Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Izuku knows that his dad is calling again even without the personalized fleetwood mac ringtone his mother had set cluing him in. That was always his habit. If Izuku rejected his call one time, must have been a bad time. Twice? That was a coincidence. Three times, and then it was time to whip out the big guns. It was time to call his mom.

He groans when he hears his mom answer it- entirely too happily, too. She was much too cordial to the man who had essentially abandoned her, In Izuku’s humble opinion. Just because the abandonment hadn’t extended to financially didn’t mean he wasn’t a deadbeat. A lowlife, too, for divorcing her without even showing up in person. For all of his talk of ‘incompatibility’ and ‘no hard feelings’ you’d think he’d at least have the spine to look her in the eye instead of sending her the papers in the mail. His mother might have forgiven him and kept the relationship friendly- but Izuku wasn’t in the mood to. Hadn’t been in the mood for six years and counting. When would he be in the mood? Unclear. Better say never just to be safe.

The sounds of his mother making dinner die down as she answers the phone, turning off the water and turning down the stove so the bubbling water of the boiling potatoes silences. His mother is cheery with her ex-husband, asking politely how he had been doing and if his job in America was still treating him well. Izuku was impressed by his mother’s ability to forgive and forget, as she had never once asked him about whatever American woman must have seduced her husband out from under her to the point where they had never met in person again. Whatever he says back makes her laugh, which only irritates Izuku further.

He focuses on the notebook in front of him. Waterway, a newly debuted hero who could sense and control water, was half-sketched on the page in front of him. Izuku had captured the navy blue and cyan bodysuit with his oil crayons, and the flaxen tinge of her hair before it was covered by her blue hood, but he had stalled on her hands. They weren’t gloved, he had been able to see skin from his glance last week, but there had been a blue tinge he couldn’t quite remember the origin of. Her skin? Was it a flash of water in her hands? Maybe it was just that her nails were painted blue. Whatever the case, it was holding up his sketch. He’d need another look to determine what the cause of the blue was before he finished it. After all, it could matter. Another aspect to her quirk. Despite being already a few years out of Shiketsu, she hadn’t made it into the news cycle in any meaningful way, preferring to spend her time in back-alleys with the other underground heroes. Why she chose to do that in such an eye-catching suit, Izuku wasn’t positive. Maybe it was a fashion statement, or maybe she was one of the many heroes dedicated to a fault to matching the color scheme of their quirk. If he got the chance to talk to her one day (if he could ever work up the nerve) maybe he could ask. He’s filling in more details on her boots when his mother knocks lightly on the cracked-open door.
“Izuku? Honey?” Her voice is tentative, as it always was when handling the live explosive that was the topic of his father, “can I come in?”

“Yeah, you can,” Izuku allows her entry, but stays curled up in his desk chair with his notepad firmly on top of his folded knees.

The door swings open, and she stands in the doorway with a troubled little frown, holding her phone close to her ear while she examines her son. After a few seconds proving he wasn’t going to look away from his sketch, she spoke.

“Is something wrong with your phone, honey? Hisashi says he’s been trying to call you all week to wish you a happy birthday, but you never answer….”

Izuku huffs, keeping his eyes glued to the drawing. Though the longer he looked, the more he got irritated that her hands weren’t done. He really needed another look at her. When his mother doesn’t speak again, he tries for a response.

“I’ve been busy,” It’s a lame excuse, and more than a little petulant. Maybe it was his way of giving some trouble to his dad after all the trouble he caused him.

“Too busy for one call?” She calls him on his bullshit, in her own motherly way.

Izuku finally looks up at her, and whatever angry, sad, childish expression he must be making is enough to soften his mother’s frustrated face. She sighs, turning away from him and slipping outside of his room, bringing the door to an almost-close behind her. Izuku can still hear her through the gap.

“I know, Hisashi. I know. He’s just- he’s angry, okay?” Her voice is gentle, almost consoling, “I thought he was doing better, too. I think it’s- Hisashi, can I be honest? I know why you might not want to see me, but you shouldn’t stay away from Izuku. He hasn’t seen you in person in years. Hasn’t even seen your face. I think he’s starting to feel rejected. You know he’s still insecure about-”

Izuku gets up, shutting the door to stop the sound of her pitying words. He clicks the lock on instinct, walking over to his bed and grabbing his all-might emblazoned pillow. He smothers his face in it, letting out a deep groan as he clutches the fabric. Even muffled through the door, he can still hear the slight lilt of his mother talking to his father. No clear words, but he could imagine. He’s still insecure, honey. He’s just dealing with it. He knows you left because he’s quirkless. He knows if he wasn’t so useless it might have been different. He knows you probably have a new wife and a new son in America- one with a quirk you could examine and talk about.

It was a cruel trick of fate that a man like his father, so gifted in Quirk Analysis, had a child with no quirk so to speak of. He may lie and pretend that it didn’t matter, but the writing had been on the wall. After all, it was shortly after Izuku was diagnosed that he spent more time at work. Shortly after he had to be pulled out of Aldera Elementary from the bullying that he suddenly spent more time on business trips. The distance grew and grew, and by the time Izuku had turned nine years old, Hisashi Midoriya had departed for his ‘business trip’ to America that turned into relocation, and now his family hadn’t seen him for six years. None of Izuku’s efforts had worked. Not his increased effort in quirk analysis, not his efforts to get on any of the sports teams at East Musutafu Elementary, and not even his requests for more time together. There was nothing he could do to stop the drifting of his father. No monthly phone call or child support check could dull that ache, even if the exclusive All Might pillow cases it bought him were doing their best. He knew what his father must view him as: a dud.

He pulls his face out of the pillow to wipe away the few errant tears that had slid down his face. When he sits up on his bed, he sees that the light peeking from under his door has dimmed. The tell-tale sign his mother had gone to sleep. Early, though, for her. Barely nine thirty. Izuku liked to think Hisashi exhausted her just as much as he exhausted him. Normally he’d turn in for the night too, but it was still pretty early. Plenty of time to go out and still get enough sleep for school. But maybe he shouldn’t, his mom didn’t like him going out on school nights. Though, if she was already asleep….

His eyes darted toward the window. Then back to the dim light from under his door. He was on thin, thin ice after his last late-night escape, but that had been so worth it. He had never gotten such good quirk data before! This time he would be more careful. With that in combination with all of his recent gym and self-defense efforts, surely nothing could happen to him. Surely.

Grabbing his hoodie from his desk chair, he slides it on as he grabs his ‘go bag’ from underneath the bed. Perfectly equipped for anything an on-the-go analyst might need. Blank notebook, pencils, a few colored markers, several disposable cameras, and a flare gun. His father may not have appreciated his efforts to get closer, but Izuku wasn’t going to let his hobby go just because it failed to get him paternal affection. He was damn good at it- and one day he’d be even better at it then his dad! He’d be the greatest quirk analyst the world had ever seen- and the greatest hero! The greatest multitasker!

