Chapter Text
Torture was such an inconvenient part of his job. There was always someone yelling or crying and half the time it was him, so he’d often be yanked from the room and shuffled off to regroup upstairs at the bar with a stiff cup of coffee.
As if.
Tomura never bothered to buy the lactose free creamer, so what was the point in that?
That monster.
However, this time was an entirely different situation.
It was much, much worse.
How could he look Uraraka’s mother in the eye when her daughter was nearly her spitting image? How could he see her and not touch her? Speak to her and hear the distant sounds of Uraraka, a cold reminder of how far she was from him now?
He sat at the bottom of the tucked away stairs behind their bar hideout, head in hands. Desperately searching for a distraction, he mentally traced the chipped black paint of the rundown wood into shapes. It was unclear which fact he was hiding from: the boss having Uraraka’s parents brought out of their marble prisons on the other side of the door within spitting distance from him, or Uraraka having gone suddenly off the grid.
His jaw clenched and relaxed in a cycle on fast forward as he ground his teeth in hardly veiled anxiety. His knee bounced beneath his elbow and he bowed into his crossed forearms.
Boss was not happy about the heroes declining his offer for a, uh, peaceful trade.
If he was being transparent, he wasn’t exactly happy about it either. If the heroes had simply met with the boss then they could have gotten his sweet Uraraka’s parents back and the League would have removed the competition for her heart all in one fell swoop.
Instead the boss was pissed and undoubtedly scheming somewhere in the back of his mind as he held the married couple beyond that door. He’d never paid much attention to it, rarely needing to come down this way for his purpose in their ragtag group of villains, but now he couldn’t stop noticing where the wood had splintered and broken, dark paint ripped open to reveal the light brown beneath.
It jostled. Twice rose to his feet on instinct just as the door swung open, revealing a less than enthusiastic Shigaraki and Kurogiri, the dark cloud always hovering at the boss’ side.
“I, uh, boss,” Twice stuttered, taking hesitant steps backward up the stairs. “Anything I can do to help?”
Shigaraki tilted his head to the side painfully slowly, as if to show just how inconvenient Twice was in his presence. “No,” the boss said. “It’s taken care of. We have a new plan.”
“A new plan?” Twice chirped, his anxiety raising his pitch as he stumbled back a few more steps rising higher and higher above Shigaraki.
From behind Kurogiri, the magician emerged. Compress eyed Twice with a vindicated sort of bravado as he held out two glistening marbles to show off to Twice before he slipped them away into a pocket.
Good, good. They’re alive.
Technically you don’t know that.
Technically YOU don’t know anything.
Technically I know just as much as you do.
Touché.
Twice blinked the voices away in rapid succession. Their strength had bounced back and forth in his mind between brazenly incessant to mute spectators somewhere in the recesses of his psyche. Working with the League of Villains was fucking with him.
All the more reason to find Uraraka and run away with her somewhere far, far away.
Shigaraki took the first step toward their bar and Twice angled his body for the boss to pass.
“Pack your things,” the boss said to Twice. “You’re going on a little camping trip.
“Then we’ll see how defiant the heroes are really feeling.”
. . .
Jin had never been an outdoorsy guy. Something about the beauty of nature left a dry taste in his mouth — bitter like soot or dirt. Though if he had to choose a terrain to dwell upon in wait, a forest would serve him well.
It was quiet, the only sounds brimming the night’s still surface belonging to insects and the occasional small predator. Stars shone bright overhead, reminding them all how far from home they were.
There was a different kind of freedom to the sight.
The freedom of chaos without order nearby to break up the party.
A wide roof breached the surface of the trees in an outcropping kilometers away. Warm light danced around it gently, settling in softly for the night. A weak trail of smoke whispered its way to the sky as Twice stood atop the cliff at a fair distance away.
Uraraka was here.
It was almost as if he could feel her presence — the brightness in her eyes and the gentleness of her features, the tinkling of her laugh.
Soon.
Soon, they would be reunited.
“You gonna keep your wits about you?” Dabi’s voice cut through his stare in the warm summer night.
“Of course,” Twice answered, the sound a foreign sureness so consistently unavailable to him. With Uraraka, however, everything was different. This time he was so close. This time he would not fail.
“Just stick to the plan,” Dabi said over his shoulder as he eyed his uncharacteristically focused friend.
The light around the cabin dimmed as the heroes in training settled in for the night.
“Absolutely.”