Chapter Text
For the first time in years, Specimen B’s crimson eyes flutter open.
The researcher is far enough away from the epicenter of the explosion to avoid instant disintegration. The reinforced glass of the observation windows shatter from sound alone, giving way to a concussive blast which smashes his body into the back wall with such force that the concrete cracks behind him. He throws his arms before his face just as a wall of sizzling heat lambasts him, followed by a wash of roiling flames.
The scent of charbroiled flesh is the last wave to reach his nostrils.
For a moment afterwards, his body is paralyzed with shock – like a cockroach frozen in fear under the pressure of a firm boot. Senses are slow to return; sight first, a blurry haze of colors that coalesces into flickering red lights that should be accompanied by a howling alert. It is likely his eardrums have been ruptured and the muffled whine is the best auditory input he will receive for now. The seared nerve endings along his forearms recognize pressure but not pain from when he’d shielded his face from the blast, but his mind is aware enough of the movement of his limbs to substitute in the phantom feeling of leveraging himself to a seated position.
The explosion was likely a defensive reflex, a last resort directed by the specimen in no particular direction except outwards. However, the researcher remains confident that the situation is still within his control. Despite the critical lapse in sedation—likely due to an intern’s miscalculation and subsequent sub-therapeutic dose of anesthetic—it is highly unlikely that Specimen B will have regained full consciousness in the space of thirty seconds after spending the last four years in hyperslumber.
Sure enough, standing but unmoving in the ashes of what had once been two brilliant postdoctoral scholars and one ignorant intern is the prized Specimen B. Its muscle tone has not atrophied despite its profound period of inactivity and is brought into stark relief by the sheer amounts of sweat glistening upon its bared torso. The air conditioner which had previously kept the cell in subzero temperatures is now nothing more than a melted slog of metal, allowing waves of heat to distort the space around the specimen. Its body struggles to remain upright as its mind fights to breach consciousness.
An impossible feat, truly. He shouldn’t have expected any less of his prized Specimen B. Such a shame then, as its efforts will never amount to anything more than three quiet deaths and extensive property damage. The partial destruction of the facility is much more concerning due to its location on an uncharted island; repairs will be much more costly than hiring new personnel.
The researcher pulls a tranquilizer gun from his lab coat pocket. The dose of neuromuscular blocker loaded in this dart could very well kill the specimen, but perhaps this is the way things should be after all.
“…”
A heaving gasp for air, followed by indistinct syllables. Fascinating; Specimen B has already regained the respiratory function and mental capacity to formulate and produce speech. Captivated by its impossibly expedient recovery, the researcher allows the specimen some time to utter what could very well be its final words.
The specimen raises its head, crimson irises flashing from behind its fluttering eyelids. A razor-edged smile spreads across its face.
“F… Fuck you.”
Chapter One: Spark
“I really don’t know, Uraraka. You sure you’re not moving things too fast?”
“Kirishimaaa! You sound like my mom!”
Kirishima flops over, mindless of the sand sticking to his sweat-soaked back, and wheezes out a breathless laugh—because damn, are normal people supposed to hold hour-long conversations during hour-long morning runs? “Hun, Mommy just doesn’t want to lose the best roommate ever to Froppy the Brutally Honest Amphibian.”
Unwilling to dirty her backside with beach dirt, Uraraka settles for squatting next to his head. “You only love me for my food.” She doesn’t even sound out of breath.
He tilts his head back to flash his best shit-eating, sharp-toothed grin at her. “I wouldn’t have woken up at the butt-crack of dawn to join you on your seaside jog if there wasn’t some sort of delicious compensation included.”
She laughs and pats his belly comfortingly. “Your stomach will just have to deal with being all hollow and empty inside till we get back to the apartment.” She springs jauntily back to her feet. “Com’on, break time’s over!”
“Nooo…” Kirishima grasps her ankle weakly. “Uraraka, I’m dying. Float me home.”
“Kirishima!” she shrieks. She hops back in an attempt to pull away and hovers above the beach a little longer than should be physically possible.
“Cheater, you canceled your own gravity!”
“I told you last night this was going to be a Power Run. I.E. Getting used to functioning with your power on. So why didn’t you use your power?”
“I am. I’m twice as dense as I was an hour ago.” He doubles his density again just so she can feel the physiological hardening of his fingers around her ankle. “It’s not easy being tough all the time, lemme tell you.”
She wretches herself free of his hold. Though he releases her as soon as possible, she still shoots up at least ten feet before readjusting her gravitational pull. “It might do you some good to live an entire day being hard all the…” She squints into the rising sun. “…time.”
Despite her teasing innuendo, something in her expression doesn’t sit right with Kirishima. His playfulness fades away as he sits upright. “Uraraka? What’s up?”
She presses all ten fingers together and drops down by his side. Almost instantly, she shifts down into Tsuyu’s classic launching position, hands braced against the ground and both legs tensed beneath her torso like supercoiled springs.
