#protect the black woman | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ms0milk · 1 year

Text

𝟔 | 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐧𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐨𝐛𝐚

ー✧ prince!bakugou x royal guard!reader

"You dread what would have happened if His Highness accompanied you here. You dread what you would have to do to this crowd to keep them from touching him."

cw bkg 🫱🏽‍🫲🏼 unethical rescue tactics, reader is a bit scantily clad (thin nightgown) and someone has big feelings abt it. temporary sense of claustrophobia, descriptions of a very crowded room. i love aizawa i love uraraka i love kirishima i love poor deku i hope you enjoy this protective fluff. 4.1k

PREV | M.LIST | TAGLIST | NEXT

Uraraka Ochako is functioning on four hours of sleep and a few well timed snacks. She’s led morning stretches for the first-shift guards, floated smithing equipment to the forge, freed a bird from the clocktower, and worked Sero’s horrible tape off the back of a fireproof Alderan cloak.

Since midnight it’s been nothing but Alderans pilling up in the courtyard. Every time staff thought they’d collected the last of them, two more would tumble through the gates– one fell from the fucking sky. Captain Hawks deployed from the garrisons at the sight of a flare and dropped Kirishima on castle grounds, crispy, an hour later.

Uraraka has made her morning rounds four times over and polished her cuisses to thinning. She helped Miss Nemuri battle the Alderan Prince to bed and found furs for singed Kirishima. Even off-duty she’s still in her greaves and chausses because without weight on her legs she’d get so distracted she might simply float away. She couldn’t sleep. Not when there was one person missing all night. Until half an hour ago, everyone from the forest fire was accounted for except for Master Aizawa.

When she enters the throne room ahead of you, he’s standing beside the queen no worse for his usual wear. There are a menacing amount of people squeezed inside and the wall of open windows does nothing to make the crowd less oppressive. Off-shift guards, generals, military personnel, butlers, even the kitchen staff are spriting from one corner of the room to the other to try and provide the unexpected guests with appropriate refreshments. You look pale when Uraraka checks behind her, and you feel cold in her hand.

“Y/n?”

You nod, but don’t quite look at her. You’re busy peering out at the seagulls flying past and stumbling on your nightgown hem, like crossing the threshold of the throne room stripped you of all the coordination you displayed just minutes ago. The hodgepodge of royal advisors have squeezed into this modest room for an emergency meeting, but they’re shouting and squabbling like a group of children loud enough to deafen horses at the edge of town. They’re here because of the flame mage.

Uraraka stops trying to navigate through the crowd and turns to you, “Are you feeling sick?”

“I’m alright.”

Do you realize you’re whispering? Or that you answered too quickly?

She pulls your hand a bit and steps even closer, “Is it like last night– like the poison?”

One voice cannot be heard over another, one face cannot be seen for long before moving behind a chest or shoulder or otherwise being walked in front of. Uraraka realizes it was silly to take you from the hospital directly to the queen, even if you were requested. She should have objected. To be fair to herself, she didn’t anticipate the chaos.

A gentleman trips on the corner of a rug and causes enough of a fuss around the pair of you that you’re being bumped by guests from all angles. You look agitated.

“Do you need a chair?”

“Just tell me what your queen needs from me.”

The sound of your heartbeat shouldn’t be so loud in your ears considering the long hum of hundreds of voices around you. You realize you’re staring at the floor and when you look back up, Uraraka stands just inches away with a grounding hold on your hand. She's warm too, like Kirishima. Too warm, she’s too close to you and her hold is too tight.

There’s a bit of movement in the space beside your head and taking a second to focus, Uraraka spies a shock of green hair bumbling through the throng towards her. She knows this particular friend will not be a huge help in this particular moment but what she doesn’t anticipate is your light footwork the second he breaks through the crowd. Poor Deku. He would have been okay if he hadn’t steadied himself on your shoulder after wrestling free of the crowd.

“Hey Och–!”

With eyes still unfocused and balance still off, you kick a foot between his legs, take solid hold of his hand, and then he’s flying– fully airborne– over the back of your head and onto the marble floor. Uraraka barley pushes a pair of diplomats behind her fast enough to keep his red boot from knocking out any teeth. A hush ripples immediately through the crowd.

“Deku you can’t just grab people!”

