Rescue // Shoto Todoroki x OC Fanfiction

Chapter Twenty-Two

When Katsumi finally decided to exit the bathroom, Shoto was still seated on the couch with his face buried in his phone. She carefully crossed the room, trying not to bring attention to herself, because she knew her face was still flushed. 

Shoto seemed to be pretending nothing had happened, and she felt relieved. Whatever happened to make him do that was a fluke, and she knew it. He would never do something like that normally. He must have just been worried or something. 

She sat back down on the couch on the opposite end of him before picking up her own phone to distract herself. She clicked it on and stared at the screen, but was unable to move further than that. She felt like she needed to say something, but she didn't even know what she should say. It was probably best they were pretending nothing had happened. 

Shoto shifted on the couch, and Katsumi stilled, thinking he was going to say something, but he didn't speak.  After a few minutes of awfully awkward silence, Katsumi finally decided to speak up, about something unrelated, figuring that a change in subject was needed. 

"You don't have to stay here, you know," she told him. She glanced over to where he sat, and he put his phone down but didn't look at her. 

"I know," he replied softly. 

"That means you can leave now," Katsumi said, then she hastily added, "if you want." 

"I want to make sure you're on the right track before I go," he said. "You're notoriously bad at taking care of yourself."

"Am not," she glared. "I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself. 

"You don't get to complain, remember?"

"Well, you don't get to boss me around." She crossed her arms in defiance. She wouldn't admit that she actually liked having him here. Coming home from the hospital was always her least favorite part of these things, and it did help to have someone at her apartment with her. But she would never tell Shoto that. Instead, she talked to him in the only way she knew how and gave him attitude. 

"I actually do get to boss you around," he told her. "Until I see you actually taking initiative and getting better, I'm going to stay." 

Katsumi rolled her eyes before standing up from the sofa again. 

"Where are you going?" he asked. 

"None of your business," she said as she headed down the hallway toward her bedroom. Once inside, she grabbed her laptop off of the bedside table and headed back out to the living room. She'd been away from her work for far too long, and she could only imagine the amount of emails she had waiting for her in her inbox. It was likely Ochaco had already taken care of most of it, but she still wanted to see what kinds of things had happened at her agency while she was away. 

Katsumi sat back down and put her feet up on the coffee table before opening up her laptop. Shoto suddenly scooted closer and closed the lid of her laptop after seeing her pull up her work email. 

"Absolutely not," he told her. "No work. You're supposed to be recovering."

She glared daggers at him before reopening her laptop. He went to close it again, but Katsumi caught his hand. "Touch it again, and I'll bite your fingers off." She gave him a stern look before letting go of his hand. She ignored the tingles in her fingers from having touched him. 

"Fiesty today, aren't we?" Shoto said with a raised eyebrow. "I'll make a compromise. You can look at the emails, but you're not allowed to respond to any of them. Uraraka and your sidekicks have things handled at the agency. She told me not to let you fuss over work." 

"That's only going to make me more anxious," Katsumi complained. "Knowing what's going on, but not being allowed to act?"

"Then don't look at them at all."

She let out a heavy sigh. "Fine, I give up. You win." She closed her laptop roughly and tossed it down on the coffee table before sinking back into the couch and crossing her arms over her chest. She glanced over at Shoto, who had a stupid, shit-eating grin on his face. "Don't look so smug." 

"I can't help it. It's rare you actually listen to me." 

"Don't let it go to your head. This isn't something that's going to keep happening. Once I'm back to work, it'll go back to the way it was before." 

* * * 

The rest of the day followed in a similar suit. Shoto would tell Katsumi that she was trying to overdo it, she'd sass him, but ultimately give in. He liked it when she listened. Submitting to others wasn't something she often did, but she was letting him win. 

Katsumi had ended up putting movies on the TV to keep herself occupied, and they argued about what to watch. This time, he did let Katsumi win. He didn't care so much what they watched, but he felt it was important to make sure she didn't feel completely out of control of the situation. He knew that for the last few weeks, she hadn't been able to make any decisions herself given the situation, which was something she wasn't used to in any regard. 

Not long after Shoto had pulled the leftovers back out for a late lunch-dinner, Katsumi had fallen asleep on the couch again. This time, he stuck to the other side of the couch and didn't touch her. That was obviously a mistake last time. He saw the way her face was still flushed when she'd come out of the bathroom. He must have embarrassed her and made her feel uncomfortable. Still, he didn't know why he'd done that to begin with. 

From the other end of the couch, he kept an eye on her still, making sure she was sleeping alright. Given how late it was in the afternoon, he wondered if he should move her to her bedroom, but he refrained from touching her at all. 

While she slept, he picked up after them, clearing the coffee table and washing the few dishes they'd used. He tried to keep the noise down as he did, making sure to let Katsumi rest. 

* * * 

She was back in the warehouse, except this time, it wasn't her who was chained up against the wall. It was Shoto Todoroki. 

Katsumi tried calling out to him where he lay chained up and limp on that awful and damp carpet, but she couldn't speak. She was stuck in the corner of the room to watch s Mind Maker came in. 

He turned Shoto over on the floor with his foot before pressing his boot down on Shoto's cheek. Katsumi's breathing quickened and she opened her mouth to speak again, but nothing came out. She was stuck in that dark corner of the room, forced to watch as Mind Maker hurt Shoto, and there was nothing she could do about it. 

Mind Maker bent down and picked up Shoto's head by his hair. From where she stood, she could see that his face was covered in blood. His eyes were bruised and swollen. He looked like a mess. He was wearing that same dirty hoodie she'd been stuck wearing while she was chained up in the warehouse, and she could see the tell-tale bite marks across his shoulders where the hoodie hung down. 

She tried to move her legs. She wanted to kick Mind Maker's ass and get Shoto to safety, but there was nothing she could do but watch from that dark corner of the room. 

When Mind Maker leaned forward and sunk his teeth into Shoto's shoulder, Katsumi woke up.