Chapter Text
Medusa [meh-doo-za] noun - guardian; protectress; an evil meant to protect others from evil; a threat; a victim
Your heart races as your feet pound against the rough pavement, cutting sharp corners with every quick turn. You’re too afraid to look over your shoulder, afraid that you’ll find faces that will haunt your every dream for years to come, sneering at you. Afraid you’ll lose your footing, that you’ll stumble, fall prey to the monsters hunting you for sport.
You can’t breathe. Your chest hurts, tight, your lungs squeezing with every shaking gasp you inhale. They’re getting closer—they’re right on your heels—they’re gonna get you—you’ll be dead come morning, unrecognizable.
There’s a sudden whooshing sound not too far off, and you think that it must be one of their quirks, that its truly the end for you. Instead, you hear the sounds of scuffling, of punched out breaths, of bodies hitting the pavement, of pained groans.
You still don’t slow down, don’t stop, not until you’re safe, until you know that they can’t catch you anymore. But you’re stopped suddenly, by a burly chest too wide for any normal human.
Your feet come skidding to a halt, barely managing to stop yourself before running into this wall of a person. Your eyes frantically search their face, and you’re even more afraid now. Is he with them? Is he apart of all of this? He’s no better than the men chasing you, after the videos of his son proclaiming abuse went viral all those years ago.
“There’s no need to run now, the Pro’s are here.” Endeavor’s voice is booming in the echoing alleyway, and it only unnerves you even more. You can feel your knees wobbling, knocking against each other. You hadn’t even realized that there were tears until they muddled your vision, hadn’t realized you were shaking until the chatter of your teeth is audible.
“Please, let me go.” You whisper, meek, voice barely understandable from the clacking of your jaw. Endeavor looks down at you confused, eyebrows furrowing as his lip grits. He reaches a hand out, and you jerk yourself back so hard that you stumble, tripping over a bottle left in the alleyway.
You land hard on your back, but you never take your eyes off of the man in front of you. He tries to reassure you, tries to help you but—but his hands are too big, and those hands have hurt those closest to him, and they’re too wide, too familiar, remind you too much of the men behind you.
Where are the men, anyway? Have they hidden somewhere, ready to plot their attack with the number one hero? Are they all in on this? Are they all going to hurt you, maim you, assault you?
Your panicked breaths echo loudly, your hands shielding you from the too large form that still stands above you. He doesn’t try to reach out for you anymore, only glances off to the side as he speaks seemingly to nobody before his eyes dart behind you. You’re too afraid to look, think it might be a trick for you to lower your guard so he can rip out your trachea with his bare hands.
You scream when someone gently touches your shoulder, feels like they’ve dropped hot coal onto your skin, feels like the flesh drips down your tattered clothing. But as you whip your head around, you come face to face with something—someone, softer. It’s the bunny hero, and she smiles gentler than you have ever seen her do on TV. She’s saying something to you, but your ears feel like they’re stuffed with cotton. All you focus on is the fact that, finally, you might be safe now.
Her knuckles are bloody, and you see her nudge her head back behind her, get a glimpse of a stack of bodies trailing oh so fuckin’ close to you. It makes you flinch at the sight, at the leader with his hands still outstretched toward you, nails barely skimming your ratty shirt. You gasp, sobbing, inching and inching away from him, find yourself comforted in muscular but such soft arms.
Miruko holds you gently, shushing you and cradling you under her chin. She sits on her knees, dragging you closer to her, shielding you from the men who were so close to ruining you, from hurting your further. Your own voice doesn’t even sound familiar once the fuzziness in your head clears as it bounces off the grimy walls with every hallowed sob that racks your entire body. She tries to get you to breathe, to calm down, but you’ve checked out since you crawled into the safety of her arms.
As the ambulance arrives and more pro heroes show up, you sit in Miruko’s lap, shaking, thinking to yourself, promising, that this will be the last time you ever need saving.
…
It takes months to rebuild yourself. Months of healing, of therapy appointments, of physical rehab, of integrating yourself back into society again.
And even then—its not enough to heal you.
Your therapist tells you that you need to move on, and you tell her that she must be a fucking quack. The next one tells you that you need to forgive the men that hurt you, and you tell him that he must’ve faked his shitty degree. And the next one is the same, and so is the one after that, until they all just start running together with the same advice.
Do not give power to the men who hurt you. Its bullshit, you think. They don’t have any fuckin power because they were smashed to fuckin smithereens by Miruko’s heel. But apparently, your “kill all men who hurt others” ideology is “dangerous” and “directed at the wrong people.” You think you’re justified, and you don’t need anyone with a stupid fucking degree to be a yes man and agree with you.
You don’t need anyone to agree with you—well, except for your fans online who praise you.
Almost a year after being attacked, you became a hero for the people in your community who were oftentimes overlooked by pro heroes—male pro’s, especially. If women weren’t doling out their bodies in exchange for saving, then they might not be saved at all.
That’s where you come in at. You trained your body to become stronger, more flexible, more agile, pushed yourself in such little time you’re surprised your body hasn’t clonked out on you yet. But its not your time to give up, to roll belly up and let the cruelness of the world swallow you whole. It almost did once—you weren’t letting that happen again.
