Chapter Text
Perhaps, one day, after this was all over, someone might ask you: Who is Tomura Shigaraki? To that question, you would tell them the truth: He was just someone you liked to tease and who traded favors with you, just barely a man. Who was this man? they might ask. To you, he was the first man foolish enough to let you lead.
.
.
.
It was a pleasant April evening when you got the call that you would, years later, suppose was really the beginning of your sorry little love affair with Tomura Shigaraki. You spent the evenings as was your norm: nestled in your lab-slash-bedroom, letting your honey concentrate down into refined queen-jelly while you leafed through a medical journal. Your laptop was on the bed by you, personal notes left open.
Your phone rang. It was registered, so you answered with your perkiest customer service voice: "Good evening, Kurogiri."
"Good evening, [Name]." His voice was as calm as ever, though you already knew this was not a simple friendly call. "Please arrive at the bar as soon as possible. Bring medical supplies suitable to treat bullet wounds."
You go off your bed, going to collect your bag. A kit that was good for more than first aid was in there; you added three vials of refined queen-jelly, slinging it onto your shoulder. "On my way. Is Shigaraki the only one hurt?"
"He is the only one who requires your attention. I will recover."
Over the phone, you could hear a grunt of pain and irritation. Tomura was never a good patient, so none of this surprised you.
"Come as quickly as you can," Kurogiri emphasized.
You nodded, not that your customer could see over the phone. "I'll meet you at the bar in twenty." With that, you hung up. You looked towards the unfortunate black creature that shared your office-slash-home with you.
Petting the nomu was unnecessary, but you did it regardless. "Okay, Bumblebee, you take care of the shop while I'm gone."
Its eyes were, as always, noncommunicative. It stood on all four limbs, moving like a dog despite its decidedly human body. It stood in the middle of your entry room, something between a reception space and a living room. With a click, it confirmed that it would remain on alert for intruders until you returned.
The creature was incredibly upsetting to look at, really, but you were grateful for it all the same. While you still operated as a solo villain, you couldn't deny that the security that Bumblebee had brought into your life made you reconsider it. People always wanted your services since you had a healing quirk, however atypically it operated; but, given that you were not especially physically powerful, it was not uncommon that other villains felt confident breaking into your shop and taking things from you.
With a final smile, you left your base. Kamino was a busy town, but the run down part that villains ruled was easy enough for you to navigate.
As always, Kurogiri's demeanor was quiet and calm. He seemed, to you, less like a person and more like a patient observer, as if he was less here to participate in his own life and more there facilitate events for Tomura.
You found yourself jealous; you could stand to have someone working their ass off for you.
"He's resting in the tub," Kurogiri explained.
"You should have left him on the bed," you chided. "I'm sure he's cramped in that."
"We do not have mattresses to spare," the fog-mass man countered. "And, even if he did not soil the mattress, I would like to space out the time between trips to the laundromat for a bit. We're going to be laying low."
Recalling their benefactor, you wondered how they couldn't find someone willing to run that errand for them. Whatever, not your issue. You let yourself into the bathroom with a chipper smile. "Hello, Shigaraki! We've got to stop meeting like this."
True to your suspicions, he was huddled up in the tub. A few smatters of red marred the less than pristine porcelain. He trembled with cold from the blood loss. You spotted bandages wrapped around his middle and ring fingers on both hands; a haphazard precaution for you, you assumed.
Despite all of that, Tomura glared at you from behind his morbid little hand-mask. "Would you just do your job?"
Your lips curled into a cruel little smile. You set your bag down, beginning to rummage through it. As could be assumed, you were not a qualified doctor, but you were a fast learner blessed with a quirk suitable to this; beggars could not be choosers. The delicious high of reminding Tomura of that would not be denied to you. "Cranky 'cause you're in pain, huh? Where were you shot?"
He hissed as you turned the water on low, grabbing a bottle of iodine and a clean rag. His clothes would be soaked after this, but he wasn't about to let you see him naked. "Just my limbs. Don't take my fucking clothes off."
"Aw, but I'm sure you look so sexy!" you teased. Your smile turned more malicious as he squirmed, knowing you wouldn't make good on your implicit threat but clearly uncomfortable that he was in no position to do much about it if you decided to test him. That's right, you thought, I'm in charge here. Me. Your life is in my hands—a healer's got all the power, this time, bitch.
(If it were not obvious by now, you were a very bitter woman.)
You set your tormenting of the man aside to pour a capful of thick liquid. It smelled fruity in the way perfume does. Tomura begrudgingly let you coax him into a sitting position. When he tried resisting the removal of his mask, you spoke again.
