A/N: Hello everyone~! Hope you're ready for this! We're now getting into the bulk of the Kidnapping Arc of this story. It's only a few chapters long, but it is highly important for character development. Plenty of Dadzawa and Protective!Shouta to make up for the shit I'm putting them through, though. So please enjoy!

Chapter 9: Darkness

Shouta awoke slowly. His head throbbed in agony, and he knew a concussion when he felt it. He lay still, slowly letting his body adjust to his surroundings.

He wasn't in a hospital, he realized abruptly. The ground was too hard, the room too quiet, and he was in too much pain. He slowly peeled open his eyes, surveying his surroundings. He was in a small dark room with no windows and one door, which sat at the top of a rickety old staircase.

He didn't remember how he'd gotten there, though.

"There you are." A relieved voice whispered almost too quietly for Shouta to hear. It was familiar, and it tickled the back of his mind.

He looked at the sound of the voice. "Inko!" He whispered in realization as he recalled the previous night's events in a dawning horror.

They'd been attacked by Midoriya Hisashi. Shouta had been knocked out while trying to defend Inko and Izuku. They'd been kidnapped. "Where's Izuku?!" He whispered urgently, forcing himself to sit up, despite the rolling nausea that resulted from his actions. He braced himself against the floor as the room tilted alarmingly.

The sound of rattling chains made him glance down at his wrists, where metal shackles chafed painfully against his skin. His eyes followed the chain to where it was bolted to the wall. He had just enough leeway to nearly reach the middle of the room.

"He's over there." Inko pointed, her own chains rattling a little at the motion. She was chained to the wall on the left side of the room. He could reach her, if both of them met in the middle of their allotted space. She had about as much leeway as him.

He strained his tired eyes against the darkness, finding a small still figure laying by another wall. Izuku was still unconscious, also chained. Shouta internally cursed. This was a nightmare situation. One Civilian, one Hero, and one Hero-in-training—his own family—kidnapped. And he felt completely at fault for not being able to protect them.

If he'd only grabbed his Capture Weapon.

If he'd only grabbed his cell phone.

He mentally shook his head. Those kinds of thoughts were more than toxic in this kind of situation—they could be downright lethal. They were here, now, and Shouta had to keep his wits about him. He was their best chance at escape.

He carefully got onto his hands and knees—not trusting himself to walk with the way the room tilted in protest of his actions—and crawled in Izuku's direction. His chains pulled taut before he could reach him. If Izuku was a bit farther out, he could pull him closer and check him over for injuries, but he was too far away for Shouta to reach. He growled in frustration. Inko wouldn't be able to reach him, either, as she was on the opposite side of the room from Izuku. Shouta was chained in the middle of the two.

"Shouta?" Inko's small, frail voice made his heart break a little. She slid across the filthy wooden floor towards him, and he crawled back in her direction so she could reach him.

"How're you holding up?" He asked, voice rough. He tasted a bit of old blood in the back of his throat, and winced. He was thirsty, not that he expected that to be quenched any time soon.

"As well as can be expected, I guess..." She looked at him with a watery smile. "It looks like we can at least reach each other?" He saw her gaze shift worriedly towards Izuku, and he knew she'd tried before he'd woken up.

Shouta pulled Inko into a gentle hug. Despite what the woman claimed, he knew that she was barely keeping it together. She shook in his arms, tears rolling down her cheeks.

As he held her, he looked around the room again; eyes now adjusted a bit more to the shadows.

It was a decently sized room, but still on the small side. Stone walls to which their shackles connected, and old wooden floors. There was a layer of dust that he smelled more than saw, indicating that they were somewhere that hadn't been used for a long time. No windows. There was only one door in the room at the top of the rickety old staircase. The door looked relatively normal, like what one would find in a house, and he idly wondered if they were in some kind of basement. It was certainly cold and dank enough.

The only light came from a very small kerosene lamp that hung on the far wall—out of reach for any of them.

A bit of old furniture was pushed up against the wall that Izuku was chained to, adding weight to his theory.

He winced, head pounding. At least the darkness wasn't making things worse. Luckily, the lamp wasn't too bright.

Inko finally calmed down after a bit, and Shouta wasted no time in checking her over for injuries. Aside from some bruising along her arms and the like, she was fine. He let out a sigh of relief.

He then checked himself over. He was battered and bruised all over, but that was expected. He gently brought up a hand to the back of his head, hissing as it barely brushed his injury. That was a nasty concussion, he decided, and he wondered how long he'd been out for. He was sore all over—in such a way that led Shouta to believe that he'd been dragged for a bit—and a few of his ribs seemed to be bruised (at the very least, if not cracked or broken) from the earlier hit with the crowbar.

