A Sense of Normality |MHA Apocalypse AU|

Prologue

He slunk through the vacant streets, hand clutching the gun he had tucked in his belt, ready to shoot at anything that moved. A gun fires, and the blonde shouts out some choice words as a searing pain swells from his calf. As if the response was automatic, he puts 3 bullets into the attacker's skull. A quick inspection of the bullet wound told him that it hadn't hit anything important, and looked a lot deeper than it actually was. He always carried around a bottle of rubbing alcohol for things like this, which he takes out now, rinsing two fingers with it, careful not to waste any. He presses his fingers into the wound and pries out the bullet, tying a cloth around the wound to limit the bleeding.

"Are you stupid?" The red haired male rushes at him. "You shouldn't have run off on your own!"

"Oh, come on, Hair-for-brains, I could defend a whole hoard of mutants with worse injuries than this!" The older of the two says confidently.

"You got shot."

"I'll be fine."

They go back and forth for a while before the spiky haired blonde relents and lets the younger carry him back.

"What the heck did you get into?" The brunette girl inquires. "You should know better than to run off on your own, no contact! If he didn't find you..." She sighs.

"I'd have been fine." He grumbles. "I'm the oldest out of all of you, It makes no sense for you to be babying me."

"We're just worried about you." The redhead interjects.

"Yeah, well stop it! I've been through worse." The older boy grumbles. The pink faced girl sits him down and inspects the wound.

"Is the bullet still in there?"

"No." He says, and she whacks him in the head.

"You're not supposed to take it out, are you stupid? We've been over this!"

"And as I previously said, it could be some sort of bioweapon! What's the better outcome, me turning into one of those mutants or a bit of tissue damage. I've weighed the risks and I think I'd rather walk funny for the rest of my life than turn into a mindless beast."

"Okay, but-"

"And you hear me out now. If that does turn out to be infected, don't hesitate to cut my leg clean off. And if I start to turn... Kill me, you understand? I want to die while I'm still human." He says, his tone dead serious.

"We know." The younger boy sighs, pacing around. He'd heard this time and time again. It felt repetitive, but it was valid, perhaps even honorable, for one to wish for their own life to be ended, rather than become the very thing they had been fighting against. Still, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to hold that gun to the head of the very man he'd sworn to protect, let alone pull the trigger.