The short young man gapes up at you from the spot where you have him pinned to the floor. Freckles and nervous eyes, a slight smile, he whispers, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper back immediately.

“That’s enough!” Another voice, a tired voice, breaks through the mortifying silence and kick-starts the chaos again. You release your hold on the boy who is quick to pick himself up and bow his head, but people are moving, generals or ordering, waitstaff are fussing, all around you again. You don’t have Uraraka’s hand to hold. The boy could be apologizing, his mouth is moving for sure, Uraraka is gone– you’re trying to excuse yourself to a young woman whose foot you’ve tread, but she’s replaced by an old man in blue cloaks, then he’s replaced by a spindly child with a silver horderve tray and it’s becoming terribly difficult to stay afloat.

“Y/n,” The tired voice becomes clear again. You raise your head and Aizawa is standing in front of you, borne from the crowd pushing past. He takes another step forward and it’s so much easier to concentrate on his dark coat in the colorful chaos.

He doesn’t seem to be burned, or maimed, or...ghost-like, and he is not phased by the swarms of expensively dressed men shouldering past the pair of you. You don’t know where the boy or Uraraka went and you haven’t introduced yourself to the queen who must be in here s–

“Y/n.”

“Yes, sir.” You snap back to attention.

Aizawa’s caught your eyes wandering to the windows again and when he says your name it’s low and clear, “May I?” You nod. He pinches the collar of your nightgown with his long fingers and clasps the silver neckline closed with a brooch.

“You’re in the throne room. How do you feel?”

“Well, sir.”

“You were injured last night, do you feel any side effects?”

“I’m–I feel fuzzy.”

Panic subsides with nothing to focus on but the man in front of you. He stands close and works slowly. When your eyes are no longer pounding with your pulse you take a glimpse of his handiwork at your chest and melt a little at the shining dragontooth below your collarbone. White and unburnt, heavy and familiar. Aizawa rests his hand over your chest when he finishes his adjustments and your heartbeat slows considerably under the pressure. No one bumps into you anymore.

“You were very brave last night Y/n, thank you.”

You think you thank him in response but you’re having a difficult time taking your eyes off his hand where that pressure keeps your lungs from overflowing with panic. You close them instead.

“You’re in the throne room, are you meant to be here?”

“Yes sir.”

“You don’t like tight spaces do you?”

“I’m alright, sir.”

“It helps to focus on one thing in a situation like this.” He lifts from your dragontooth and replaces the warmth with two hands on either shoulder. Briefly, he glances over your head to the crowd undulating, not daring to crash into the black guard, before tipping his head back down to you,

“What are your orders? You should be in bed.”

The presence of the crowd beyond their clicking howling and clinking is only in the absence of fresh air to breathe. The overwhelming chaos of the room is subdued now, dull save for seagull cries and Master Aizawa watches on patiently like he knows that he’s the reason for your peace.

How many orders had you received this week? You blink a few times as you remember and become fully aware of the tragedy of your mission; Queen Mitsuki’s letter to Her Majesty Todoroki, one of the only two things you were tasked with protecting, is ash in a forest miles away.

“I– have no orders. I was requested for an audience.”

“Unhand me!”

Aizawa’s hand at your shoulders becomes a grip when new noise vibrates from a far corner of the room.

“– if you don’t–!”

A horrible tide overcomes the crowd, slowly at first, then the pull of a thousand eyes, heads and legs towards the sound of the commotion. Exactly what you always dread, the sea of people begins to churn and it is never the threat of the crowd that chills you but what a crowd can do to itself.

The voice turns into many which turns into shouting over the single note of chatter. They’re fighting, someone has started a fight in the throne room and you haven’t even managed to catch a glimpse of the queen or her mighty entourage yet so the room must be vast and the crowd must be plenty and there is a much higher chance than you’re comfortable with, of stampede.

The old guard doesn’t have time to be gentle with you when he pulls away, “Can you manage the crowd?”

“Yes sir.”

And you both understand that this is an order, not a question, not a concern.

“Shinsou!” He calls over your head before diving into the thrawl, “Help our Alderan control this traffic.”

As Aizawa disappears into the swell, the relief of Shinsou’s name floods. Every member of your party had been recovered from last night’s fire. You swivel, hoping to catch sight of the young guard coming your way before you begin to help the Takoban staff herd these guests like Aizawa instructed, but instead of Shinsou there are a pair of wide redrimmed eyes standing much too close.