With how carefully greased he keeps the window, it slides open silently. Shimmying out onto the fire escape, Izuku makes his way down from the fourth floor apartment in just a minute or two, landing the slight jump onto the sidewalk with only a little ‘oomph.’ He slides one earbud into his ear, the radio it’s connected to in his pocket giving him a steady stream of hero activity. It was a quiet night, the chatter sparse and not overly important. One or two comments from the sidekicks that drew the short-straw on suspicious men in hoodies or loitering teenagers. He stays near his apartment, waiting for anything to pique his interest. No point in dragging himself out into the city for no action. He’s leaned against the wall of the apartment twenty minutes later and considering returning inside when finally, his radio picks up something interesting.

“...Three men at 47th south speaking over a briefcase. One mutation type and two men of average build. Content of the case is unclear. Closing in now for a better look, over.”

He perks up. That was Waterway! 47th street was close, too! He’s moving before he can even try to think better of it, half-jogging in and out of alley shortcuts to get there before the situation resolves itself or a fight starts. Thankfully the gym has paid off, because he isn’t panting loudly enough to alert everyone in a ten-mile radius when he slows to a stop as the men in question come into view. Izuku ducks behind a dumpster in a kneel, peeking out as discreetly as he can.

It’s as Waterway described. The man holding the case had a mutation quirk that gave him the appearance of a squirrel- only a very big and very violent squirrel. Not the kind you’d want to throw an acorn to. It was propped open only enough for the two men he was speaking to to get a look inside, and whatever it was clearly had them interested. They talk in hushed voices, things Izuku can’t really catch. Something something ‘five grand’ something something ‘trigger’. The murmured and hushed words didn’t interest him as much as trying to get a look at Waterway. He couldn’t tell where she might be, as all of the dumpsters and trash cans nearby were decidedly unoccupied aside from him. The buildings bracketing the alley didn’t have any windows, either, and he couldn’t get a good glance at the rooftops on either side, where he figured Waterway might be hiding. Though that wouldn’t be the best option, given her costume was so eye-catching. Though maybe she had a second suit, and relied on people thinking she’d be very visible? No, no, because the first time he had seen Waterway she had been in that same white suit, and that would have been a good circumstance to be easily hidden in since it was her bright suit that allowed that magma guy to give her a nasty burn on her leg. If there were ever a time to reveal your trick, it was to avoid the guy made out of lava.

Izuku scoots out a little bit more to try and catch sight of her. The radio was silent, so he couldn’t try and use her reports to figure where she might be. He’s rising just slightly into a higher crouch to arch his neck up to look at the rooftops again when his phone buzzes in his hoodie pocket- his one warning before it begins to blare ‘material girl’ at full volume for the alley to hear.

The only thing louder than Madonna’s top ten hit was Izuku’s shriek in response to it. He dug his hand in his pocket, desperately trying to turn off the ringtone that heralded his best friend’s calls. It slips out of his hand, managing to land a foot away on the concrete as it continues to play.

Izuku’s heart pounded in his chest as he heard the men respond to the sound. He scrambled back, pushing himself into the brick wall behind him as he put a hand over his mouth to try and muffle his panicked breath.

“The fuck is that?” The high, squeaky voice invades Izuku’s ear. Clearly the squirrel. His voice was quite cute for his murderous appearance. Perhaps a part of the quirk? Maybe it was used to lure in unsuspecting people, how insidious! Though it was a very good part of the quirk, and very hidden. You wouldn’t expect it from such a plain-presenting quirk….

“What are you mumbling about, kid?” Izuku slowly looks up, coming face to face with the squirrel in question. His body goes cold, his heart seizing in his chest as the beady amber eyes burn into his soul. His hand (paw? Did squirrels have paws?) is in his own hoodie pocket, and Izuku doesn’t have that many guesses on what might be in it. His heart goes a million miles an hour, his brain even faster, and he blurts out an answer before the squirrel can decide to make wall art with his brain matter.

“Drugs!” He shouts, awkwardly, “that I would like to purchase! From you?”

“Hah?” The squirrel is confused.

“Yes, I was told you sell very good drugs and I’m someone who appreciates very good drugs because I….do drugs.” Izuku nods, squinting at the squirrel while doing so. His unsure tone does not seem to persuade the man. His expression squirrels, beady eyes narrowing down at him.

“You were told I sell drugs, hm?” he asks, his hand shifting inside of his hoodie pocket again. Izuku’s eyes can’t help but dart to it. “Mind telling me exactly where you got that information?”

Izuku’s heartbeat is surely audible. It thumps in a panicked rhythm, and the rhythm is that of Material Girl. He was going to die in this alley all because he forgot to put his phone on silent. He opens his mouth to try and think of another lie, but his mouth and throat are so dry all that comes out is a frightened croak. He fists his hands tightly in his hoodie pocket, trying to ground himself when he feels a small can of deodorant in it. Oh, his peppermint body mist. A gift from his mom. Well, at least he could die smelling good. Well, he wouldn’t smell good to his murderer. Squirrels hate peppermint. Maybe-

Wait. Squirrels hate peppermint. Peppermint mist was in his hand. Huh. Well, the squirrel was going to shoot him anyways clearly, so if there was ever a time for last-ditch efforts….

The Squirrel makes another taunting remark, but with his blood rushing in his ears Izuku can’t hear it. With a very warbling battle cry, he pulls the spray from his pocket and presses down on the release, the minty spray filling the air instantly. The Squirrel hisses, and Izuku takes the chance to throw himself to the left with clenched-shut eyes as it takes a swipe at him. His knee hits the concrete painfully, the skin exposed by his shorts becoming bruised and scraped in an instant. He doesn’t let it distract him, opening his eyes to see the now very angry and very blind squirrel taking swipes at the area where Izuku used to be, clearly trying to kill. Izuku stumbles to his feet, making a dash for the end of the alley after swiping his fallen phone. He almost gets there, too, if it wasn’t for the meddling underground hero who seemed determined to force stupid ideas onto Izuku’s dreams like ‘logic’ and ‘regard to basic safety.’

“Eraserhead, you get the kid!”

Waterway and Eraserhead descend from the rooftop, landing in between the squirrel and himself. Before Izuku can continue his race out he’s stopped by the constricting strands of the capture weapon, wheezing as it tightens until the air is knocked out of him. He falls to his knees, groaning when the erasure hero steps in front of him, lifting his yellow goggles to glare at him with dry, judgemental eyes.
“I thought I’d already warned you about sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, troublemaker,” he speaks through grit teeth, arms crossed and foot tapping an impatient rhythm on the concrete. Izuku can hear the sounds of Waterway dealing with the squirrel behind him. He can’t resist.

“I promise to listen to whatever lecture you’ve prepped for me, really. But would you do me the mercy of turning me around so I can see Waterway fight first? That way it’ll feel more worth it.”

He says it as earnestly as possible, but it isn’t satisfactory to the underground hero. He smacks him lightly on the side of the head, just enough to rattle him a little bit. He is condemned to starting the lecture early as the fight continues behind them, all of that precious quirk data wasted. By the time the fight is finished, so too is Eraserhead’s lecture.

Izuku had a history with the erasure hero. The first time he had snuck into a crime-infested alley to watch underground heroes at work, the hero had saved him without much comment. Clearly he had assumed he was a stupid kid who had wandered in accidentally. The second time, coincidence. The third time he had gotten a lecture, and the fourth time a stern warning. The most recent time had resulted in his harshest penalty yet: a snitching. The hero had marched him home and told his mom of his crimes, and gotten Izuku grounded for a month. Izuku was nearly scared to think what he might do this time. He waits, sufficiently abashed, for the bitching to stop. It does with a deep sigh from the pro, and when Izuku’s eye opens again he sees the man grumbling as he pulls out a pamphlet from his belt. He releases the capture weapon, and when Izuku’s hands are free he shoves the pamphlet into them.