A soft groan shifted both of their attention to the only other occupant in the room.

"Izuku." Inko sighed in relief, and Shouta found his shoulders relaxing a little as well.

"M-mom?" He blinked up, disoriented and confused. "D-dad?"

"Yeah. Come here, and let me look you over, Izu." Shouta said gently, beckoning the scared child to him.

He could see the moment the situation started to set in for him, and Shouta carefully ran his fingers through Izuku's hair, checking for any injuries. The action helped calm him down a little, as the three sat in the center of the room. Luckily, Izuku didn't seem to be injured at all. That was one good thing out of all of this.

The kid was quiet for a long while. Shouta sat there, leaning against Inko to offer her some form of comfort while Izuku sat in his lap as he let the boy lean against him, his long fingers running through the dark green curls. His mind was whirling. Pros hardly ever got kidnapped, let alone with their families. He was just glad Hizashi was safe, at least. Maybe he'd find them soon, if Shouta couldn't figure out a way to get everyone out first, that is.

"We were kidnapped." Izuku finally whispered as he really started grasping their situation. "Why?"

"Hisashi was... never the kind of man to let things lie." Inko winced. "Izuku, it's true that he never sought us out, but I was the one that left him. He was abusive, and I couldn't risk him turning that anger onto you."

"I thought he left because I was..."

"He never knew." Inko answered his unasked question. "I never told him. He's the kind of man that bases the value of others on their Quirks. If he knew, he would've tried to force one out of you until it killed you."

Shouta winced. He'd seen a case like that before. A parent had thought their child's Quirk was too weak, and tried to force it to be stronger through punishments. Shouta and two other heroes were called in to help in that situation. That was bad enough; he didn't want to imagine how bad it would've been had the child had no Quirk at all.

"Is that what these are for, then?" Izuku asked, and Shouta became abruptly aware that, above the chafing of his shackles, were tight heavy little cuffs. They weren't connected to anything, still allowing him freedom of movement to a degree, but as he twisted his wrist, it pulled the skin painfully, causing him to wince.

These were obviously illegal Quirk Suppressant Cuffs. The kind the police used were highly regulated, though much more comfortable than what one could find on the black market—ones like these. The Black Market kind had spikes that pierced the skin around the wrist to consistently administer a low-dose of Quirk Suppressants. (The kind used by law enforcement didn't have spikes—they worked based off a frequency that disrupted the Quirk Gene, or something like that, Shouta hadn't been paying too much attention.)

That was probably going to scar.

"Quirk Suppressant Cuffs." Shouta affirmed.

"Fat lot of good that does against me." Izuku snorted.

"It's still pumping a foreign drug into your system." Shouta warned. "You've got a headache, right?" Izuku nodded. "That's from the cuffs."

"That's annoying." Shouta wanted to laugh in disbelief. This kid was already starting to calm down while Shouta himself, the pro here, was still trying to stop his hands from trembling.

Inko fussed over Izuku for a little while, and Shouta couldn't help the anxiety that creeped up his spine. It'd been too quiet. Too long that they'd been awake without seeing their kidnapper.

He heard, distantly, the sound of a door closing. The three of them froze. Heavy footsteps deliberately thudded closer until the click of a lock was heard from the door to their room.

The hinges screamed in protest as bright light flooded their environment, making Shouta's eyes ache and burn and his headache evolve into a migraine. He mentally cursed as his vision cracked.

Hisashi grinned. "Glad to see you all awake." He held something in his left hand, concealing it from their view. "Inko, dear, it's been too long. We need to have a nice sit-down chat about some things."

"Let Izuku and Shouta go." She glared at him. "They have nothing to do with whatever you want me for."

"On the contrary, they have everything to do with what I want you for." He grinned, making bile rise in the back of Shouta's throat.

The man went to where Inko's chains were secured to the wall, and pulled her back, away from Shouta and Izuku. Inko gave a cry of protest at the rough treatment, and Hisashi pulled her to her feet by her hair.

Shouta growled, staggering to his feet in anger, Izuku by his side, but their own chains wouldn't allow them to reach the man or Inko.

"Now, now. Let's not get too feisty, here." The man gave a sickening laugh as he held a needle of all things up to Inko's neck. "You don't want me to give her some questionable substances, do you?"

Shouta and Izuku froze, glares strengthening. Izuku looked ready to protest, but he kept his mouth shut, afraid of angering the man into giving his mother whatever was in that syringe.

