You Can't Lose Me || Shinso x Reader

Chapter 16: Teatime

Warnings: hospital setting, descriptions of a near-death experience, foul language

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Shinso's POV

Turning around, I race back down the hallway. The lights above me shine brighter the closer I get to the conference room, but I don't stop for a moment. Opening the door, I shut off the lights and stumble over to the computer wall. Looking through the options in the sidebar, I locate one that references the photo to an uploaded document. My hands start trembling as they unzip my chest pocket and remove the single item it holds – I can see it in the light of the computer screen – the picture of (y/n) and I in the park.

My breath is also shaky now, but I need to know for certain that I'm right about this. I send the slightly faded and crinkled polaroid through a digital scanner before uploading it into the facial recognition program. My stomach burns yet my body shivers while I watch the loading bar travel across the screen ever so slowly. Then the banner appears on the screen, 'Match Identified.'

I can feel the blood running through the veins in my arms and thighs; its pulse quickens drastically. I'm usually so calm. What's happening to me? I weakly hold myself up by the back of a chair as my knees feel ready to give out. I need to get out of here.

Grabbing my polaroid, I weakly traverse from the chair to the conference table, and around the table to the door. The door opens. A figure stands in the doorway, but the light behind them blinds me and I shut my eyes tightly.

"(y/n). That was the name you called her, right?" It's Midoriya's voice. "I was really hoping you'd mention it on your own when you arrived, but here you are, keeping another secret. Would this happen to be that same childhood friend you were defending last week?" 

I try to respond with anything, but my voice fails me.

"What has been up with you lately?" he continues, "We're not just heroes, we're friends. Why don't you trust me with things like this?"

For a second time, I try to move my mouth, but only a strangled groan passes through my lips. Midoriya's form seems to spin when I open my eyes again. The burning in my stomach gets worse and I can barely hold myself up anymore. Then, pulses shoot up my spine causing my entire body to twitch uncontrollably and collapse onto the floor. 

Everything hurts. I can barely hear. I can barely see. Something is happening around me, but it hurts too much to processes any of it. My body continues to convulse until a darkness finally takes over me.

Midoriya's POV

Holy shit. What the hell is happening? Shinso has collapsed to the floor and is shaking violently. The hospital is on the complete other side of the city. Bending down and putting my ear to his mouth, I barely hear his breathing, and what I do hear is weak and constricted. He doesn't have enough time to wait for help. Grabbing the walkie-talkie off my belt, I radio the police team.

"Mindjack is down. I repeat: Mindjack is down. Emergency situation; unknown cause; immediate transfer to the hospital, provided by me. I need the station to be searched for any triggers or hostile persons. Over and out." 

I look down at Shinso again and watch his eyes roll into the back of his head. He's running out of time.

Picking him off the ground, I start running – not at 100% because he can't travel that fast in his condition. At full power, I could make it to the hospital in just under 5 seconds, but I lengthen that time to a minute – about 800 km/h. Stop doing the math in your head. Now is not the time.

His body is still convulsing when I reach the front desk ER nurse. She calls a code blue; the doctor sitting beside her is joined by several other medical personnel who take Shinso from my arms and wheel him away on a cot. Before I can follow them, the first nurse stops me asking for background information about the patient and what caused their condition.

"Hitoshi Shinso; male; age 24. I don't know of any allergies or other health conditions, nor do I know what happened. He just collapsed onto the floor and started shaking." 

My radio clicks to life as the police on the other end relay information to me. There is no one of suspicion in the building, but there is something in Shinso's drink.

"He ingested some kind of poison." 

The nurse sends word over to an EMT and allows me to follow them to Shinso's temp room on the chance that I receive any other important information from the police.

Inside the room, nurses and med techs are rushing around the room while holding his body in place. One hooks up an IV needle to Shinso's hand, another gives him a shot of some kind, someone else starts removing his tight-fitting suit- and I'm looking away now!

I can hear them exchanging medical terms I don't quite understand and the squeaking of the cot ceasing, but I freeze when I hear that he's stopped breathing. Turning my head slightly, I watch someone carefully insert a tube down his throat which is hooked up to a machine – I can only assume that it's for artificial breathing. His chest rises and falls once again.

"Deku, do you copy?" My radio speaks again; I confirm. "The tea in Mindjack's cup wasn't normal tea. It's hemlock. The amount of toxic alkaloids in the water is extremely high."

When I feed the information to one of the doctors, one of the techs is sent to get another machine with another long tube. This one is sent through his nose and goes in a lot further than I expect. A liquid flows down and returns after a few moments in a different color. My eyes catch Shinso's hand, lying at his side pale and completely limp. My stomach churns and my body shivers; I can't stay in here anymore. 

A quick bathroom trip later, my stomach is now empty. I sit in the hallway, unable to walk into the room nor look in through the window. Tuning out the alarming noises around me, I retreat into my brain thinking again about the case.

The attack last night was perfectly planned out: Aizawa's presence, the location in the busiest part of the city, a citizen willing to give their life to this "cause," etc. Every move made by this villain, or rather whoever this (y/n) character is, is thought out; every detail is planned long in advance. They've had nine years to prepare for this day, so they're going to make it perfect.

Then there's Shinso. The perfectly timed murder made sure nobody could be at the station when the poison kicked in, and the location for this was as far away from the hospital as possible. Had I not turned back or even been here at all, Shinso would still be on the floor of the conference room and would likely already be dead. It's almost sickeningly perfect.

Both events were carried out with strategic precision. If we consider the likely possibility that these were organized by the same person, then what's their reason for targeting Shinso? And why wouldn't they have taken out both him and Aizawa during last night's attack? He barely received a scratch during the battle, so what changed between then and now?

Shinso said her name. Her body language had clearly conveyed shock, as if the action was unexpected. It's very possible that she felt threatened by an outside force with personal information about her, wishing to rid herself of this leakage as quickly as possible. She put together this plan so quickly, she must have already had people working for her within the police station.

It's almost noon when the doctors inform me that the hemlock toxins have finally been flushed from his system, and Shinso is now stable. I return to the station to inform the day team about the event and the details aside from the main case, including the secret Shinso was hiding. They and the hero commission didn't take that very well, but they have yet to do something about it. I do some patrolling around the city and take a few short naps, but I spend most of my time working on the case. 

And praying that my friend awakens safely. 

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A/N: Whoopsies. I nearly killed another character. At least they managed to further the investigation. That and Shinso now knows that (y/n) is alive. Gee, I wonder how well his processing of that little factoid will go. 

Word Count: 1475