There was an unnatural heaviness in my body as the mental fog had begun to dim and a stiff feeling in my body had begun to take over where it had been.
"-and go to hell!"
The words, and the voice that yelled them out into existence, ring through my ears, bringing with them an intense urge to squeeze my eyes lightly together and pretend to be passed out once more. But I didn't.
When I opened my eyes I was somewhere that I recognized from my nightmares as much as I did from my dreams.
The bar. Tomera... Father.
And a lot of faces that I don't know.
No one else seemed to have realized that I had woken up, everyone else in the room was too consumed with the screaming blond boy simalry tied up as I was just to my right. This gave me the advantage of watching them before they knew that I was.
There was a man wearing a full body, black and gray suit that covered everything, his face included. Behind him was another figure leaning against a counter that held a tv on it that showed only static. The person had a masculine figure to them, but held themselves as if that was not quite the case. I couldn't be sure without interacting with them and didn't want to make any assumptions. Behind the bar was a blonde girl with her hair done up in buns on either side of her hair and a crazed look in the older teen's eyes that matched the little fangs in her teeth.
Maybe a blood related quirk?
Standing near the girl was the ware gate user, Kurogiri, looking exactly as he had the last time that I'd seen the nomu like man. Seeing him sent a sick feeling through me as I remembered one too many trips to a factory that I could never find on the map today even if I wanted to.
Sitting at the bar with the same lanky figure that I remembered from endless hours spent cooped up in the older man's room playing video games was Tomera, though today there was a severed hand attached to the younger Shigaraki's face. It was a look that truly made the young man look like the villain that he had been shaped to be.
There was also a heavily scarred man and another one with a mutation type quirk that caused the man to take on reptilian features.
And heavily restrained, his hands bound in front of him, was the blond boy that had been yelling only a moment before.
Bakugo.
It would be lying to say that some part of me wasn't enjoying the sight.
"The other brat is awake," a gruff voice says rudely. My gaze turns to the source of the noise and finds the heavily scarred man to be the speaker. I glared at the man as all of the eyes in the room turned to me and took me in as if I was the newest item being put on display. I guess in most ways I was.
"You gonna let me go or what?" I asked to no one in particular in the room, knowing that the pale blue haired man would get the message. This was a game that I had played before after all.
The scarred man scoffed as if I had said something completely absurd, but it wasn't him that spoke next.
"Deku," Bakugo hissed, the warning in his tone clear as day. I just didn't think that it was truly meant for me. "Be quit."
But I only ignored the other boy, keeping my eyes trained upon the bastard that had called me out.
"Let him go," a familiar voice called out, earning a look of surprise on the faces of almost everyone else in the room as multiple villains attempted to protest. "Now," Tomera said, his tone more annoyed than it had been before. There was something in it, something dark that I didn't know why it was present.
It was the one in the full body suit that came almost excitedly forward to do just that, speaking aloud about just how bad an idea this was before saying that it was a good one right after.
When my own bindings had been removed I stood up steadily, rubbing at my slightly angered wrist as I walked past the villains and placed myself at Tomera's side at the bar, leaning over it to grab the bottle of soda that had been placed among the booze there. The blonde girl had a wicked smile on her face as she watched the easy familiarity that I used with the bar. It was the kind of crazy that should send everyone in a fifty-mile radius running.
I liked it.
"What the fuck, Deku?!" The other boy screamed, a statement that everyone else seemed to share, but wasn't going to share so shamelessly. But the boy was ignored once more, something that he would have to get used to sooner or later.
I took a sip of the soda before placing it on the bar at the villain's elbow before stepping back from the bar in an open invitation to the girl on the other side of it. One that she was only too happy to take as she threw herself over it, a knife raised in her pale hand before her feet could even hit the floor. A knife that was pressed against my throat just as surely as my gun was pressed against her head.
"Ooh~" the girl cooed excitedly. "This one is interesting, can we keep him?"