“If you are so determined to learn about quirks, do it the proper way. This is an information pamphlet on UA, and you should consider the support course. You’d be able to analyze quirks without risking your life.” Izuku gapes down at the pamphlet, more than a little misty eyed in front of the hero, “This is not an invitation to keep doing this. It’s not safe for a kid to be at these fights, and the next time you are, I'll be telling your mother to invest in window locks. Now get home, do you hear me? No detours.”

“Yes, sir!” He gets to his feet, pushing the pamphlet into his bag. “Thank you, Eraserhead, sir!”

“You can thank me by staying away from these fights! Listen to me, troublemaker!” Eraserhead’s voice blends into the background as Izuku makes his way out of the alley, jogging back to his apartment as quickly as he can.

By the time he gets back, crawling into his propped open window, he’s panting. He collapses on the floor, still holding in his inner fanboy that the coolest underground hero had pitched UA to him. To him! If only his father could see him now. He could do this. He could get into UA through the support course, figure out Step Two to get into the hero course, and show his dad exactly what he was missing out on! For sure, and absolutely nothing could go wrong!

Right?

Chapter Text

Momo Yaoyorozu was more than a pretty face, even if it was a very pretty face.

She was a hard worker first and foremost. Captain of the soccer team, highest grades in East Musutafu Junior High Academy, and class president for all three years. You couldn’t achieve all of that with just a pretty face. Unfortunately for her, however, she had more to contend with than just pretty privilege allegations.

Walking into school, she keeps her head held high. Back straight, shoulders back, chin up. Stand tall, stand proud. She hadn’t been Musutafu’s Miss Perfect Posture for nothing, after all. Her many, many etiquette classes had drilled how to present herself into her very DNA. At least her father couldn’t say he had wasted the money. Momo would never give him the chance to say he wasted the money on anything for her.

She ignores the whispers as she makes her way down the pristine halls of the academy. Momo is one of the earliest arriving students as per usual, but the halls are still decently full. A few people smile at her, and she waves back with all of the politeness and decorum required of her. More people duck their heads when she walks past, mumbling to their friends in tight clusters ‘Did you hear?’ or ‘Do you know?’ as they share the latest gossip. Some don’t even try to hide it, their eyes tracking her every movement as they make half-hearted attempts to cover their wagging tongues with a cupped hand.

Don’t let it bother you. Their opinions don’t matter. You know the truth. Momo’s assurances to herself don’t do much. She still feels her skin crawl with the silent judgements of her fellow students. It’s all she can do not to look paranoidly behind her at every half-heard whisper. She drills her gray-eyed gaze to the hallway in front of her, putting one foot in front of the other as she keeps up her facade of cool apathy. It may bother her, but they didn’t need to know that. No need to throw the scraps of her insecurity to the awaiting lions of social ruin.

“Yaoyorozu,” She was almost to her classroom when she was stopped by a hand slamming into the wall next to her, boxing her into the tack board of school announcements behind her. She looks up to see the obvious culprit: her biggest rival.

“We need to talk,” Kanzaki is a pretty girl, though her beauty was often undercut by the scowl eternally etched onto her fine features.

Isn’t that what we’re already doing? “Of course.”

“How’d you do it?” Kanzaki asks, tilting her head until her icy white hair falls off of her shoulder, cascading down until Momo can’t see the hall behind her anymore. “The judges were anonymous, there’s no way you figured out who to pay off.”

Kanzaki doesn’t need to specify. Momo already knows the accusation before it’s even said. Knew it was why everyone was gossiping. The biggest poetry contest in the city for their age group announced the results yesterday. Being a renowned academy, East Mustafu had submitted several pieces from its student bodies. Two of which being from the Year Three Junior High students: one from Yukiko Kanzaki, and one from Momo Yaoyorozu. Kanzaki, being the would-be artisan and President of the written arts club, had been the favorite to win. The announcements of results from the school bulletin had been quite a surprise when it announced that Kanzaki had placed third- and Momo first. As happy as she was that her piece won, Momo was beginning to think that maybe it wasn’t worth it.

“I didn’t pay anyone off,” Momo keeps her voice steady, not letting it wobble or dip into a whisper. She needed to sound firm. “I submitted and it won, I did nothing beyond that.”

“Oh, please,” Kanzaki rolls her eyes, “I don’t believe that for a single second. With no such talent flowing from your pen, I don’t doubt you resorted to the lining in your pockets to get another store-bought trophy for your parent’s display case.”

She speaks in the gaudy, theatrical way she favored. Always loud enough so passersby could hear her quips. Izuku said she spoke loudly so everyone could hear the insults she had practiced in the mirror all night. A funny thought, but the mental image doesn’t help Momo now. Especially not with the sideways looks she’s getting as students pass by the picture of Kanzaki crowding her to the wall made. Where were all the teachers? With no help making itself known, Momo tries to defend herself.

“That isn’t-” Momo could curse herself when her voice breaks.

“That isn’t what?” Kanzaki mocks the squeaking sound she had made, leaning in closer, “Come on, speak up. Gonna deny it?”

Maybe I won because no one likes your overly pretentious writing. Maybe I won because I’m talented. Maybe I won because I actually put in the work.

“You were third place, Kanzaki, not second,” Momo responds, looking slightly down at the girl as she straightened her posture from where she had slightly curled in on herself. “Did two people miraculously track down the judges and pay them off?”

Kanzaki’s face turns red. When she speaks again, a fleck of spittle flies onto Momo’s face.

“I don’t give a damn that some nameless upstart from public school got one over on me, some loser named-” she pulls a crumpled piece of white paper out of her pocket, squinting down at it for a moment before looking back at Momo, “-Katsuki Bakugou! I care that someone like you weaseled your way into first!”

“I already told you, I didn’t-” Momo goes to respond when suddenly, she hears a voice much more pleasant than Kanzaki's.

“Hey, uh, Kanzaki. Miss Momoto says she needs you in the gym like, right away. Sounded Important,” Momo looks to the side not being bodily blocked by Kanzaki to see Kyoka Jirou standing a healthy distance away, her hands casually on her hips.

Jirou was one of the newer additions to East Musutafu Academy, fondly called Emu by its student body. Momo had been the one to show her around school at the start of the year, but they had talked very little in the month since, despite her best efforts. Momo didn’t consider herself the type to be intimidated by the ‘coolness’ of a person before, but there was a first time for everything. Something about the effortlessly easy way she carried herself was so…..cool! Everything about her was so alluring that it drove Momo to cliche. Why wax poetic about how interesting she was when you’d never be able to compete with the girl herself?

“It can wait,” Kanzaki’s eyes didn’t leave Momo’s, the shorter girl leaning further in as if to strengthen her condescending glare.

“I don’t know, man. Something about smoke coming from the back room in the theater, y’know, where they keep all the costumes-” Jirou’s words are enough to snap Kanzaki out of her determination to torment the girl.

