Work Text:
He’s not stupid.
Hansuke knows what he’s doing is, more than highly illegal, probably getting someone hurt. However, the chance that he’s positive in the helping-to-harming ratio is too tempting for him to stop.
Potion Seller helps anyone, no payment required.
--
His parents had been thrilled when his Quirk came in. That was pretty par for the course, but hindsight told Hansuke that his parents were more excited than what was the norm
If you had a healing Quirk, you were set. It didn’t matter how you did in school, what opportunities you took, who you knew. People who could fix what medicine and casts couldn’t were in high demand. Hansuke’s future was set in the concrete slabs of a hospital.
It’s not like that’s not where his future still lays--Hansuke doesn’t feel a pull to rebel from what’s expected from him, nor does he resent it. It’s just that he doesn’t want to skate until he gets there. Hansuke won’t have to work for his future, but like hell is he just going to sit around in the present.
He would be fine in any high school, but UA is the best, even if he’s not in the hero program. General Education doesn’t have the same freedom, but the standards are definitely relaxed from what he hears of other schools. If anyone’s noticed that no one from class 1-D has ever visited the nurse’s office, they’ve decided it’s not an issue.
--
That was the start for Hansuke, way back in the day; helping the people around him. A playground scrape, a headache from late-night study sessions, a lab accident; Hansuke was always there in a flash, handing over a bottle and an awkward insistence that they drink to feel better. He’d only been reprimanded a handful of times, and even then it was more directed toward what he’d said rather than what he’d done.
No one seemed to care that he was using his Quirk in public. He was just healing his classmates; it’d probably be more of a hassle to stop him and have to deal with both a disciplinary infraction and an injury rather than to just let him help.
People weren’t quite as ambivalent when he stopped just helping classmates though. The woman outside the grocery store, bundled in worn coats and muffling coughs every few seconds. As soon as Hansuke had turned in her direction his parents were pulling him away, mumbling about needing to hurry. The snake right by the school gate, obvious scratch marks telling of a narrow escape. The teachers had finally used their saved up detentions for him.
The villain lying motionless in a pool of blood in the middle of the street after a particularly brutal and public battle. The police hadn’t let him through, offhandedly saying that an ambulance was on its way and he should leave this stuff to professionals. One had scoffed, incredulous that Hansuke would even have the idea to help a villain .
--
He couldn’t understand them at all. Those were still people, still living beings. They were hurting, and unlike Hansuke’s classmates, there was no nurse’s office for them to go to as a backup. Later, it dawned on him that outside of the metaphor there wasn’t a hospital either.
How many people died, lived with injury and illness, because there was no help for them? Because they couldn’t get the time, couldn’t pay without waiting for things to get worse, couldn’t shake the fear of handcuffs waiting for them when they left.
Hansuke had been blessed with the gift to help others, and even if no one expected him to start doing that just yet, he would anyway.
Or, Potion Seller would.
--
Every time Hansuke goes out into the city in his cloak, he’s terrified. Vigilantism isn’t something the law goes easy on in the slightest. The proper heroes have so much red tape to dance around, repercussions waiting to pounce with just the slightest misstep--and that’s for the people who have the job of going out to fight and help others. For a nobody regular student like him, exorbitant fines and house arrest would be the lightest he could hope for.
Like an idiot though, Hansuke still does it.
He strolls through the shadows, giving out his bottles to anyone that asks. And since he’s started word has spread, so a lot of people ask. An artist with an important commission to finish and a stress injury in their hand, a grocer that’s had a funny tickle in their throat, a middle schooler whose parents are leaving for a week and is worried about accidents in the meantime, a couple of college students who got way too drunk celebrating the end of finals (though he asks them to remember to pace themselves in the future), a group of stray cats in a turf war.
And, yes, criminals. They’re never obvious about it, but Hansuke has rarely seen people so casual about stab wounds. He knows he might be healing someone who will turn around and hurt others, but...he’ll just have to heal those people too. Somehow he’ll create a net positive.
Aside from the cosmic score, it’s worth it to him. The look of relief on his patrons’ faces is worth the hanging Damocles Sword of arrest a hundred times over. The knowledge that he’s helping--even just in the immediate--is all he needs, but even so, Hansuke has racked up favors for anything he could ever need in this life and the next. He doesn’t plan on ever cashing in but...well, you never know.
--
Life continues. For Koyuu’s latest dent, the punks scrapping in back alleys, Kakushi’s parkour accidents, hero interns not wanting to worry their bosses; Hansuke will always be there, a bottle in hand. He’s there to help.
Hopefully.