The public dubbed you as “The Red Medusa” because of your crimson stained outfits and the medusa tattoo visible on the center of your chest you always wore proudly. It was fitting, especially since you always seemed to exclusively fight men who were witnessed hurting a woman, or child. You didn’t have a quirk, but it wasn’t needed when you had a multitude of guns and the ability to lay someone out cold.
Many men had tried to retaliate against you, especially the pro heroes whose egos were shattered whenever you publicly called them out online for their gross negligence and misogyny. But none had ever managed to catch up with you or leave without at least two extra holes in their body.
Dynamight was one of them.
…
He was cocky at first, with his too big grin and flashy quirk. You couldn’t stand the up and coming hero, with his shitty sexist comments made a couple months ago. He tried to backpedal, claim that his words were taken out of context, that it was all to just make him look bad.
You didn’t believe it. You didn’t believe any of them, ever.
“Getting tired, aren’t cha?” Dynamight calls out to you, aims another explosion where you stood only seconds ago. You can see the frustration in his face when he realizes that he missed you, that you’re quicker than you should be to just be a quirkless vigilante, as the media likes to call you.
“Looks like you’re the one slowing down, shit head.” You shout back at him, sneering at his scowl. You two have been at it for only a few minutes now, and you know that in any second, more heroes are going to arrive and that they’ll outnumber you. You don’t work well with multiple attacks at once, and you’re damn sure not gonna go down yet. You’ll have to make this quick.
As Dynamight soars through the air again, he aims another explosion at you, and you hold your breath as you wait for the right moment to strike. One second too late and he’ll have blasted your entire right side straight off of your body. You refuse to die by this sexist pigs hands.
You inhale when you feel the heat of the blast, launching your body back just in time, don’t even wait for the smoke to clear from his explosion as you fire off two rounds into the orange hued air. Its silent for a split second before you hear it—a pained holler. But, you don’t expect for him to aim another blast at you.
That one sends you reeling back, gasping sharply, as you dodge the brunt of it, but still feel the bottom half of your mask and neck catch licks of flame. You sit up quickly, ripping the mask off, eyes darting all around you in the isolated parking lot, wonder where his body has landed. You catch a glimpse of his boot retracting behind a blue sedan slowly, and you wonder how badly you must’ve hurt him.
You hope its fatal.
You should leave. You know you should leave, especially since gunshots were fired, the pro’s are definitely on their way now, and you’re face is exposed. But Dynamight just can’t let you bow out gracefully.
“That was a cheap fuckin’ shot, you know.” He calls out to you from behind the car, taunting you. You know you shouldn’t fall for it, but you’re not gonna let this asshat discredit the move you had been honing in on for him specifically.
“Nah, you’re just predictable.” You answer him, hissing at the sting of your jaw and chin from where his explosion grazed you. You pat at your face, finding specks of blood on your fingertips, eyes widening at the sight. None of the other men you had faced had made you bleed, never had enough close contact to let them. And yet—and yet your fingertips are stained crimson and you’re taken back to them.
A group of faceless men stand around you, laughing at the pained moans emitting from your throat…one slaps you across the face…your hair is being tugged in every which way…you’re worthless, they keep repeating…condemned to rot away like the worthless bitch you are…
Before you know it, your legs are carrying you behind the blue sedan, and in hindsight, its a terrible fucking thing to do, exposing your identity like this. But Dynamight has become those faceless men to torture you all over again, and you think…you think he needs to pay the price for making you bleed.
“Apologize.” You whisper, standing above him, barrel pointed right in the middle of his forehead. He looks like shit, with dust in his ash blond hair, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth, a hole in his shoulder, another in his abdomen. His eyes cross to look at the gun before focusing his gaze on you, eyebrows pulled taut in confusion. He’s never seen you before without your mask, but you can’t focus on that right now. Its not like he’ll live to tell everyone who you are and what you look like after this.
“Whaddya say?” He grunts, hissing through his teeth when he puts more pressure on his shoulder. It doesn’t phase you, his pain, no. The only thing you can focus on is the familiar throbbing in your jaw that has ached one too many times at the hands of…of…
“You heard me.” You snap, voice shaking. You wipe away the onslaught of tears with a quick swipe on your shoulder, sniffing quickly, as if he wouldn’t be able to see the pain muddying your face.
“I got bad hearing ‘cause of my quirk. Ya gotta speak up, sweetheart.” Dynamight mutters, eyes fluttering shut as the pain gets to him. But its not enough, makes your teeth grit at his nonchalance. He doesn’t even fuckin’ respect you as a vigilante, the only protector of women in this society. You scream through your teeth in frustration, pressing the muzzle of the gun against his forehead directly until the cool metal stings, cocking it quickly.
“Don’t fuckin’ call me sweetheart, you sexist piece of shit.” You snap at him, opening your mouth to tell him to apologize again, before he cuts you off with a confused grunt.
“Sexist?” Dynamight asks, looking around the gun at you. “I’m a lotta things, but sexist ain’t one of ‘em.” He scoffs, gritting his teeth when you press the gun harder until the back of his head rests on the car behind him.