Her head snaps up, her pale violet eyes wide with panic. She looks at Jirou, then at Momo, then down the hall toward where the theater was. She grit her teeth, giving Momo one last scowl before shoving her finger in her face.

“This isn’t over!” she hisses, stamping her foot to prove her point. Then, she takes off down the hall as fast as she can without getting a running citation.

Momo breathes a sigh of relief, picking herself up off of the wall and straightening her posture back up. She looked down at the shorter girl, watching as Jirou snickered at the way Kanzaki pushed people aside in her panic to assure her beloved costumes were safe.

She tries to think of something to say. A simple ‘thank you’ didn’t feel sufficient. Though maybe this was entirely casual, and a thank you was exactly the thing to say? Or maybe there really was a fire, and Jirou was merely laughing because she wasn’t a fan of the theater? Momo couldn’t tell. For a girl trained in courtesy and manners, always having the answer on the tip of her tongue, she couldn’t even find something to say to a girl her own age. Everything felt too lacking or insipid to say to Jirou. She couldn’t risk sounding stupid, not when this was the perfect opportunity to start a friendship like what should’ve happened at the beginning of the year! Oh, what on earth to say? Compliment her earrings? No, Momo couldn’t possibly. They were the same earrings she was wearing yesterday and the day before and the entire week previous. The only earrings she ever seemed to wear. Though since Momo hadn’t complimented them before, perhaps it was a fine thing to say? Wait, what if she had complimented them when they first met and merely forgotten? Oh, then Jirou would think she was a scatterbrain! She couldn’t do that! She must-

“You okay?” Momo snaps out of the runaway train car that was her thought process to see Jirou staring at her with a raised brow. Her face flushed red when she realized she had just been standing and staring.

“Yes! Yes, I am quite fine. Ahem,” she clears her throat, trying for a polite smile, “thank you for informing Kanzaki about the smoke. She is very protective over the theater department costumes.”

“Oh, that was a lie. She just looked like she was giving you a hard time,” Jirou flashed a crooked grin that sent a swarm of butterflies loose in Momo’s stomach.

“Oh, well I- well thank you,” Momo busies her hands with straightening out her already perfect tie. “Normally with her reign of terror, many are content to let Kanzaki do as she pleases.”

Kanzaki was one of the few people Momo struggled to get in line with her authority as class president. Her status as the daughter of the principal meant any punishment she did receive was swiftly rescinded, and her venomous tongue spread rumors against anyone who dared push against her. Normally Momo wouldn’t bend to such things, but her habit of making the rumors your deepest insecurities had shaken what she previously thought to be her unshakeable self-esteem. Well, that in conjunction with everything at home recently….

But that's beside the point. The point was that Jirou was in front of her still with that crooked grin and those beautiful eyes and that amazing- Oh, my god. She’s staring again. She’s staring and not saying anything! Jirou was going to think she was weird and never talk to her again and-

“Well, I gotta get to class. I’ll see you around, alright?” Jirou is waving goodbye and leaving before Momo even has a chance to say anything.

The first bell rings, disguising the small groan Momo lets out as she puts her face in her hands. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She pulls herself together. The hall thankfully seemed indifferent to her misery, as everyone was concerned with getting to class before the second bell. When she turns into her classroom, she notices that while she’s now one of the last to arrive, her best friend still isn’t there. She gets to her seat, hanging her bag up behind her before reaching into the side pocket and pulling out her phone. No texts. Normally, Izuku would text her if he was going to be late so she could try and stall the teacher before they took roll or, at the very least, take notes for him. She shoots off a text before the bell rings.

Me: Bad traffic on the way to school?

There isn’t a response. The seconds click away to the second bell, but the doorway remains empty. A tardy in the first month of classes wasn’t a good look, especially with how thin the ice he was on from last year was. Right as Momo tucks her phone into her bag, the bell rings. A half-second later, the green-haired boy slides in.

“I’m here!” he announces in a panic. He looks at the teacher pleadingly. He just sighs and nods, waving him off as he turns to the board to write down the morning announcements.

Izuku doesn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, quickly making his way back to the third row down, and sitting down in the chair right next to Momo. The girl looks over at him, seeing the rapid rise and fall of his chest and the way his foot tapped anxiously. When the teacher seemed to be completely focused on the board, he reached into his bag and pulled one of his many analysis notebooks into his lap, beginning to furiously scribble out details in handwriting illegible to Momo.

Ah, she realized, he saw a hero fight on the way to school. If one thing delayed Izuku Midoriya, it was a hero fight. He could never resist standing in the crowd to watch whatever villain of the day had decided it was his time to throw themselves against the thick wall of aspiring heroes that populated the city. Based on the speed and force of his notes, he must have seen a hero debut. Despite the deeply slanted handwriting, Momo could make out the title at the top of the page. Madame Medieval. Momo couldn’t have claimed to have heard of her, though admittedly she wasn’t nearly as obsessive about heroes as Izuku was. She may have wanted to be one, but that didn’t mean she spent her time studying every up-and-comer on the block. Besides, she much preferred hearing Izuku talk about them to trying to parse out the details herself through the many competing hero news radio stations.

Izuku doesn’t put the notebook away until well into the lesson, and at that point, Momo could tell he was hopelessly lost. While normally she wouldn’t reward such blatant behavior, she took pity on him today by discreetly passing him a copy of her notes produced with her quirk. He takes them graciously, scanning them and nodding along as he gets the gist.

By the time the first period ends, he seems to have caught up fully. The class disperses, and when Momo is packing her things back up he leans against her desk, launching into the story unprompted.

“So, I’m on my way to school. No detours, no anything, and then BAM, you’ll never guess who I saw in front of me!” His voice is as animated as ever, but there’s another layer there. Excitement. Whoever it was, it must have been big.

“Hm, Kamui Woods?”

“No, better.”

“Mirko?”
“No, even better!”

The gleam in his eyes gave it away.

“Don’t tell me it was All Might?” Momo gasps, Izuku nodding. “Why is he in town?”

“I don’t know! But he was fighting this mini kaiju-looking monster, and then Madame Medieval, who just graduated from Shiketsu last year, stepped in to help! It was the coolest takedown ever!” He’s practically squealing but quiets down when the teacher shushes him. Only a little, though.

“That’s amazing, Izuku. But you shouldn’t have let it make you late,” Momo can’t resist scolding him slightly as she pulled her bag onto her shoulder, Izuku following her out of the class. They both shared a gym class that functioned more as a study hall, so they made their way there while keeping up the chat.

“Come on, Yaomomo, I wasn’t late. Not technically. Mr. Kaji didn’t mark me as tardy!”

“That was more out of mercy than anything else and you know it.”

Regardless of the scolding, Momo lets Izuku continue his fanboy play-by-play of the fight as they sit on the bleachers doing homework. It’s good background noise anyway, and she’s gotten a good chunk of her English essay finished by the time the bell for the next class rings and the two have to separate as their schedules divulge.

When the school day ends, they meet each other at their designated meeting spot in the front courtyard. Normally Momo had debate team meetings, or soccer team meetings, or student government meetings, but Tuesday was the one school day she had none so to speak of. It helped that the wrestling team also was taking a hiatus this week after the coach came down with the flu, which left Izuku and Momo’s afternoon free to spend together.

