In My Veins (bnha x oc)

Old Ways

"The fuck-"

Deku immediately put his hand over Ground Zero's mouth, "Please be quiet and let us explain."

Glaring lasers into the other man's skull, Ground Zero nodded and crossed his arms to listen while Deku, in fear of his life, slowly removed the offending hand.

"Well..."

"Spit it out, nerd!"

The Ghost, watching all of this, sighed and pulled their hood back, immediately throwing loose the familiar brown hair and owl-like eyes.

"Oh," Shouto breathed, blinking at her while Ground Zero blew a casket beside him... silently. Even Zu was both surprised and proud of the explosive man she'd known since they were fifteen for keeping his cool, considering he clearly wanted to scream the place to kingdom come and quite possibly tear Zu's head off.

"Yeah," the brunette said, clearly deciding to leave it at that for now as she moved on, "now can either of you get this damn cuff off my wrist?" she asked despairingly.

Shouto was the first to give it a try, surprised Deku hadn't been able to force it off her wrist with his extreme strength. The bicoloured man began to freeze it, warning Zu that it would probably hurt, but the change in temperature failed to make the metal more brittle so Deku's attempts to snap it while it was frozen failed. "I could try heating it up?" Shouto suggested, "It wouldn't be great for your wrist since you've probably already gotten a cold-burn,"

"I'll be fine Todoroki, it's that or get arrested so..."

Her childhood friend nodded in understanding and began heating the metal, noticing the way she was carefully controlling every muscle in an attempt to hide the pain he knew she was experiencing. He had to be careful not to heat the metal too quickly or he'd accidently release fire and then she really would have some bad burns to deal with, unfortunately, this also meant her pain was prolonged and probably excruciating.

Yet again, the stubborn piece of junk refused to warp in the slightest, even when given some encouragement from Deku (who was also trying to avoid getting burnt in the process).

"Are you sure you can't get the suit off?" Deku checked as Shouto brought the cuff to a normal temperature.

"I tried, so did you, this thing's not coming off. I don't even know how I got it on with this," She lifted her wrist from Shouto's grasp for a moment, "here in the first place." And then gently placed it back with a small wince.

"Surely if you got it on, you can get it off again." Shouto stated logically.

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? But apparently no."

"Give the damn thing here!" Ground Zero demanded, yanking the now pleasantly cool cuff on her wrist over to him. Zu withheld a hiss at the increased pressure on her fresh burns but couldn't hide the wince from the people looking, "You sure about this?" the blonde confimed, appearing concerned all of a sudden, "It's probably gonna hurt like fucking hell." he warned.

She just nodded, "I prefer that to the other option,"

"But you haven't actually broken any laws, you have a license," Deku pointed out, not liking the idea of Ground Zero literally attempting to explode something wrapped around the brunette's wrist.

"That's not really the point, from my position as a vigilante it's easy enough for me to go back undercover-"

"Back?" Deku parroted with a frown.

Zu sighed, rubbing her forehead which hadn't stopped causing her agony for a moment with her free hand— that pain was actually working as quite the distraction from the pain in her wrist, "Later." she told him, really not up for an explanation right now (and they didn't have the time anyway). She turned back to Ground Zero and nodded.