"Good boys. Stay." He lowered the syringe before taking off Inko's shackles (but leaving the Quirk Suppressant Cuffs). Her wrists were red and raw. He grinned as he pulled her by the hair up the stairs and out of sight.

"M-Mom..." Izuku stared at the door in horror and despair. Shouta wanted to comfort Izuku somehow. But he'd never been good at that sort of thing. That was Hizashi's gig.

And god did he miss Zashi. He'd give a decade of sleep to see his husband walk through that door with that carefree grin of his and his wild cockatoo hairstyle. Hell, he'd even pay to see Joke walk through that door right now.

He wrapped Izuku in a tight hug, grounding himself with the presence of his son in all but blood.

They tried not to listen to the angered voices rising upstairs. They tried to pretend that they weren't anxiously waiting in a dark room with no idea of where they were or why they were there.

They both flinched violently when they heard Inko's agonized scream shatter the silence like a bullet.

"MOM!" Izuku cried out, straining against his chains. Shouta also staggered forward, but the room tilted suddenly, and he quickly found himself crashing with a painful yelp to the floor. "Dad!" Izuku was by his side in an instant. The kid must not have realized he was hurt, because when Izuku caught sight of the dried blood sticking to the back of his head, he gasped. "Y-you're hurt..." Izuku trembled.

"I'll be fine, Zuzu." Shouta forced his sick back down and pushed himself back into a sitting position, trying his best to ignore the pounding in his head as he did so. His brow was slick with sweat, and he tried not to pant at the effort. He must've been worse off than he first thought. He squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to string together some kind of coherent plan, but his vision was still cracked like a broken mirror and his head would not stop pounding.

"But you're not fine, now." Izuku had tears running down his face.

God, how must the kid feel? Kidnapped, scared, mother screaming in agony just up the stairs, and unable to do anything about it, while his mentor was so badly hurt he couldn't even stand.

"Wh-what can we do, Shou? There's... never been a scenario like this before." Izuku took some deep shuddering breaths, following a calming routine that Shouta had shown him forever ago. Though it didn't do much good as another scream rattled the walls. Even Shouta was having a hard time thinking straight when he knew Inko was being tortured just a few rooms over (though that might've been the concussion, too). Every instinct in him wanted to run towards that scream—to help his friend. But between the chains and the head injury, he couldn't do anything, and it killed him inside.

"Right now..." He hated to say it, but he never sugarcoated things. Especially for those he cared about. "There's not much we can do." He winced as Izuku stared at him in disbelief. "Hizashi and Nemuri will have noticed by now. All we can do is bide our time until they find us, or an opportunity arises. For now..." He flinched as the loudest scream yet made his head ring. "We need to survive."

Izuku looked like it was a hard pill to swallow. "But... you're a hero?" Shouta felt a strong pang of guilt stab him at the reminder. He looked away from Izuku, unwilling to face the disappointment he knew would be there.

"I'm also human, Izuku. That's all we are. Sometimes, there are things beyond even a hero's power." It was a lesson the kid would've needed to learn eventually, but Shouta would've never wanted it done like this. Abruptly, Inko's scream cut off. Shouta felt himself stiffen at the sudden silence, a deep dread growing in his stomach.

"Dad?" Izuku's voice was small and there was something vulnerable in his tone that made Shouta look up.

"Yes?"

"I'm scared."

"So am I, Izuku." He admitted. "But I'm with you, all right?" He pulled him into a protective embrace.

"Are we going to be okay?" The question broke his heart. He couldn't lie. The words, 'I hope so' or 'I don't know' were on the tip of his tongue before Hisashi opened the door again, a scowl on his face.

"Damn bitch. Wasn't worth shit." He spat.

Shouta's heart skipped several beats as he saw Inko's bloodied limp form. Hisashi sighed as he roughly carried her down the steps and shoved her against the far wall, where Shouta and Izuku couldn't reach.

The man turned and gave the two a nasty grin. "Until tomorrow." He promised as he stalked back up the stairs and closed the door, leaving the three in the dim basement alone.

Shouta realized abruptly that Hisashi never put Inko's shackles back on. He slowly looked back over at Inko, praying she would somehow be okay. He felt Izuku stiffen beside him before burying his face in his shoulder, trembling as he bit back violent sobs.

Shouta took in his friend's appearance. She was pale, too pale. And she was covered in blood... it leaked from her nose and mouth and ears, and—a scream caught in Shouta's throat as he saw lifeless green eyes staring back at him.

Midoriya Inko was dead.