They decide on Izuku’s apartment, as they nearly always did. Momo’s mother didn’t approve of her best friend being a boy, even despite the assurances that there was nothing romantic about it. She still considered it improper. Momo had told her that she wasn’t even attracted to boys, but her mother still said it was improper. Perhaps holding out for her daughter to return to the realm of attraction to the male sex. Though there was always the chance she just didn’t like Izuku. He had good manners, but he wasn’t the type of upper-echelon boy she would approve of. His father may have been wealthy enough to fund his attendance at Musutafu’s finest academy, but he and his mother didn’t hang around those circles. Not pretentious enough to want to deal with them beyond whatever education they could provide. Not that Momo particularly blamed Ms. Inko. It was hard enough for her to do it, and she had been born into it.

They talk more about heroes as they walk- or rather, Momo listens as Izuku talks about heroes. By the time they’ve made it a mile away he’s regaling the tale of how All Might showed up yet again, eyes glimmering with admiration as he described the way the number one hero appeared, shouting his signature catchphrase all the while. It was so descriptive that Momo was almost beginning to think the hero himself was there with them.

“Worry not, children, I am here!”

And then, he was.

Momo gasped as the larger-than-life pro landed in front of them, strangling a strange dark mist creature with one hand while the other was flung protectively behind him to keep them away. Momo stumbled back into the brick wall lining the sidewalk, grabbing Izuku’s arm and taking him with her as she kept them as close to the wall as possible. He was just as large and imposing as he was on TV, probably more so. His presence was just as loud as Izuku had described. It was as if while in your line of sight, he was the only thing you could possibly think to focus on. She was so focused on All Might that she hardly heard it when Izuku started to excitedly mumble.

All Might was shoving the mist villain into a bottle by pure strength, which was impressive considering it was made of mist. It was only when Momo saw a small, dime-sized ball drop into the bottle and the rest of the mist followed that she realized the source of the mist was housed in it. All Might screwed the lid on tight quickly, breathing a sigh of….relief?

“That fight took too long..” he mumbled, looking down at his watch. Then, he turned around, seemingly realizing he wasn’t alone. “Ah, children! Worry not, I have saved the day!”

“That was so cool!”

“Thank you, sir!”

Momo and Izuku had very different reactions. Though both of them were tempered when at the same time, they realized that despite the mist villain being bottled, All Might still had gray smoke coming from him. A lot of gray smoke.

“Are you alright, Mr. All Might?” Izuku asked, peeling off of the wall to take a step closer.

“Y- yes! Yes, I am unharmed! Merely vestiges of the mist!” he waves off hurriedly.

Momo is a good analyst, even if she isn’t as good at it as Izuku. Besides, it wouldn’t take a genius to realize that all of the mist was connected to the thing in the bottle. How could there be any remaining smoke when it was all attached to the trapped source? He was obviously lying, but why?

“Well, I must be gone now!” He started to jump, but then his face twisted into a strange wince. A wince!

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Momo asked.

“Uhm, I think I will walk! The number one hero has to stay healthy! You kids have a nice day, and go straight home with no detours! Bye, have an autograph for your trouble!”

With a suspicious flurry of movements, he throws two signed pictures their way before disappearing into the nearest alleyway. The slight smoke trailed after him, and despite the autograph in her hand, Momo couldn’t be happy. Why had he been smoking? Why hadn’t he been able to jump, and had disappeared into the alley instead? When she looks over at Izuku, she can see the analytical look that he always got when he wouldn’t let something go.

“...so that was weird, rig-”

“So weird. Very weird,” Izuku agreed, nodding. “He was smoking.”

“And flighty.”

“And nervous.”

“And fidgety.”

“And weird.”

They watch where he disappeared for a moment.

“He clearly wanted us to go home. Whatever the matter is, he didn’t want us to know. We shouldn’t disrespect his privacy,” Momo’s words feel half-hearted, even to herself.

Izuku frowns. “Yeah. It’s not our business.”

“Yes,” Momo sighs, “it isn’t.”

They look at each other. They look back at where he disappeared. Izuku straightens his collar and walks into the alley All Might went down, and Momo follows.

Chapter Text

Toshinori was having a very, very bad day.

Being a hero was all about saving people, he knew that. I mean- he had been the hero for years! The guy you called to save the kitty in the tree. The guy you called to stop the bank robbers. The guy you called to catch the busload of poor needy orphans hurtling off of the Golden Gate Bridge toward a fiery ocean full of piranhas and evil. That last bit was extreme and hadn’t actually happened (yet) but you get the point. If anyone on the whole continent- the whole world- knew what being a hero was about, it was Toshinori. Which is why he felt so awful that for every rescue that happened in the last forty-five minutes, all he could feel was irritation as the timer in his head tick, tick, tick down the seconds until All Might must be Small Might. Toshinori would never, ever regret saving a life, but maybe he regretted how much time he spent showboating in the first two hours and fifteen minutes of his allotted hero time. Shook a few too many mayor’s hands, kissed a few too many babies. That sort of thing.

By the time he had wrestled the latest problem into submission via bottle, the smoke was beginning to cloud his vision. So much so that he barely noticed the two children standing nearby, only clocking them in time to stop himself from finally releasing his form to take a breather. He vaguely recognized the shorter, green-haired kid as the one fanboy squealing too loudly from a fight with a kaiju-producing quirk user this morning. If there was one thing he feared blowing his cover, it was fanboys. God knows they’d be able to tell some shit like ‘his breathing pattern matches that of All Might!’ and be able to tell it was him. So he tries his usual trick of cutting and running with a distracting flare of limited edition autographs. It was always effective, so Toshinori allowed himself to power down just a minute after he entered the alley and turned several times, finding a quiet spot. He pressed himself against a divot in the brick, coughing and hacking loudly until his throat felt scratchy.

Toshinori hissed when he looked down at his elbow and saw blood. Well, more blood than usual. It was getting harder and harder on his body to hold his hero form for more than three hours. He might have to pull back his time limit soon. But who could pick up his slack? His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he has a sinking suspicion it was the meddlesome man in his phone trying to answer that very question.

He fished his phone out of the pocket of his now too-big pants, tightening the belt with his free hand as he squinted down at the message from his former sidekick.

Mirai: You should come and meet him. He’s a good kid. At least try and act like you’re taking the successor search seriously.

Toshinori grimaces down at it, typing out a response.

Me: kk.

It’s not like he didn’t trust his most trusted (former) sidekick’s suggestion. The Togata boy did seem like a good candidate for the responsibility of One for All. He was talented, and seemingly pure-hearted, and sufficiently dedicated if his grades and sports festival performances were anything to go off of. Besides, it’s not like he knew any other high schoolers who could potentially be in the running. Once upon a time, he had thought to give it to Melissa Shields, but the thought of her meeting an end like Nana……

Toshinori couldn’t do that. So, she was disqualified without having ever known her name was once in the very limited pot. Then there was that promising middle schooler that Tsukauchi knew, but he already had a very flashy quirk. It’d be hard to connect OFA to those insane wind storms in a believable way. Nedzu had more than a few suggestions, but Toshinori had found fault with all of them. Too angry. Too passive. Too this, too that. Aside from Melissa, he hadn’t seriously considered a candidate yet. Despite the aching pain every single time he powered up, he couldn’t bring himself to pass it on yet. His pickiness may be the thing he blamed, but it wouldn’t surprise him if people knew the truth.

