From Our Perspective

Chapter 17

*River's POV*

The damn kid we took would not. Shut. Up. As soon as he was let out and tied up in the bar, he started yelling and attempting to break out of his restraints. It was honestly starting to give me a headache already and we only had him for a couple hours so far. Since there wasn't much else for us to do I decided to head upstairs to hopefully get away from all the noise, plus I was beginning to feel tired from all the summoning I did. I head back to me and Kat's room and as I begin to relax in my spot I realize that Spinner was following behind me. He doesn't say anything as he sits down by me but I could see that he wanted to say something so I decided to wait until he brought it up, which wasn't too long.

"You think it was the right thing to do by letting that kid go? I don't regret it but the way Magne is putting it I messed everything up for us by doing that." I could tell he was trying his best not to look me in the face as he talked, maybe because he thinks I'll be upset with him too.

"Well I can tell you that I also would've let him go, although for different reasons than you did. I don't think it was anyone's fault that we got caught, it was just them finding a good opening to get us. That kind of stuff just happens sometimes, so I wouldn't worry over it so much." Without really thinking of it I reach out and touch where he got kicked on the side of his face. It was already starting to look bruised and it was looking a bit swollen.

"Does that hurt? I can probably dig around in Kat's bag and find something to help with that if you want."

I don't bother waiting for him to answer as I get up and start rooting around in one of the drawers on her nightstand. I remember her saying that these ones weren't finished yet but I figured for something small they'd still work. I grab one along with a bandage and crouch down in front of Spinner.

"I think this'll help with the swelling. The skin also broke a bit so just a bit of this stuff will help, not too much." I dip my finger into the medicine and start covering the area with it, completely oblivious to the fact that he was blushing a bit.

"You said you would've let the kid go too...why?"

I had to think about my words for a bit before I answered him. "He's young, he doesn't really know what he's doing yet and just going along with what everyone else is doing. For me it's not fair to punish someone who doesn't fully know what they're doing. That's just me though." I peel the wrappers off the bandage and gently press it against the wound.

"There you go. Leave it on for at least a day and it should heal just fine." He nods as I take my place next to him again. We sit in a comfortable silence together for a bit, occasionally broken up by either our captive yelling his head off again or by the other members of the League. Sometimes I hear Kat and Toga squealing about something before going quiet again, or Twice talking (yelling) more to himself than anyone else but occasionally I could hear him say Dabi's name. It was like this for a while before he spoke up once again.

"Can I ask you something? And I want you to be honest with me, no bullcrap."

"I'm always honest with you but sure, you can ask me whatever."

Silence again for a bit. "Touching me just now, that didn't...gross you out? You didn't hate it at all?"

These questions caught me completely off guard. "No. No, of course it didn't. There's no reason for me to think those things at all."

"Yes, there is. People like me, everyone sees as 'disgusting' and 'not human'. That we shouldn't exist." He stood up at this point and I could tell he was getting something off his chest so I decide to let him continue talking.

"My whole life, me and my family have been harassed, attacked and run out of our homes. I've been called every slur you could think of for people like us and had rocks and even pesticides tossed at me. You know how much that stuff burns if you can't get it all off? It didn't help that my Quirk ended up being the weakest out of everyone's. That's why I finally just gave up on it all, I decided to stay inside where I didn't have to put up with any of that anymore. And then...and then a couple years later I met you online." For the first time since he started talking he looked at me and I could see it in his face that this was all stuff that he's been wanting to talk about to someone for a while now.