Chapter Text
Shouta was tired.
But he was always tired, so there was really nothing unusual about that. He was ready to go home, say hello to the cats, and then promptly collapse into bed where his very sleepy and adorably cuddly husband would be waiting with open arms.
But unfortunately for him, patrol didn’t end for another two hours, and he was yet to cover the shadiest area of his route.
So far, he hadn’t had to deal with much; just a couple of drunken brawls in dark alleyways he’d had to break up, and one old lady to safely escort home.
He liked nights like these, quiet and calm, where he was just another shadow.
It was a little too calm though, and as another half hour passed by with no incident he began to feel a sense of foreboding. Just the lurking thought that this was the calm before the storm.
In all his years working as a hero he’d come to trust his instincts, they’d saved his life on a number of occasions, and so he started paying even more attention to his surroundings than normal, suddenly on high alert.
Something was wrong, he could feel it.
He stopped for a minute on a rooftop to look around and assess his surroundings, to try and find the cause of his unrest, or to prepare himself for whatever it was that he was sure was about to happen.
But he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, and although that should have eased his mind, it only served to increase his apprehension.
He frowned before sighing, and as he made to continue his patrol muttered under his breath about how he was in more need of sleep than he thought.
It was as he was about to return to the street that he noticed the figure emerging on the opposite rooftop.
The figure that was slowly, but surely making their way to the very edge of the roof.
In an instant he leapt from his viewpoint and pulled himself across to the next building over, landing silently not far behind the focussed stranger.
He placed a hand on his capture weapon as he assessed the situation.
From closer up he could see that the figure was actually quite small, and he had the horrifying feeling that this was a child who was about to jump.
He stepped forward carefully, with every intention of trying to talk the person down before just grabbing them. It would be a lot better if they could make the decision to live themselves.
“Hey kid,” He spoke as softly as he could to try not to startle them. “Why don’t you back away from that ledge and we’ll talk about this okay?”
The kid in question showed no sign that they had heard him and Shouta felt a stab of panic as he saw them slip their shoes and jacket off.
“This isn’t the answer.” He spoke a little louder this time. But the figure seemed to be so focussed on their movements that they didn’t even register his presence as they folded their jacket and stepped onto the ledge.
Shouta sighed, he had hoped it wouldn’t come to this but he was beginning to think he wouldn’t have an option.
“Hey kid! Don’t do it!” He reached out his hand to grab their sleeve at the exact same time that the suicidal stranger took the final step off of the ledge.
Immediately Shouta sent his capture weapon out to grab the figure and pulled them back onto the rooftop and away from the edge.
Setting them down in the middle of the roof, he released the struggling child from his bonds, instead choosing to wrap them in his arms. At this motion, the kid froze, and a number of thoughts ran through Shouta’s head in quick succession.
Firstly, he thought he’d made a terrible mistake by touching the stranger and was about to let go and give them space because secondly, he realised he had no idea what had driven them to this point and he really didn’t want to make things worse.
He looked at their face as he moved to let go and was hit with a wave of anger when he saw that thirdly, this stranger, this child, and he could now see that they were in fact, just a child, was wearing a fucking muzzle.
For a moment his heart stopped, memories of ‘Zashi sobbing in his arms as he told Shouta about his teachers “shutting him up”, and how he’d “take the tape any day” flashed through his mind and he had to remind himself to breathe, to calm down.
He reached into his utility belt and pulled out a knife to cut it off the kid, his heart breaking a little bit more when the child flinched.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” He tried to sound as comforting as possible but it was obvious the kid didn’t believe him. “I promise, I’m just going to take this off okay?”
He didn’t get any response, but when he reached forward no movement was made to get away from him, and he took that as a good sign.
It took him a minute to cut through the thick leather straps but he succeeded and immediately pulled the muzzle off of the stranger so he could get a good look at their face.
The boy was young, just a teenager, and the emptiness in his expression concerned Shouta almost as much as the bruises covering his body and the deep cuts on his face.
This kid was hurt, really really hurt. And Shouta decided in that moment that he was going to do everything in his power to help him.