The fear of picking wrong.

How had Nana been so sure about him? Some quirkless middle schooler she ran into on the street with a few optimistic ideas about heroes shouldn’t have been the makings of a successor, but for her, it had. Would the same thing happen to him? Divine intervention that would somehow put his successor right in front of him, and he’d just know?

He tips his head back against the brick. His phone buzzes in his pocket again, but he ignores it. Likely just Mirai getting onto him for his ‘insanely childish’ language over text. He never did like the casual speech and smiling emoticons that Toshinori favored.

Taking a breath, he looks around. Toshinori had to get home somehow, even if it was via a grueling walk with his aching muscles. At least he was in plain clothes. More than once he had to make a trek back to whatever hotel he was staying at while in what appeared to be an extremely ill-fitting cosplay. The alley behind him led back into the turn that would put him on the street where the children were if they hadn’t cleared out yet. Then there were two pathways in front of him leading in two different directions. There was the path that led to what looked like a neighborhood outlet, and then there was the one with a variety of hoodie-clad muggers approaching him. Well, at least the neighborhood-

Wait. Muggers.

“Shit!” Toshinori hissed, trying to go back down the way he had come from. But the second he turned, he saw two more muggers blocking his way. When he turned back around, he saw they had formed a loose circle around him, all of them leering at him as they tapped baseball bats and crowbars against open palms villainously. Almost to a cliche level. I mean, what were they, cartoon goons? Muggers simply weren’t original anymore.

He tried to take stock of the situation. He counted about eight muggers in total. Four had some kind of handheld weapons like crowbars, bats, or hammers. One had his hand on his right hip like he might be about to pull a gun, and the last three were physically intimidating enough that they were unarmed. None looked particularly dangerous, though. It would be a cinch to defeat them. Well, it would be if he had any time left in his hero form. As it stood, even the slight puffing out of his chest as he tested the waters had his scarred stomach wound screaming in protest. There’d be no use in transforming if he immediately passed out afterward!

“Are you sure this guy’s worth it, Habibara?” One of the goons said in a sniveling voice, head tilted to the tallest of the group. The leader. “He looks like a hobo.”

Wow. Rude. This guy clearly didn’t appreciate how hard it was to find clothes that could accommodate both an XXXL and an XS body.

“Yeah, he’s worth it,” Habibara sniffed, “I recognize this guy. He’s All Might’s secretary.”

Toshinori could have cursed Nighteye for a thousand years at that moment. He had been content to not give his civilian persona any connection to All Might at all and just do his best to avoid being spotted in and out of the agency, but he had insisted upon a cover. Now, he had to deal with this.

“Gotta be crazy ransom,” The one with his hand on his hip shifted from foot to foot nervously, beady eyes darting around. Something told Toshinori that he had an itchy trigger finger. “At least a mil.”

Toshinori put his hands up placatingly, taking in a deep breath. Then that deep breath turned into a cough, causing more blood and spittle to trail out of his mouth.

“Oh, gross! He’s got like the plague or something!” The blonde one shrieked, skittering back a foot to get some distance, “Is Typhoid Mary worth the money? We can’t spend it if we’re dead!”

“You can buy the best treatment money has to buy. Now grab him!”

“Now, gentlemen, let’s-” Toshinori does not get to finish the exceedingly calm and rational thing he was about to say that surely would have stopped the robbers.

A bag is pulled over his head and his arms behind his back, and he doesn’t have time to even think about speaking as he is bodily moved through a series of drags and jabs, eventually being pushed into what must have been a nearby building, if the cool rush of air was anything to go on. He’s turned and shoved into a chair, and the bindings follow a second later. Too smooth to be ropes. Cords? Whatever they are, they’re lashed tight to his chest, knotted in the back several times in several places. By the time he’s fully secured, he can’t even wiggle. One of the muggers must have a Boy Scout background. That or a well-practiced shibari hobby.

They celebrate loudly for a second, and then the voices get quieter and quieter. The sound of footsteps, and then the slam of a door. With what little visibility Toshinori has through the burlap sack, he can tell they must have left the room.

“Hello?” He calls out tentatively.

No answer. Lots of echoes. An empty building, then. He rocks his body back and forth until the chair is wobbling, and then attempts to scoot forward. He gets half an inch. Testing his luck, he tries again. This time does not go so well. The chair tips over, and the hero curses as his shoulder and head bounce against the concrete ground painfully. Another attempt at moving suggests that it was useless. Now he was bound in a chair and also tipped over onto the ground.

Perfect. Good going, Toshinori. You really improved your situation.

To add insult to injury, his phone is buzzing on the floor next to him. It must have fallen from his pocket during his descent down. Toshinori tries to wiggle his hands out of the binds and tries to scoot his head toward the source of the noise to attempt to answer it, but it’s useless. It stops buzzing before he gets the chance.

“Fuck.” He mumbles.

Okay, thinking time. Typically his schedule was a rough twenty-four-hour period, though it might be longer or shorter depending on how much he extended himself. He had used up all three hours today, though nothing had been overly taxing. A few hours of sleep should get him in tip-top shape again, at least enough to dispatch a few goons. Maybe a quick nap could give him a few minutes- which is really all he would need. But could he fall deeply enough asleep in this circumstance to get the kind of rest required? Did it even really work like that? Not to mention what would he do when he rested up, re-mighted, and took out the goons? Hope they didn’t draw the extremely obvious parallel? Try and quickly change so they wouldn’t even think of his civilian identity? Or would bulking up, escaping, and dealing with them another day be the best call? Hmm. A lot of questions, but no answers. Maybe if he just laid here, the answers would come to him. Some kind of divine intervention-type solution!

“Now, Momo!” The undoubtedly young voice comes from nearby. Even blinded, Toshinori could tell what it was. A child.

Hmm, not that kind of solution!

He feels something tugging on his overturned chair, and he groans as he’s pulled back up to a seating position, the tightened ropes pressing painfully against his stomach scarring. He’s shushed, and a second later his hood is being yanked off. The room is dim, so he blinks several times to orient himself before focusing on the sight in front of him. To his horror, he recognized them. The children from before. The tall girl with the dark hair pulled back into a ponytail, and the slightly shorter boy with curly green hair.

“All Might?” The boy asks, his voice breaking slightly, “What did they do to you?”

“I, uh- shit.” He doesn’t know what to say.

“Is it poison? Or transformation quirk?” The girl asks, and her exposed forearm begins glittering in a strange way before a knife emerges from her skin, tumbling out into her open palm as she flips around and begins cutting at the cords tying him up. It was a hard effort, he could tell. The cords were thick and the girl didn’t have much muscle.

“If only it were that easy,” he mumbled, brain spinning through a wheel of potential lies to explain himself to the children. Though the wheel kept getting stuck on ‘Find mind erasure quirk’ instead of anything practical. What was he meant to do? Hold them hostage until he found someone to do it? That was unethical! Also impractical. But mostly unethical! Speaking of, it was unethical to let children rescue him. He should do something about that. “You two need to run away! Those thugs could come back any minute!”

“No way!” The boy is working on the knots tying his leg to the chair with slightly more success than his friend, who is only through layer one of three. His left leg is already freed in less than a minute, and he moves on to the next one, “The number one hero needs my help, I’m not leaving you here!”