“You’re the Alderan guard?”

Heads turn.

When a great gaggle of creatures come together, it is the sheepdog’s job to gather them. When a dragon takes up residence in a castle it’s mistaken for a jewel rich cave, it is an Alderan’s job to come and relocate them.

“I heard him say it,” the person presses closer, “you’re a member of the Alderan party.”

Sometimes though it is a sheep’s job to wreak as much havoc as possible. The crowd, still generally flowing toward the tussle at the front of the room, has decided that you too are interesting.

“Have you spoken to the queen?” Is the first of many things you hear when a wall of well dressed backs becomes a ring of eager faces.

“Where is your–”

“–does Aldera have–”

As you attempt to find footing suitable for a military member of your standing, a stiff breeze reminds you that you’re not wearing anything more than a cotton nightgown. There’s no sword at your hip, no medals at your chest past Jeanist’s heirloom dragontooth, and only a flimsy ribbon holding back your braid.

“– can you– will this affect the–”

“–was quick!”

“How hot–”

The Takoban King must truly love war for his council to be so large, and for the people in it to be so joyous in their involvement. Flies on corpses.

More and more people break away from the forward flow of the crowd as they realize who you are and not one of them thinks to give you breathing space. You become the room’s second center of gravity. Where the hell is Shinsou?

“I will answer–” you attempt and then spin to apologize to a man you’ve bumped into, “– your questions– I will–”

What is causing this fuss? One bandit in the woods? Alderan company? Are these the manners of Takoba?

Your breath sticks to your throat in the questioning swarm while they push you deeper through them– like you’ve been swallowed by a great snake. You can’t embarrass your country by using force on royal advisors but the constriction of your arms against your side makes it difficult not to raise your voice.

“Where is your party?”

“Who is– charge–”

“You’ve brought danger!”

“Where is your prince?”

Your prince. You dread what would have happened if His Highness and friends accompanied you here. You dread what you would have to do to this crowd to keep them from touching him.

“Excuse me,” you duck as you murmur lukewarm apologies in escape. You must find Shinsou.

A short woman in tails is at your eye-level like this and she begins a barrage of questions about Alderan foreign policy when you error eye contact. One foot in front of the next only introduces you to a new polished nobel and either their disdain or their cross examination. Pushing forward isn’t working. What happened to the vast throne room? Why does it shrink when you move through it?

Your clothes are too tight– your skin is too tight and the hair brushing the back of your neck will surely kill you. You jerk an arm when a brave soul grabs hold of your bicep and force your shoulder stiff in its socket to stop yourself from striking. Their voices melt into itching static, you feel their mosquito bites in the goosebumps of your flesh.

“Where–”

How will you help to manage this crowd when you can’t even walk through it? You don’t want to be alone anymore, this– you, you won’t remember how to get back now.

“You’re a soldier?”

“– and how many–”

“Alderan! Were there weapons or onl–”

A firecracker pop screams in the open air above all of you and you’re gasping when your hearing comes back, long enough to focus on the whistle and crack of a shot in the chamber. One more keeps the static from filling your ears again, and steals the attention of the generals not yet bored by your silence.

“Move,” detonates as a voice off the walls.

Bodies roll past you, through you, to continue their questions without getting crushed by the parting crowds. They can’t yet see the person attached to the voice or the reason for the parting, but you know the owner of the sparks that splash across the blue-green ceiling, and you would follow them forever and a day.

Prince Bakugou, in all his milk golden glory steps through the swarm like a threat.

Generals that swallow you whole don’t approach him and you itch to be closer, but the questions don’t subside just because a new Alderan guest has appeared and in fact they seize on the opportunity to ask you for an introduction.

Your heartbeat is just the ringing of a dented bell, over, and over again and you feel its pulse in your jaw when you open your mouth to speak. No words come out now– now that your arms are trapped at your side and you’ll never be free of this–

“Oi!”

The bell rings louder.

“What–you! Off of her!”

And the person taking their turn to interrogate you is flung forcefully from frame, along with the waitstaff they grab in a panic and take to the ground. And he’s right there, the prince standing directly before you, a vast clearing behind him, growling and billowing smoke. His red eyes aren’t gentle but they pierce your soul with warm homesick.

