right, this is terribly comfy.

The stretchy fabric cocoons you in like a swaddle, the cool night breeze gently caresses your skin, which you don’t mind too much cause the heat emanating from Shouto is more than enough to ward off the chills.

“Ten out of ten.” You conclude, eyelids growing heavier. Maybe all that overtime is catching up to you.

* * * * *

“But they look so cute!”

“I don’t give a shit, they’re about to be late.”

The sound of aggressive whispers pulls you away from your dreamless slumber.

Daylight greets you through your eyelids, as you register a certain weight draped over your side and some humid warm breeze fanning your forehead. Your bleary eyes open to find yourself face to face with a white T-shirt covered broad chest, and it dawns on you. You and Shouto both fell asleep on the hammock last night.

Groggily tilting your head up, you find Shouto already awake. His dual colored eyes are focused elsewhere, indicating that he’s listening in on the whispering match happening behind him.

“I’m going to wake them up.”

“Wait, Touya no!”

The hushed tone does nothing to hide the very distinct voices of Hawks and Touya, clearly being at odds (as usual) about letting their employees snooze on premise.

Shouto finally notices your stirring, and the cool arm that was lazily resting on your side curls in ever so slightly.

“Wait.” He speaks, voice low enough for only you to hear. “I want to see if we stay still, they're going to let us sleep in.”

Soft as his murmuring is, it still reverberates through his chest and onto you, and you try your hardest not to squirm at the proximity. In your still-freshly-out-of-a-relationship brain, hugs are different from cuddles. Not that you’d ever shy away from your best friend who mostly shows his affection through non-verbal cues (the majority of them is touch), cuddling with someone who’s not your boyf–, well, ex-boyfriend, is some sort of line you haven’t brought yourself to cross.

It’s a sort of intimacy that you didn’t know you longed for until this very moment, but god if it isn’t intimidating at the same time. Like standing in the sand staring out at the azure of the ocean, its calm waves gently ebbing and flowing around your feet, urging you to follow them into the depth.

Should you let them lead you further into its water, when you know what drowning in a stormy sea feels like?

You look up at Shouto, and find the ocean staring back at you from his left eye.

Its serene surface seems to glitter under the cloudless sky, featherlight breeze nudging its ripples ashore.

It’s so, so different from the crashing ocean of molten lava you used to call home.

‘You okay?’ Shouto mouths the words, puzzled by the way your eyes are trained on him but your mind is clearly elsewhere. His hand presses gently on your back, his thumb patiently draws small circles atop your spine, letting you take your time coming down from whatever plane of existence you find yourself on.

The world comes back into focus as you mutter an unconvincing ‘yeah’. As Shouto searches your face for the real answer, the bickering between Hawks and Touya is getting louder.

“Look how cozy they are!”

“Oh yeah? Cozy huh?” Touya then amps up his volume, like he really wants you two to hear this last part. “Cozy on the same hammock you got a blowjob on last week?”

You’ve never flown away from anything so fast.

Looking down, you catch a glimpse of Shouto scrambling off the apparently tainted fabric with a huffed ‘nope’, before you both turn towards Touya, who’s now doubling over in laughter, one arm holding on to a mortified Hawks and the other clutching his stomach.

“For the record,” Hawks exasperatedly yanks Touya’s collar like a momma cat to set the silver haired man upright. “He was just saying that to get a reaction out of you.”

“You knew we were awake the whole time?” You land back down in front of the two intruders.

“Uh, yeah. Birdy didn’t have these for nothing.” Touya reaches back to pluck a wonky looking feather out of Hawks’ wings and waves it in your face.

You can see Hawks visibly fights back a shudder. For a former spy, he sure seems to lose the grip on his reactions a lot when it comes to Touya. You decide to file the thought away to investigate later.

“Why were you two brats canoodling up here anyway?”

You sputter a barely audible ‘were not’ while Shouto finally approaches you three.

“We came off our shifts late last night. Going home would take too long.”

“It’s not the first time we’ve slept over at work.” You shrug, with a concurring nod from Shouto. “I’ll stick to my sleeping bag next time though, the blowjob hammock–”

“It’s not–” Hawks starts to protest.

“The Schrodinger blowjob hammock is all yours.” You cut him off, not entirely convinced by either of them.

“No luck on the apartment hunt?” Touya finally pipes down once you’ve mentioned your sleeping bag. He disguises it well, but some remnants of concern still slip through in his voice.

“Not in this area.” Shouto shakes his head.

“Not even studios? I mean by the look of it y’all have no problem sharing a bed.” Touya smirks, his teasing lilt creeping back in.

“Touya, can you not?” You frown, warning him to knock it off.

A faint wave of heat hits your side for a brief second before disappearing completely. You turn toward it but you’re met with nothing, just Shouto scratching lightly at his left arm. The poor guy must’ve got some bug bites last night.

“Hey, Touya…” Hawks quietly calls out to the blue flame user.