"C'mon, this'll numb you up. Unless you want to feel me digging around in your wounds...?"
He complied, then. You studied his face as he drank from the cap you held; the liquid was sticky, thick, and slow draining. He smacked his lips after. Tomura was not a handsome man; maybe he could have been, if he wasn't always covered in scabs and scratches, but he currently wasn't. He reminded you of a dog with mange. You could heal that, you knew, because you had once saved a cat that way.
(It hadn't survived a break in at your shop and you decided you wouldn't be cleaning up kitten off your floors ever again.)
"You should let me sooth your skin sometime," you hummed.
"Fuck you," Tomura snapped, defensive. "Put the mask back on."
You complied. "The customer is always right." With that, you busied yourself rolling up his sleeves and pants legs, preparing to wash his wounds.
Soon, the tension in his body fled. He slumped more in the tub, eyes shut behind the security of the hand ever attached to his face. "You're... annoying as hell, but you've always got the good stuff."
"Careful you don't get addicted," you warned. "I'm happy to give you my best since you're my number one customer, but that stuff isn't easy for me to get." The cleaning went well. You found there were no bullets left in him, just entry and exit wounds. It was all clean, troublingly so. "Don't tell me you ran into Snipe today. He's not even a top hero."
"I know," Tomura slurred out, too blissed out by the high of the liquid pain killer to really kick up a fuss about his fresh defeat.
with a click of your tongue, you drained the tub and put away your iodine. "You know, you should really get a long ranged fighter or something for your little posse. You and just Kurogiri aren't going to cut it even if you're the little prince of the underworld. Couldn't Giran find someone?"
A grunt was your only response. Tomura stilled, his chest rising and lowering at a steady pace as you opened the first vial of refined queen-jelly. He would definitely be taking an extremely pleasant nap after this.
Slowly, you filled in each bullet hole. You watched, counting down seconds in your head to be sure of the potency, as the skin stitched itself back together through the dark gold matrix of the jelly. The little caviar spoon you held was moved with the utmost precision. You were no doctor, but you hands were just as steady. You went through two vials before all of his wounds were healed, almost unrecognizable save for the decided rawness of the wound site.
"I'll leave the third with Kurogiri," you decided, knowing your patient was probably too high to answer you at the moment, "just in case there's a wound you aren't telling me about."
"That's fucking all of them," Tomura insisted after a solid thirty seconds.
You finished putting your things away. "I hope so." As you shrugged your bag onto your shoulder and stood, you looked down at the man. He looked good like this, you thought to yourself, lower than you; beneath you. You relished being his first call for medical issues. How many people got to see such a promising young villain look so utterly pathetic so often?
It made you feel powerful, bitter little thing that you were.
"So, what were you up to, anyways?" you asked.
He smacked his lips; you heard it, rather than saw.
With a pitying roll of your eyes, you picked up the cup he kept by the sink, filled it with the questionable tap water, and removed his mask so he could drink. "You should really hydrate more."
He did not answer your health advice. "UA, USJ. Didn't even kill a single student," he grumbled.
Nodding in understanding, you snorted. "Of course you didn't. Those teachers would have put themselves between you and anyone of those kids in an instant. Don't you know everyone loves kids?"
"Not everyone," he said, tone neutral.
"Well, I'm sorry you didn't get All Might today."
His vermillion eyes narrowed. "What makes you so sure I didn't?" he accused.
You leaned over, hands on the edge of the tub. "Because everyone would have heard about it, and I would have come with a whole bottle of the good stuff," you assured him. You stood, hand on your chest. "Shigaraki, I'm one of your most faithful followers right now. Why... Without that mercy you showed me this winter, punishing those thieves for me... I'd be ruined!"
That was the truth; despite how you relished your temporary, fleeting power over him when he was injured, you owed Tomura Shigaraki and his benefactor a great deal. You wouldn't ever ruin him, just stroke your own ego with his might as much as you could.
He looked at you for a moment. Then, he turned away, grunting.
"Want a good luck kiss next time you try?"
That pushed him too far. He began trying to scramble out of the tub, too high to feel his still tender wounds ache in protest. You darted out of the bathroom door, giggling like a madwoman; you were a madwoman. On your dash to escape your very flustered client, you pushed the vial into Kurogiri's hands.
"If there are any other wounds, dab a little of that on here! He seems sickly, have him drink it!"
As unbothered as ever, Kurogiri nodded as you let yourself out of the bar. "Understood. Thank you, [Name]."