He scrambles to his feet. “What’s wrong?”
“Somebody…” she gulps. “A body just washed ashore.”
It’s a body alright.
Stark naked and pale in the morning light, the man’s body is tinged blue with oxygen starvation. Uraraka’s already tilted his head back to open up the airway and has her fingers shoved up against the side of his Adam’s apple by the time Kirishima slides to his knees and lowers his ear to pale blue lips. The chest isn’t rising.
“He still has a pulse!” cries Uraraka.
“Not breathing,” Kirishima mutters. Without further ado, he pinches the nose shut, wraps his mouth around cold lips, and pushes air into the civilian’s lungs. When the water-slicked chest rises in response, he breaks contact to let the air escape on its own, waits five seconds, and reseals his lips around the man’s mouth. Exhale, watch the chest rise. Wait for five seconds. Lips to lips again, keeping his eyes on the space between square pectorals. Rise, fall. Rise, fall. Rise—
Uraraka’s already turning the body onto its side when the man convulses. Kirishima sits back on his heels as the blonde’s entire torso is seized by wracking coughs. Water and bile splash out his mouth, followed closely by vomit diluted by loads of ocean water.
“You okay, man?” He supports the guy’s back to keep him on his side. While the guy hasn’t spewed chunks yet, Kirishima slips two fingers into the oral cavity anyways to make sure nothing’s blocking the airways. The blonde rewards his concern by biting down hard—his entire hand hardens almost reflexively before another spray of puke forces the man to unclench his jaw again.
Bite marks. He shows Uraraka proudly. “So. He’s probably fine.”
“…Does anything faze you?”
“Nope.”
Uraraka slumps wearily onto her butt as they wait for the man to finish emptying his lungs and stomach. “Well. That was…”
That was Uraraka renewing her two-year first-aid and CPR certification last month, with Kirishima opening up the powerpoint on his laptop so she could Ctrl + F all the answers to the written exam. Wordlessly, he holds up a hand (not the one covered in watery vomit and teeth marks) in her direction and she high-fives him. They continue watching the blonde hack up mucus and bile.
“We should find somebody,” says Uraraka, “who can call the police.”
“It’s too early. Stores haven’t even opened up yet.”
Blonde hair remains stubbornly spiky even as droplets of seawater and clumps of sand break free with every convulsion. The muscles of the man’s upper back strain and flex every time he coughs. Kirishima’s eyes drift a little lower before he unties his running jacket from around his waist and drapes it over the guy’s bare ass. There. Slightly better.
“We’ll take him home then. Call the police or missing child services, feed him…”
Kirishima’s stomach rumbles grumpily.
“You too,” she laughs.
Kirishima rocks forward as the coughs subside, careful not to crowd the blonde. “Hey, what’s your…”
His heart skips a beat and cuts him off the second he gets a glimpse of the blonde’s face. A moment of déjà vu sputters to life before flickering into darkness. He blinks, and while he’s wondering what just happened, Uraraka picks up where he left off.
“Can you tell me your name?” The man flinches when she taps his shoulder, curling away defensively. Uraraka glances at Kirishima helplessly and only then notices his expression. “Kirishima? Something wrong?”
He blinks again and shakes his head. “I… don’t know. Thought he looked familiar or something.”
Uraraka gives the blonde an once-over. “Past life?” she suggests without an ounce of recognition.
He can’t shake the insistent familiarity that’s come over him, even though he can confidently say he’s never seen this spiky-haired blonde before. “Maybe.”
Their attentions are drawn downward as the blonde clears his throat. It’s gravely and scratchy, like he hasn’t used it in forever (or has recently had his esophagus wrecked by fluids headed in the wrong direction). “Where… Where the fuck am I?”
The man rolls himself onto his elbows, his entire body trembling with the effort. Uraraka levitates him before he can faceplant into the puddle of his own throw-up. Kirishima pulls him upright with one hand and gestures with the other. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
The guy doesn’t even look up. “Fuck,” he growls, which actually pretty damn close, since Kirishima’s holding up his middle finger. It seems like something the civilian would appreciate. Or maybe it would just confuse him. This is why Uraraka has a CPR card and Kirishima doesn’t. He doesn’t do rescue. He just gets hard. He takes bullets and lightning bolts for his teammates. Then he punches stuff.
Uraraka slaps him upside the head. “I’m Ochako Uraraka,” she says, using her soothing sidekick voice. “This is my friend, Eijirou Kirishima. We were out on a run when we found you. We don’t have our phones with us, but we can contact the police for you if—”
He and Uraraka had plenty of exposure to combat in Yuuei, so it’s a little sad how slow his reaction time is. As is, he just barely manages to redirect the blonde’s open-palmed strike at Uraraka’s solar plexus. Probably because neither were expecting an offensive strike from a drowned rat. But that hit? Definitely trained, with the end goal to launch a massive force of something like wind or water. Though no quirk actually activated, his guard’s up.