Having tossed aside the only things between you, other advisors trip over themselves to escape the prince’s course. Some even try to hide behind you. Gold crackles in his palms as he watches you hurriedly catch your breath– why is he here? He’s close enough to touch again and he’s cleared a path to you like the room was empty.

“Highness,” you bow your head and rush to blink the last of the shock from your eyes.

The prince grits his teeth. The veins in his jaw splinter his sculpted cheeks, “You–” he growls. The crowds swell behind him in both size and volume and then flinch when he jerks back around, “– you dare treat an Alderan like your entertainment! Filthy fucking searats–” an explosion from each hand punctuates his rage.

You flinch. Your eyes flood at the sudden noise and your proximity to it, though something more exhausted than tears, and you realize you may be the one in need of a doctor out of the pair of you.

“C’mere,” the prince locks eyes with an unfortunately close diplomat and snatches their furred collar to many cries and general protest from the fleeing crowd, “You think it’s funny eh? To pull a member of my party from the hospital and ambush her in her bedclothes?” The man sheds a few tears of his own as the prince shakes him.

On the first day of winter the queen and her son Dance Peruro with their citizens. Paint their faces with pomegranate wine and strip off their furs to the waist, and then open the caste gates to let townsfolk pour in for feasts and holiday songs. You are always terribly anxious on the sidelines with Jeanist while trying to follow the crowd’s skipping and yowling to make sure that the queen is safe. The king watches his family from the sidelines too, but much less anxiously and mostly with hands full of food.

In the dance, wild limbs fly like fist fight and there is always, always shouting. Screaming thanks to the heavens while leaping round a great bonfire to singsong horns and strings. The Dance Peruro is destructive and it’s beautiful to watch two pairs of red eyes full of joy, dance together in the crowd that loves them.

Bakugou looks elated in this scene, red eyes slits and filled with excitement. Gold twinkles in his ears. He finally gets to flex his magic even if it is inside another kingdom’s throne room and practiced on another kingdom’s citizens, but how on Earth you’re going to apologize to the Takoban queen– to master Aizawa– you have no idea.

The prince raises his captive off their feet and hurls them into the crowd hard enough to knock a few sturdy generals to the ground. His arms threaten to tear from the confines of his silky white shirt in his passion. With his back turned you still know exactly the expression he’s making and you’re just relieved that he’s safe. It doesn’t cross your mind to detain him.

“Gimme those pretty coats or I’ll skin them off you.”

Just about everyone within earshot either scrambles backwards or starts to strip their outer layers in confusion. An old man in fine blue robes flees through the clearing at the exact time that the masses start to shuffle and thrum against one another, but Bakugou snatches him by the back of the neck and releases a hellstorm of orange and pink strong enough to eject the man from his capes and clear across the room.

“Classic Takoba hospitality, huh? You parade all your guests around in their underwear?”

With the space created by your prince’s rage, the full glory of the throne room becomes clear. In the empty circle around the pair of you the fine white rugs shine like spotlights. They’re stitched with blue emblems– blue flames– that climb across the floor, from stone to window, elven door to throne. The throne.

Most of the crowd has rushed to the entrance in escape, no doubt trapping Aizawa with their terrible fuss, and so the crystalline space all the way at the back of the room is open. And it is where the queen sits in her sea glass throne. Dozens of silver suited guards surround the base of her throne’s raised platform to protect her from your prince’s squalor, Shinsou and Uraraka among them– the freckled boy too.

It’s a struggle not to shout for help. Or rush to her side, for the queen’s fragility lights up every protective instinct, every resuscitative urge in your body; surely she is drowning and you are appalled momentarily, that no one feels it important to save her life.

Icy white skin reflects the light of the afternoon sun and her eyes are dark and sallow. They might even be closed but you’re not close enough to see. You should be closer, she needs someone to keep her from tumbling to the floor like a limply sewn doll. Long light hair trickles over her shoulders to the point where her skirts meet her bodice like a shoreline. She is made of lace. Lace instead of flesh and seems too cold and stiff to survive another moment without proximity to a fireplace. Her Majesty sits with her hands in her lap and does not react to the chaos.