“It’s dangerous to be in here. As a hero, I am ordering you both to run away! I can handle this myself!” He hisses, voice becoming harried as hears the sounds of the thugs get closer. “Go, go!”

“Nuh-uh-”

“Now is not the time to nuh-uh me, young man!”

“-We waited outside for ten whole minutes after they brought you in here and you did nothing but fall over! You need our help!” The boy insists in a hushed voice, freeing his right leg.

“I’ve only got one cord left, we’re almost good to go!” The girl whispers, sawing faster.

“I don’t care! Both of you, go, go, go!” His orders don’t phase the boy, though the girl does hesitate slightly, her eyes darting to the corner of the room where Toshinori could see a cracked-open exit. She’s nudged slightly by the boy though, and she renews her efforts on the cord. Though they aren’t fast enough.

Toshinori tenses when he hears a door slam behind him. The terrified look on the children’s faces tells him everything he needs to know. The girl slices through the last cord right as the goons flood the room, flanking them in a semicircle with weapons brandished. Toshinori stood, kicking the chair away and putting his skinny body in front of them protectively, his fists raised.

His face flushes despite himself when a few of them snicker. He was the number one hero, damnit! Now he was laughed at by common criminals for daring to think he could defend someone. All for One may be defeated, but he gets his revenge daily. Every single time Toshinori couldn’t save someone because of his limited body, he could swear he heard the villain’s ghostly laughter. Maybe blaming him would make him feel better about the fact that functionally, there was no way to defend the children behind him. He could try and use OFA in his skinny form even if it would out him, but he has no clue if that would wreck his already fragile body. God knows with his luck recently, he’d snap his own spine and make the successor search null and void by dying as the last user of the ability.

“Now, we don’t have to do anything rash,” he tries for diplomacy first, one hand behind him to keep the kids there. “I can sit back down, and the children-”

“Please. Like I’d let the overgrown ankle biters bounce after seeing our faces,” Habibara sneers, looking down his nose at them. Then, he tilts his head further to get a better look at the girl, “I recognize those uniforms, though. East Academy kids. They probably have a ransom of their own worth taking.”

The girl squeaks in fear, and Toshinori feels a tug on his baggy t-shirt. When he looks behind him, he sees she’s gripping it tightly, her steel gray eyes wide and glassy in terror. He grits his teeth, looking back at the villains with a renewed effort. He tensed as hard as he could, faint trails of smoke coming from his arms. Come on. Come on.

“I won’t let that-” his declaration is interrupted.

“Take this!” Toshinori startles as he feels a hand slip into his pocket, the bottle holding the mist villain being taken out. He looks behind him and sees the boy uncap the lid- before chucking it as hard as he can toward the gathered goons.

The bottle bounces once, twice, three times before rolling to a stop. For a second it seems as if nothing would happen, but just as Habibara lets his guard down, a cloud of mist overtakes them, and the screams start. Well. That was one plan.

“Come on!” Toshinori turns, grabbing the hands of each of the children before running out of the still-cracked door as fast as he could.

The children thankfully don’t resist. They get out in five seconds flat, and Toshinori slams the door behind him. The girl produces a thin metal rod with her quirk, and he shoves it in the door handle to jam it further. They go a little further to be safe, emerging on the street again where they had first met. Toshinori releases their hands to double over, hands on his knees as he heaves. He hadn’t done that much running in his weak form in…well, ever. Typically all he did in this form was wheeze and walk at a leisurely pace.

“That was ... an experience,” the girl says, pushing her hair out of her face as she gathered herself.

“I think I nearly cried,” the boy wheezes, fisting his hand in the fabric of his blazer over his heart.

“Why would you two think to do something like that?!” Toshinori, having gathered himself, rounds on the children. He grabs each of them by the shoulder, shaking them as if trying to physically knock some sense into their heads. “Following me and seeing villains- then thinking to rescue me?! Why didn’t you two call the police?!” He stops shaking them to give them a chance to answer.

Once their brains finish rattling, they look at each other nervously. Finally, the boy speaks. “Well, sir, it’s just that when we looked in and saw you in this form, we thought maybe if it wasn’t a quirk, you might not want anyone to know,” his voice is so soft Toshinori can barely hear it, a nervous thing that flicks up on the end as if he’s asking a question rather than stating a fact.

“You…” his brain shorted out. He tried again. “You saw a gaggle of armed men kidnap me, followed me in to rescue me at the risk of your own life…. On the off chance I might not want anyone to know about a possible secret form?”

“Yes, sir. That’s right,” the girl nods, “Izuku was quite adamant on the plan.”

“You must have had one hell of a backup plan,” Toshinori says, mostly out of a lack of anything else to say. What could he say to something like that? “That creation quirk is useful, young lady. But you…. You must have a powerful quirk to be confident in coming in there, young man.”

The boy’s posture changes rapidly. His shoulders hunch as he nearly curls in on himself, making himself smaller. His eyes dart away, his face dusted red as he fiddled with a silver ring on his thumb. He delays speaking for a long moment before finally mumbling something Toshinori only catches the tail end of. “..’m quirkless.”

Oh.

“We both want to go to UA next year!” The girl steps in to save the awkward silence that forms from the boy’s embarrassed silence and Toshinori’s astonished one, “I’m trying for the hero course or business course if I don’t get in, and Izuku is trying for the support course! My name is Momo Yaoyorozu, if I didn’t say before. He’s Izuku Midoriya.”

Toshinori shakes her hand absent-mindedly. The boy saved him. The quirkless boy. The quirkless boy who ran into the building with no backup plan because he didn’t want to risk leaking Toshinori’s secret identity. A quirkless boy showed up right when he needed him most. Almost like divine intervention.

Almost like me.

_____

Toshinori tries to ignore it. He really does.

Despite the fact that it worked out well for her, Nana’s method was not reasonable. He couldn’t do what she did! He couldn’t just give his quirk to the first heroic quirkless boy he stumbled upon! It wasn’t safe, I mean, the boy could be anyone. Who knows if he was a delinquent at school, or if he had shady motivations, or maybe he had villainous family members who had planted him there right at that moment to steal into his trust and heart! That last bit was unlikely, but still. Izuku Midoriya was a kid with a big heart, but he was not hero material. Case closed.

Though Toshinori did peek into the case just a little when he looked into the kid. I mean, he had to make sure he didn’t go blabbing about his secret identity. It was only safe to do a little research. He was indeed quirkless. Fourteen years old. A student at East Academy. Okay grades. No infractions on record aside from a few tardies. Okay, so he was an average kid. Case reclosed.

Well, what about his home life? Toshinori reopened the case a little. Thankfully people didn’t ask questions when you were the number one hero, so he was able to find out a decent amount. He lived in an upscale apartment near the academy. He lived with his mother but had a father who apparently lived in America and sent money home. Toshinori came up oddly empty on Hisashi Midoriya, but it didn’t overly concern him. An absentee father who didn’t like pictures of himself getting taken? He didn’t want to be crass, but his first thought was that he had a second family in America and was trying to avoid being caught. He wrote Hisashi Midorya off instantly. The mother, Inko, seemed very present and involved with her son. A kindly looking woman with a full figure and a beautiful face. Well, the young man clearly got his good looks from his mother, Toshinori could say confidently. She didn’t have a job, but she volunteered at the local library three days a week. So, decent home life. Case re-reclosed.