“Whoa, whoa! Okay, let’s not call the police. Here.” He sheds his shirt and tosses it into the guy’s chest. The blonde opens his fists and shifts his stance to catch it. Conflict resolution tactic #1: distraction—success! “Let’s just get some clothes and food into you for now, ‘kay?”
The blonde eyes them warily but ultimately slips the shirt over his spiky head of hair.
It gives him a surprising sense of pride to see Specimen B make it as far as it has. Forget about property damage; this research facility is as good as gone, nothing left but chemical fires and charred bodies. But there’s nowhere left to run now, nothing but a rocky fifty-foot plummet off a cliff into the raging ocean.
“End of the road,” he says.
“Spike! Can I call you Spike?”
The blonde scowls. It’s hardly intimidating when his mouth is stuffed with frosty corn flakes. Actually kinda cute, like those hamsters who shove whole baby carrots into their massive cheek pouches. “Hell no.”
“I’m sure your name will come to you eventually,” calls Uraraka from the kitchen. “Are you okay with mushrooms?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know.”
Kirishima rest his chin on his fist. He’ll have to ask Iida or Midoriya the next time they’re in town about how memory and brains work. After all, Spike remembers how to put on pants and use chopsticks but doesn’t know his own name or if he has a quirk or not, how messed up is that?
Anyways, Kirishima’s got about half an hour before he has to take off for work to figure out what to do with the stranger in his house who doesn’t like the police. Maybe a soup kitchen? Hagakure does a lot of philanthropy work, maybe she’ll know a place that friendly to young adults… or something…
Yeah no. Still feels like abandoning the amnesiac. But since when did he get so concerned over random attractive hobos? He’s handed tons of attractive hobos over to the likes of Hagakure and Sero because they do charity and stuff and they’ve got the resources for it. All Kirishima has is a swanky apartment within biking distance from his job as part of Crimson Riot’s team of sidekicks, which pays enough to let him splurge a little on clothes and video games. Mostly video games. He’ll have to start buying his own food when Uraraka leaves. Damn.
“Eat up!”
Uraraka slides omelettes exploding with at least three hundred ingredients across the table. He catches his and Spike's plates and squirts half a bottle of sriracha over his meal before Spike growls, “The hell is this?”
“You kept answering I don’t know, so I put everything,” says Uraraka cheerfully, sitting down with her own plate. “There’s probably something in there you’ll end up hating. Good luck finding it.”
Spike’s lower lip curls. “What are these little pink things.”
“Baby shrimp! They’re meat from the sea. I thought it’d be a nice little touch.”
“They’re like the poop eaters of the ocean,” Kirishima adds helpfully, “so it’s okay if you give them to me. I don’t mind.”
Uraraka smacks the back of his head. “Ignore him.”
“Ha, I’d like to see you try!” Okay, time to suggest the homeless shelter route. He opens his mouth and something else slips out entirely. “So how old would you say you are? Ballpark range.”
Spike’s frown intensifies. Quirkless or not, with that stormy face and those broad shoulders, Kirishima figures he’ll be fine wherever he’s going. “How old are you?”
“We both graduated from Yuuei last spring,” Uraraka supplies. Neither of them miss how Spike pauses. “How about this: one of our friends, Monoma, has a teaching fellowship there—”
“Friend being the operative word, he’s actually a copycatting jackass.”
“Aaanyways I have the day off today, so why don’t I sneak you in during lunch and see if being on campus helps at all with your… memories…”
Spike stands abruptly, body trembling like a rabbit ready to bolt. For no particular reason at all, Kirishima reaches out, hesitates, then surges to his feet. “We don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to,” he babbles. “Losing your memory is rough enough. Y’know, if you just want to sit on the couch and stare at the wall all day, we can do that.”
Slowly, Spike lowers himself back down.
Picks up his fork.
“Whatever,” he mumbles through a mouthful of kitchen sink omelette.
Sighing, Uraraka points at the clock.
Kirishima winces. “Um. You can stare at the wall… I have to bike to work. But! I’ll come back for lunch, I swear, and as long as nobody decides to set fire to a cannabis store, I can probably be back by two…”
He shoots a worried glance at Uraraka. She can totally take care of herself, but he was totally the one who dragged a naked hobo into their humble abode and gave him clothes and forced Uraraka to make him food and—
She shows him her phone.
<<<help me Tsu, Kirishima’s dumping his charity case on me
>>>be there in 15
“You sure?” He can’t help but repeating.
She grins. “I’ll be fine.”
“End of the road,” he says, leveling his pistol at the spiky head of hair. “It was fun while it lasted, right?”
“F… I’ll fucking kill you…”
“Run all you’d like, but the only story ending today is yours.”
Of course Kirishima gets a text fifteen minutes later, just as he slides into the office while patting down his windblown hair and adjusting his tie. From Tsuyu of all people though…
>>>He’s gone, Kirishima.
"So run, Kacchan.”