A/N: Y’all, so @jaroslavlewis made a post about a scene with mentor Shin and the detective boys and I just had to write it. This is for her, and for @purplellamanator because holy shit, did y’all hear they’re writing an avengers x DCMK crossover?
Also, yeah, this is based off marvel so like, that’s why I’m bringing this up. Please enjoy!!
Ayumi has spent hours trying to figure out what exactly has just happened.
She bites into the inside of her cheek, repositions her hairband but neither action is enough to stem the anxious energy that is building in her stomach, spreading through her veins, into every synapse.
Around her, she sits in the police precinct listening to the buzzing of the printer beside her. Footsteps click past but none for her, conversation but none of it related to her.
She messed up.
She knows that she’s messed up but they’d had a case and Ayumi had been so close – she couldn’t just give up on a case where she knows the culprit, all she’d needed was evidence. And this hadn’t just been the standard case, not the same old case that she solves with her fellow Detective Boys, but rather – a big one.
Not so easily ignored.
Ayumi lifts her hand to her chin and leans against the arm of her chair. Boredom flitters through her but that’s not her fault. She finds herself wondering, not for the first time, what Conan would have done to solve the case. He probably wouldn’t have gone making mistakes.
She pulls her phone out of her pocket, presses the power button but there are zero notifications. Even Ai hasn’t sent her the usual random memes that she’s found yet, and she usually always does that.
Ayumi considers scrolling through social media, but her screen is flickering, the crack across the middle too big to simply work without consequence. Doing anything more than simple text messages is just asking for a headache.
“Ayumi-kun,” the voice is angry, she knows that much without having to see the expression. It also belongs to Detective Kudo. It still feels weird to call him as such, since he’d been Shinichi onii-san up until she’d started middle school. “Come with me.”
Gingerly, Ayumi stands. She scuffs her feet against the carpets as she walks, as if she’s a child who’s already been scolded, rather than a teenager who’s about to be. He leads her into one of the side rooms, typically used for gaining witness statements, waving a hand and urging her to sit down.
Hesitantly, she does.
“Previously on the adventures of the Detective Boys,” Kudo says, “I tell you not to go chasing after the extremely dangerous serial killer, and instead, you hack into a police radio to sneak around my back. And do the one thing I told you not to do.”
Ayumi feels herself shudder.
It had been a good plan, she knows that it had been. If things had gone according to the plan completely, then this wouldn’t be a lecture but rather, a moment of praise.
So, she’d talked Mitsuhiko into tuning into the police radio’s frequency. So what? If they didn’t want people listening in, then they’d make it harder to access. It’s not like Kudo never listened in to police radios when he’d been a teenager.
“Is everyone okay?”
“No thanks to you,” the detective says, and Ayumi feels herself stiffen.
“No thanks to me?” God, she’s getting defensive, Ayumi knows she shouldn’t be, but she is. No thanks to her? She’d saved a girl from being killed tonight. “That serial killed was out there, and I tried to tell you about it but you didn’t listen!”
Kudo arches an eyebrow up.
“None of this would have happened if you would have just listened to me!”
Detective Kudo leans forward, frowns and locks his fingers together. The way he is sat on the opposite side of the table makes this feel less like he’s scolding a pupil – he’s been their mentor forever, they’re nothing if not his students – and more like the police officer he is, scolding a civilian.
Ayumi is more than just a civilian.
“I did listen to you, Ayumi-kun,” Kudo says, and his words are cold, frosty when he speaks. “Who do you think put through the paperwork for the undercover police, huh?”
A pause, as if he’s letting it sink in for her. He doesn’t give her long enough to respond though, keeps talking before she can get the words out to explain, to apologise, to say anything.
“Do you know I was the only one who believed in you guys?” The detective continues. “Yeah, after everything that happened with my generation of teen detectives, everyone said I was crazy, mentoring a bunch of fifteen-year olds.”
Ayumi mumbles, “we’re sixteen.”
As if he’d forgotten. She knows he hasn’t – he’d bought them birthday cards; his wife had made them cake. He’s only saying as such to be pretentious, to prove a point.
“No,” Kudo lifts a finger. “This is where you shut you mouth Ayumi-chan, the adult is talking.”
Surly, Ayumi presses her lips together.
“What if that girl had died tonight, or one of my undercover police?” He holds her gaze, even as Ayumi flushes, ashamed. “What if we hadn’t gotten rid of the gun, and a civilian had been hurt? That’s a different story then, right?”
Ayumi’s heart heaves in her chest. Tendrils of terror catching root inside of her, as if she’s only just realising.
She understands, and she’s sorry, he doesn’t need to make her feel so bad about it though.
“Because then that’s on you,” Kudo continues. “And if you or the other detective boys were injured, that’s on me. I don’t need that on my conscience.”
Ayumi understands from his side, really, she does, but there’s… this is justice. This is finding a case and solving it, dealing with it all because the police can be so slow sometimes.
“Yes sir,” She says regardless, because this is Detective Kudo, and if the detective boys are going to continue, they need at least one person on their side. And mostly everyone else is always so nervous because of some case from ten years ago that no one will ever tell her about.
Kudo crosses his arms.
“I’m sorry,” she continues, and the words sound almost flat. She means it, partially, except she doesn’t. Not at all.
“Sorry doesn’t cut it, not this time.”
“I know,” she sighs, continues to bite the inside of her cheek. She tastes copper on her tongue, feels the sting of a new cut. Ayumi winces. “I understand– but I just– we wanted to be like you, and you would have–”
For a moment, it seems like she’s got him to understand, or maybe to forgive, slightly, to offer some leeway, but then, Kudo’s eyes darken. A smidgen of something that is before Ayumi’s time, an emotion that always leaves his wife, Ran-san, worried, always leaves him wanting some time alone.
“And I wanted you to be better.” Kudo whispers. An admission that makes Ayumi shudder.
For a moment she simply sits, wide-eyed, awaiting whatever verdict he comes up with.
“Okay,” Kudo continues, shaking his head. “Okay, it’s not working out. I’m going to put an end to your case privileges’.”
Her what? But – no, she’d messed up but that doesn’t mean that they should all be punished, that they shouldn’t be able to solve anything else. This is–
She already knows, but still, Ayumi breathes: “For how long?”
“Forever.” Ayumi pitches forward, but Kudo’s gaze is piercing enough to make her slink back in her chair. “Yeah, yeah that’s how these things work.”
“No, Detective Kudo, please, you don’t understand,” Ayumi pitches forward, desperation leaking into her voice, “this is all we have, please, I’m nothing without the detective boys. I’m nothing if I’m not solving cases.”
The expression he offers her is a mixture of disappointed and sad. He says, “If you’re nothing without a case, then maybe you shouldn’t be solving them.”
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