Chapter 5: An Alleyway Devotion
The rain had ceased, but the city still wept. Droplets fell from rusted fire escapes and sagging power lines, striking the pavement with a persistent, irregular rhythm that seemed to sync with Nejire’s elevated pulse. She hovered a foot above the slick asphalt, her turquoise eyes wide and unblinking, her curiosity—that ever-present, driving engine of her being—temporarily overwhelmed by a far more primal fixation.
Before her, Katsuki Bakugo concluded his business.
It was not a battle; it was a termination. A low-level enhancer, all bulging muscle and foolish bravado, had made the error of attempting a robbery mere blocks from their agency. Izuku would have talked, would have reasoned, would have offered a heartbreaking chance at redemption. Bakugo offered only physics.
Nejire watched the arc of his body, a study in controlled detonation. He moved with a terrible economy, each explosion from his palms not wasted flourish but precise punctuation. A concussive blast to the chest stole the villain’s wind. A searing, near-miss at his feet destroyed his footing. Bakugo closed the distance, a blur of black and orange, his expression one of profound boredom beneath the ferocity. His hand, smoking faintly, clamped on the man’s face and drove the back of his skull into the brick wall with a wet, definitive thud.
Silence, then the slump of unconscious weight. Bakugo stepped back, shaking the tension from his wrist. He did not look triumphant. He looked… efficient. The raw, uncompromising power of it, the sheer dominance of the spectacle, unspooled something deep within Nejire’s core. It was a feeling that had nothing to do with heroics and everything to do with the memory of his weight, his hands, his scent. A sharp, aching heat pooled low in her belly, insistent and humiliating.
Izuku’s voice, tinged with gentle admonishment, crackled over their comms. “Kacchan, was that level of force entirely necessary? The medical team is going to have notes.”
“He’s breathing, isn’t he?” Bakugo growled into his own unit, not taking his eyes off his handiwork as he produced quirk-suppressing cuffs from his belt with a sharp, metallic snick. “Job’s done. Stop nitpicking from the van.”
Nejire’s gaze was not on the fallen villain. It was on the line of Bakugo’s jaw, tight with residual energy. On the way his combat gear strained across his shoulders as he hauled the man upright. The patrol had been monotonous until this moment, a predictable circuit of calm streets. Now, the air crackled. Her skin felt too sensitive, her uniform too constricting.
As the local police scurried forward to take custody, their flashing lights painting the wet street in garish red and blue, Nejire descended until her boots touched the ground. She caught Bakugo’s eye. He was wiping his hands on a rag, his crimson gaze sweeping over the scene before landing on her. There was no warmth in it, only a familiar, challenging intensity.
She said nothing. She merely tilted her head, a slight, deliberate motion, toward the mouth of a narrow service alley that gaped like a dark wound between a ramen shop and a shuttered pharmacy. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird. He held her look for three unbearable seconds. His lip curled, not in a smile, but in recognition. A silent, crude understanding passed between them, as tangible as the cuffs he had just employed.
Without a word, he turned and walked toward the alley, discarding the rag into a overflowing bin. Nejire followed, her footsteps soundless. The cheers of a few gathered onlookers, the static of the police radio, faded into a muffled backdrop. The alley swallowed them.
Here, the world reduced itself to textures and smells: the chill, damp kiss of moist brick against her shoulder blades, the gritty press of asphalt under her knees as she sank down without ceremony. The air was thick with the sweet-rotten odor of discarded vegetables and the chemical tang of old urine. Neon from the ramen shop sign bled into the darkness, painting his face in sickly pink and green.
Her hands were already at his belt, fingers nimble and certain, working the stiff clasp and the zip of his trousers with a practice that shamed her even as it thrilled her. He did not help. He watched, his back to the distant street, one hand braced against the wall above her head, his breathing slow and steady. The entitlement of his posture, the absolute expectation of service, made her shiver.
When she freed him, the sight of his swollen flesh in the garish light was both obscene and mesmerising. She did not hesitate. She took him into her mouth with a desperate hunger that obliterated thought, her lips stretching to accommodate him. A low, guttural sound escaped him, a vibration she felt on her tongue. It was permission. It was praise.
Her turquoise eyes, wide and unblinking, remained fixed on his. This was part of the ritual—her submission demanded witness. She worshipped him with a frantic devotion, her tongue swirling, her throat relaxing to take him deeper with each slow, measured thrust he began to dictate. The taste was sharply familiar, a brackish salt that spoke of his exertions, both on the street and in the memory of her own bed. Her hands gripped the hard muscle of his thighs, holding on as the world narrowed to this damp, dark space and the feel of him filling her.
Bakugo’s free hand fisted in her long blue hair, not gently. The pull at her roots was a bright, clarifying pain that anchored her to the moment. He guided her rhythm now, his hips moving with the same lethal precision he had used in the fight. A soft, choked sound escaped her each time he hit the back of her throat, a sound of strain and utmost completion. Sirens wailed somewhere in the city, a symphony for their depravity.
“That’s it,” he muttered, his voice a coarse scrape in the gloom. “Look at me.”
And she did. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes from the effort, from the degradation, from the shocking, unequivocal rightness of it. This was where her boundless curiosity had led her: to her knees in filth, servicing the most volatile man she knew while the kindest man she knew coordinated cleanup just around the corner. The cognitive dissonance should have shattered her. Instead, it fused the moment into something unbearably potent.
His control began to fray. The pace quickened, his breaths coming in sharper gusts. The hand in her hair tightened, his thighs tensed. With a final, deep thrust and a stifled roar that was more anger than pleasure, he spent himself down her throat. She swallowed convulsively, accepting every bitter drop, her body shuddering with a perverse sense of accomplishment.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the distant city. He slowly withdrew, his grip on her hair loosening to a mere caress before falling away. She stayed on her knees, her lips bruised and slick, looking up at him as he tidied himself with a dispassionate efficiency that made the act feel even more transactional.
He glanced down at her, his expression unreadable in the shifting light. “Get up.”
She rose, her legs unsteady. The rough brick scraped her back as she leaned against it. He leaned in, one hand landing with a heavy, proprietary weight on the curve of her backside, squeezing through the fabric of her costume. The touch, so crude and possessive, sparked a fresh ache between her thighs. It was a brand, a receipt. She loved it, and she despised herself for loving it.
“Clean yourself up,” he said, his voice back to its usual abrasive timbre. He turned to leave, then paused, looking over his shoulder. “Deku’s waiting for a debrief. Try to look like you’ve been scanning rooftops.”
Then he was gone, melting back into the neon-dappled street, leaving her alone in the alley with the taste of him on her tongue and the cold damp seeping through her knees. She took a deep, trembling breath that stank of garbage and sex. From her belt, she retrieved a small canteen, rinsed her mouth, and spat the water onto the stained asphalt.
She fixed her hair, smoothed her uniform, and practiced her expression in the dark glass of a nearby window: bright-eyed, innocently curious. The perfect picture of a hero finishing her patrol. She could already hear Izuku’s eager, detailed analysis of the takedown, his mind already spinning on tactics and improvement.
She stepped out of the alley, the city’s noise rushing back to meet her. Izuku waved from beside the police cordon, his smile a beacon of pure faith. She floated toward him, her body humming with secret knowledge, her heart a chamber of echoing silence.