“Don’t try to pull that shit with me. I heard your gross fuckin’ comments about Creati.” You snap at him, hands shaking, finger ready to pull the trigger. But Dynamight stops you again, with a dramatic groan as he rolls his eyes into his head.
“I dunno how many times I gotta fuckin’ explain that that was taken out of context.” He says it like you’re the bother, the nuisance that annoys him, like a fly that just won’t go away. “That video was edited, I would never say some pig shit like that. ’S fuckin’ gross and shitty, and that ain’t me.”
Most of the times, whenever you’ve confronted men for the shitty things that they had done, they either bragged about it to your face before having their teeth kicked in. Or, they denied it, up until your gun was cocked and aimed on their forehead—then they confessed.
So why isn’t Dynamight confessing? You stare at him for a long while, at his paling face, how he coughs and groans every few seconds. He stares back at you, like he’s trying to get a good look at you, remember every detail that is the Red Medusa. He breaks the mutual silence with his stupid big mouth.
“What, ya got cold feet? Nervous about your first Pro Hero kill, huh?” He smiles at you, teeth bloody, grin sharp. It makes you sneer at him, closing one eye as you focus your aim, trying to figure out why the fuck you’re hesitating—you never hesitate.
“Get it the fuck over with already!” Dynamight roars at you, pressing his head against the gun, using his good arm to hold the barrel of it, jabbing himself with it. You clench your teeth, trying to fight off his hold, when there’s a sudden cracking sound in the distance.
Instantly, your head snaps over to the sound, find big blocks of ice heading your way, a green flash quick beside it. Your heart drops to your ass—you won’t be able to fight both of them at the same time, and you needed more bullets. You look over to Dynamight, whose eyes are still locked on yours, ripping your gun out of his hands.
“This isn’t over, asshole.” You bite at him. You dart off without another second, ducking to avoid the ice thrown at you, jumping over the cold obstacle thrown at your feet. You disappear into the woods behind the parking lot, staying low to the ground, as you hear the sounds of shouting bellow out behind you.
Nobody chases you, though, and the thought of that both calms you and unnerves you. Being chased brings back a torrid of memories, but it feels good being able to cleanly escape without having to shoot someone from over your shoulder.
***
“What do you mean we shouldn’t go after her?” Deku asks frantically, pulling out gauze from his utility belt as he tries pressing it to Dynamight’s shoulder. But the explosion hero only snatches it away from him with a grunt, holding it to his stomach, grumbling. He lets Deku hold the gauze to his shoulder, but not without a petty snarl.
“Kacchan!” Deku shouts at him when his eyes close for too long.
“What?” Dynamight shouts back, lids fluttering open and inflamed, but they don’t carry the same heat they usually do. Deku thinks he might be hurt—bad.
“Why did you tell Todoroki to not follow her? That was the vigilante who’s been attacking people lately.”
“Men.” Dynamight corrects, hissing through his teeth when the bleeding won’t stop. “She’s been attacking men.”
“As if that makes it any better.” Shouto replies back sullenly, eyes darting into the woods you disappeared into, but holds himself in place. He doesn’t know why he’s following Bakugou’s barked directions, but something about the urgency in his friends tone makes him stay rooted in his spot.
“It explains why she’s doing what she’s doing. Just let her go, for now—I’ll catch her later.” Dynamight dismisses, head lolling back against the car as Shouto dials in for the paramedics to put a rush on the ambulance.
“When?” Deku barks at him, eyebrows furrowed in worry as he holds his friends injured shoulder. “When will that be, Kacchan? When she kills another man?”
“Another rapist.” Dynamight spits. He doesn’t know why he’s going to bats for you when you just put a goddamn hole in his shoulder and stomach. But, it was something about the look on your face, the horror, when you held your bleeding fingertips inches away from your jaw. The empty look in your eyes, like he wasn’t the one you were talking to, like he was only a ghastly figure of every person that’s ever hurt you.
“No matter a persons crime, it doesn’t give her the right to kill them. It’s against the law.” Deku states matter of factly, his voice low, eyes zeroed in on the blood now seeping out onto his own fingers. Dynamight is quiet for a long while, jaw tight, before he spits out,
“Well maybe the law should change.”
“And then what?” Deku answers him with a snap, eyes set ablaze. “We have civilians killing each other in the streets, create their own judicial system right in the comfort of their own homes?” Deku asks exasperatedly, nose scrunching in irritation when Dynamight leans forward, despite the hissed groan emitting from his throat.
“It’s better than letting those fuckers—”
“Guys!” Todoroki snaps, looking over his shoulder as the two heroes bicker. “We can hash this out later. The ambulance is here.” Sure enough, there’s red and white lights flashing in the near distance, the sound off to keep from tipping off the press and scaring the civilians in the area.
At that, Dynamight finally relaxes, body slumping against the car. Deku calls out his name, but he’s too tired to answer the broccoli looking fucker. He just wants to take a long nap before he can find the energy to contact a sketch artist when he awakes. He wonders if the artist in the precinct near his agency would be able to capture the likeness of you on paper. He wonders.