Behind you, your prince is a shark in a school of fish. Royal advisors at the back of the line to flee, panic earnestly now and guards at the edge of the room rim the onlookers, unsure of whether they’re permitted– or able– to subdue this royal guest. But the prince doesn’t snatch anymore lords and instead turns to you as candy sweet smoke rises to the ceiling now that no one is as interested in bothering Alderans as they are in finding something else, deep inside the castle, to busy themself with.

He’s still grinning when he swings around, but you’re not fooled, not even by his concern. You anticipate the scowl before his grin falls because you know that hates to look at you.

If your bad habit is eye contact you fear the prince’s may be aversion.

“Cover yourself,” he grumbles and thrusts the old man’s blue robes into your chest but he doesn’t let go quite fast enough. He holds both you and the stolen clothes there like someone who has something more to say, so you blink up to him. Your white nightgown whips around your calves.

Prince Bakugou was poured from molten gold. He doesn’t look at you but he doesn’t storm away, he doesn’t leave the clearing that he’s made for the two of you and you think he’s trying to say something when his gaze finally flickers from the space above your head to someplace below your dragontooth.

You can tell he’s holding back something calloused and loud by the way he bites hard at his lip. Instead he growls low in the space between you, “Return to your room at once.” And then barks for Kirishima.

“Coming!” The kind voice replies, echoing somehow in every direction. From your spot in the center of the room you can just barely make out red hair and a raised arm milling through the last fifty or so people trying to squeeze through the silver doors and out into the safety of the castle entryway. The Champion is much more polite than his prince and winds his hulking body gracefully through the throng before finally stumbling into the clearing. The prince doesn’t have any trouble looking at Kirishima.

“Take her back– get back upstairs, the lot of you. I don’t wanna hear a single Alderan peep for the rest of the day.”

This feels hypocritical, but Kirishima just smiles like a bowl of bread dough and takes up the open space by your side when the prince begins marching to the back of the room.

Anticipating your concern the Champion leans down to explain, “He has a formal audience with the queen.”

It’s too far to see clearly, but the Queen of Takoba hasn’t seemed to move a single inch in the past few minutes. How is Bakugou going to speak with a ghost?

Kirishima gestures to the piles of rumpled clothes at your feet that the prince threatened off of people in the crowd, “And it looks like you have your pick of fine coats, Y/n.” The smile of his voice keeps you from speculating for too long. You know it’s time to go.

The sweet giant takes the cloak from your arms as he guides you back into the depths of the castle, and you note the gentle way he secures it around your shoulders without touching you at all, “Where is Aizawa?” you ask while nodding your thanks.

“Oh he's taking a long drink in the kitchens.”

With the Champion at your side, you give the throne one more glance over your shoulder before stepping through the silver doors, but at this distance you can only distinguish Shinsou and his blue windswept tunic from the crowd of guards and your prince. You raise your hand beside your head in parting and the apprentice slips his own out from where he’s standing formal and so, so far away, with his hands behind his back. You smile.

While you and Kirishima puzzle your way back through the castle, off in the distances beyond great columns and disgruntled chilly diplomats, through the windy, salty, seashell castle, a blue light quivers in the dark.

PREV | M.LIST | TAGLIST | NEXT

tagged angels ✧.* @nnubee @cherrykamado @jctaro @nonomesupposedtoo @zombiewarprincesss @kotarouspropertyy @strawberry-mentos69 @sveetnn @eirlysian @lunrai @km747474 @arayoflia @annoyingleftpinky @noomaisdone @cr33pycrawlerr @iced-chai-tea-latte @cathwritestragediesnotsins @tragicallygray @idimmadontgiveashit @kooromin @k1tk4tkatsukii @litiri @kiwibao @kiwifujin @mmmaackerel @sarcasticlittlebook @condy-wants-a-cookie @mysticalfridge @dududubebo @falling4fandoms @katanaski @babitchsuki @romiinlove @cherripunch26 @acid-rain27 @madmayo @@bakugouswh0r3

please let me know if you'd like to be removed from the taglist at any point

#eeheheeehee i love protective violence #and robbery #a hymn to black water #can you tell how sick of editing i was by the end #bakugou x reader #bakugo x reader #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bnha fantasy au #mha fantasy au #fantasy bakugou #fantasy bakugo #aizawa shota #shinsou hitoshi #uraraka ochako #kirishima eijirou #oh boy im redesigning my tag system and i am a woman exhausted by all this organization

211 notes · View notes