Touya turns to look at the winged man and seems to immediately recognize the look in his eyes. They proceed to have a back and forth exclusively through eye contact and unreadable facial expressions for about a minute long before Touya rolls his eyes and concedes.

He grumbles something about the blond's ‘bleeding heart’ then gestures to his feathered roommate(?) to go ahead, to which Hawks mouths a quick ‘thank you’ before turning to you and Shouto.

“You guys can come live with us while you look!” He chirps a little too excitedly, before reeling it back. “If you want to, of course. We have a spare bedroom and an office that we rarely use, and it’s only five minutes from here.”

Five minutes of commute is a dream. You’d be sad to part with Fuyumi’s cooking, but some extra hours of sleep every night sounds downright heavenly. You’d be foolish to refuse.

You look over to Shouto. “I’m down, you?”

“Likewise.” He nods, mind already made up since the moment you perked up at Hawks’ offer.

“Well, you’d better be.” Touya looks up from his phone. “Cause I already told my assistant to print some spare keys.”

* * * * *

Patrol is surprisingly slow today. Even evil is somewhat thwarted by inclement weather, you think. The rain spell has been unkind, thunder haunting the heavy grey sky above. You opt to walk, not taking the chance with the stray bolts that stretch the heavens every few minutes or so. You’ve been zapped by Denki before, while he was doing a Thor bit, and you’re not in a rush to experience it again.

The hood of your costume is waterproof, but it doesn’t help much since the frigid and earthy droplets of rain are coming from all directions, hitting your face like toy gun pellets and leaving a sheen of dripping water on your hair.

Step by soggy step, you trudge through the unusually barren streets. There’s only two minutes left on the clock when you hear the sound of water rushing gets louder and louder. You press forward, until you literally can’t hear anything else.

The man made waterfall at the entrance of the Memorial Park greets you, in all its deafening glory. You heard it was supposed to represent the flow of time as people move forward, or something like that. The flow of time seems obscenely intrusive, you think.

You head into the park, and you realize this is the first time you’ve stepped foot in here. Usually you would observe it from above, the long rows of dark granite looking like dots as you pass by. But now that you’re here, the maze of stone columns dwarf you, standing at least eight feet high. Rows and rows of letters are etched onto them, spelling out what must be millions of names in alphabetical order.

Names of those who disappeared during the Blip.

You carefully scale the letters, searching. People must have started coming here and crossing their name out, as you find multiple names with different levels of chicken scratch lines over them. Withering bouquets lay along the path, water pooling on their plastic wrapping.

All of the sudden, the rain stops pelting you, as the shadow of an umbrella appears above your head. Turning to find its owner, you come face to face with a pair of crimson eyes.

“It’s over there.” He tilts his head toward the north side of the park, and starts walking. You wordlessly follow.

You fall into steps with the man you’ve been trying to avoid for the past couple of months, and you mentally clutch your wound, praying it doesn’t reopen.

Katsuki is wearing civilian clothes, simple joggers and a plain tee shirt and some rain boots. On the hand he’s holding the umbrella with, a silver band decorates his ring finger. You have to physically tear your eyes from the sight.

He traverses the maze of stone like a seasoned navigator, knowing exactly where to turn and how many steps to take. Soon enough, you both stop in front of what you’re looking for.

It doesn’t take you long to find your name. It’s at eye level, and you feel like it’s staring right back at you. Katsuki too, is peering at you through the faint reflection on the stone.

“I um…” He clears his throat. “I can find you a rock, or something. So you can scratch it out.”

“You’re encouraging vandalism now?” You look back at him through the reflection and joke, though it’s humorless.

“It’s a grave for the living.” He shrugs. “’s lost its meaning.”

“You know, the last time someone was talking in symbolism, you gave them shit for it.”

He’s quiet for a moment, before saying. “That was five years ago.”

Upon hearing his reply, you turn to look at him. Not through a grainy or blurry reflection. Not distorted by relief or rage or frustration. Truly, truly look at him this time.

The silhouette of the Katsuki you know is still firmly there, but like colors that bleed over the line, there are parts you no longer recognize. You’re reminded again that five years of layers have been added to the puzzle that is Katsuki, the puzzle you had a hand in breaking apart.

Did he heal alone? Or did his new lover help put the pieces back together?

You watch the fissure between you and him grow wider, and you desperately want to latch on to the other side and hold it close.

But you can’t. You’re too late. You’d fall into the crack if you keep trying to hold on.

“I think I’ll leave it be for now.” You turn your gaze back to the letters in front of you.

It’s a grave after all, and some parts of you did die. Perhaps when you’re not in mourning anymore, you’ll come back and scrape it away from existence.

Perhaps one day.

#todoroki shouto #shoto todoroki #todoroki shoto x reader #todoroki x reader #shoto x reader #shouto x reader #bakugou katsuki #bakugou x reader #mha #bnha #mha x reader #bnha x reader #hawks #keigo takami #dabi #touya todoroki #mcu

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