Most of the other villains in the room didn't seem to share the girl's enthusiasm as they each either had their quirks prepared or a weapon drawn in case of bloodshed.
"I like this one, Tomera," I told the younger Shigaraki, watching with a sick sort of satisfaction as all of the inhabitants of the room except for the pale villain and Kurogiri balked at the usage of the name. "She's a special kind of crazy."
The blonde smiled at that, clearly pleased with my assessment
"Put the knife down, Toga," Tomera chided as he turned in his seat to look at the pair of us. "And put the gun down, Izuku."
There was a sharp intake of breath from the chained teen at my name falling so easily from the villain's lips, but anything that might have been said by the boy was drowned out by the complaints of the scarred man.
"Great," he said snarkily as the girl, Toga, and I dropped our respective weapons, tucking them back into their places, "another little psycho."
The wording seemed fair enough so I didn't bother wasting the energy that it would take to defend myself from the quirk user's allegation.
"You know it would be nice to have one family reunion that doesn't involve my kidnapping," I said instead, sending a pointed look to the two villains in the room that have had the most hands in each of the situations.
Tomera only shrugs and the man made of mist just goes to wash a glass behind the bar now that all of the commotion has died down. At least the kind that would draw blood.
"I suppose it would be useless to ask you to join us," the seated villain assumes, not really asking a question, nor making a statement either.
"And have to deal with dear old Dad?" I scoffed. "Yeah, no thanks to that."
"Thought so," the man says simply, a clear sign that he was done with the subject at hand even as almost everyone else in the room struggled to understand it as new information was being constantly thrown their way. "Worth a try anyways."
"The nerd doesn't have a father," Bakugo growled, clearly tired of being ignored.
I glared at the still chained teen, liking the hint of uncertainty that I found there in his eyes. "You don't know shit about my family, Bakugo. So shut the fuck up about it."
There was a low whistle that ran through the room at that. "You know," the scared man said, sounding much less hostile than he had any time that he had spoken before. "I think I like this one too."
I looked at the older man and found that he was holding out an unlit cigarette as if it was an award or a peace offering. I didn't really care which one it was as I walked to meet the man with the dyed black hair, feeling the blond boy's eyes on me like a weight every step of the way.
The villain lifted his finger, displaying a small blue flame at its tip as I took the cig to my lips and breathed light into it until it could survive on its own, nodding at the older man as I stepped away and sat down next to my brother, a trendle of smoke filling the room. Smoking was one of the many skills that I had picked up while playing vigilante.
"What happened to you, Deku?" The other boy asked quietly after a moment or two, his voice oddly morose.
My neck burned at the question before I gave the answer that I was more than sure would earn the blond boy more than one hostile gaze:
"You mostly."
—-
Days passed with an interesting quickness from there as I spent a good amount of time with Tomera in his room or with Toga in mine as the villains waited for the press conference that was sure to be held any day now. I knew that originally this time was going to be spent trying to convince the walking pile of anger issues to join Tomera's little league, but that offer didn't seem to be on the table for the other boy anymore.
Not that he would have taken it even if it was.
When the press conference finally did come Toga and I were too busy to listen to it as me moved around one another with blades pressed firmly into each of our grips, the pair of us moving with a speed that I hadn't had the chance to use since I'd been taken off of the street.
But even if I wasn't listening to the broadcast as well as the other less law-abiding members in the room were, I could still tell that the reporters were asking after Bakugo and I, pointing out his villain-like rage and my less than stellar history.
I could also hear how Eraser defended the pair of us even as he knew that the ideas had merit. It was nice, a feeling of protection that I wasn't used to.
Toga's dagger flew across the room as I pressed my own to her neck as she had done to me only a few days prior, but the girl still smiled even as she bled from a nick on her neck. Maybe because she had.
"Anyone order pizza?" A sultry sweet voice suddenly as the bar door creaked open.
Purple-pink smoke filled the room as everyone stilled, bodies hitting the ground as my eyes grew dark as well.