Case re-reopened. The library was close to the house Toshinori rented in Musutafu, and he had the afternoon off three days after his encounter with the boy. It was healthy to indulge curiosity every once in a while, or so Recovery Girl said.

He only went in with the intention of getting eyes on Inko, but she turned it into a two-hour chat about a book Toshinori hadn’t even read. Not that he was complaining. Her impassioned speech on why it was the most important piece of feminist literature of the 21st century was inspiring to say the least, and Toshinori had precious little normal interaction. Mostly women, and men, only wanted the bragging rights of sleeping with the number one hero- not that he had ever taken them up on those offers. Before it had been out of self-respect and a desire for something more heartfelt, and now he really couldn’t afford to waste an hour or two of his precious hero hours on coitus. His weak form was another story entirely. He was unnerving to look at, he was sure. Seven feet tall, barely anything beyond skin and bones, and deeply hooded eyes. He looked more a scary apparition from the corner of your eyes than a romance protagonist. So when Ms. Inko Midoriya smiled at him and talked to him like he was a normal, handsome man-

Well, it flustered him more than any flirtatious model.

That was not the point! The point was, he talked to Inko. She smiled her beautiful smile, told him about the book, talked him into a library card, and then sent him on his way with the book. So now, he was reading some Alice Walker novel that he didn’t really understand, but that just made him hope that when he returned it Inko could explain it to him. She had such a lovely voice, and-

The! Point! Being! Such a lovely woman clearly raised a wonderful son, based on everything Toshinori had figured out. He was a hard worker, he took self-defense classes, he stood up for his friends, and he saved Toshinori at risk of his own life all to preserve his secret identity, while expecting nothing in return. Hell, it was several days later and there hadn’t even been an inkling of the boy (or the girl, for that matter, who deserved accolades of her own) sharing his secret. Really, he was ticking all of his boxes. But, none of that changed the fact that he was a middle schooler with no hero background who Toshinori didn’t know. There was no reason to pick this boy over Nighteye’s candidate, Tsukauchi’s candidate, or any of the hundreds of promising UA students. He should continue the search as normal. Case. Closed.

He broke six days after the encounter. He flings the case wide open and breaks the hinges in the process when he finds himself outside of Young Midoriya’s school as the end-of-day bell rings. He dressed in clothes that fit Toshinori- not All Might. A decent suit. He had used up his hero hours this morning anyways, and he had just gotten out of another meeting with Nedzu about his upcoming UA employment. He hadn’t intended to come to East Academy, it just happened. He waited anxiously as he watched the students come out of the front gate, several of them jumping as seeing him from the corner of their eyes spooked them. Finally, after several shrieks from students, Young Midoriya emerges.

Young Yaoyorozu is by his side, and she’s the one who notices him first. She taps on Midoriya’s shoulder, whispering something in his ear. His head snaps around, ears going pink as he sees Toshinori. He makes his way over, cutting against the flow of the crowd to make it there. He stands beside him on the sidewalk next to the gate, his eyes already glimmering with tears. But why?

“Let’s speak over here,” Toshinori says, leading him further down the sidewalk until they hit the small park next to the school. He guides the boy to a long bench under a shady tree, taking a seat next to him as he tries to think of what to say. That was the problem with spur-of-the-moment decisions, now wasn’t it? He should’ve prepped a successor speech.

“I didn’t tell anyone,” the boy breaks the silence before Toshinori can think of plagiarizing what Nana said to him, “About you, I mean. I meant what I said about keeping your secret.”

Toshinori frowns. Did he think that’s what this is about? Talk about low self-esteem. Unfortunately, Toshinori could kind of relate these days. He clears his throat, throwing out the half-written recruitment speeches in his mind that talked about blood and glory. He didn’t seem like the kind of kid interested in that kind of thing, anyways. 

"Young Yaoyorozu said you were going to try for the support course,” he said softly, “Why not the hero course?”

The boy shrinks in on himself. He hugs his bookbag in his lap, thumbing at a keychain attached to a bottom ring. The logo of the band Fleetwood Mac, though it was old and fading like it had once belonged to someone else.

“I’m quirkless,” he says this like it should be answer enough, but when Toshinori doesn’t respond, he continues, “I’m okay at fighting, and I’ve gotten stronger, but not enough to pass the UA entrance exam. It’s more feasible to go in through the support course and then hope for a miracle.”

“What if you didn’t have to wait for a miracle?” Toshinori asked, “What if it came right now?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if you had a quirk, right now? Tell me, Young Midoriya, what would you do with it?”

Toshinori felt like he already knew, but he needed to hear it from the boy. Needed to hear whatever had convinced Nana. Midoriya looked up at him, his smile wistful as he shrugged.

“I guess I’d try and do what you do. Help as many people as I can until I can’t anymore.” Suddenly, Nana’s method didn’t seem so ridiculous anymore. Be it fate, chance, or divine intervention, Midoriya was in front of him, and Toshinori knew.

Chapter Text

Izuku could hardly believe his luck, and even a few months into being trained by All Might (THE All Might!) he still thought that it would suddenly be revealed that this was some kind of a prank or social experiment, or maybe some kind of crazy realistic dream. Well, not realistic in the sense of its content. Never in his wildest dream could Izuku think of something like this happening to someone like him. This is the kind of crazy scenario that only happened in dreams for people- or in wish-fulfillment movies. But now he really was in a wish-fulfillment movie- and it didn’t seem to be ending. It was all he could ever wish for, and he was terrified to lose it.

Which is why he was super not trying to complain about the fact that he had definitely broken his ankle earlier. 

It was throbbing in pain, screaming with every slight step he took. He tried to hide his limping gait, but it was only a matter of time before All Might noticed. Well, until Momo noticed and pointed it out to All Might. The guy was a great hero, the best really, but a little flighty. He didn’t seem to have much of an eye for details outside of combat. 

“Izuku, why are you walking that way?” Izuku could have strangled the creation user when her suspicious voice sounded from the far side of the gym. 

Momo, as a witness to Small Might, was given the reward of training with them for not gabbing. Not like she would have otherwise, but All Might seemed to feel a little bad that the rescue had been a joint effort for which Izuku received a legendary quirk and she received zilch. Obviously, she understood the rationale and thought process, but All Might insisted on helping to train her anyway. It was nice having a sparring partner (and someone who could produce ice packs at will for his aching muscles) so Izuku was thrilled. She had also been a big help with the ‘clean up Dagobah Beach’ project. With the two of them and Izuku’s quick progress, they had gotten it done by December. By that point All Might deemed Izuku ready to take on the quirk without destroying his body and had moved them into a private gym he rented out in uptown Musutafu. 

Which led them to today, in late January. The entrance exams were only two weeks away, and Izuku had a problem. 

He still hadn’t managed to use One for All without breaking something. 

Every time he had tried so far he had broken an arm, or a leg, or several ribs, or his tibia on one notable occasion. No matter how much he tried to pull it back, something always broke. One month with the quirk and two weeks until the entrance exam, and he still hadn’t managed to use it without maiming himself. Honestly, it was another kind of embarrassing having to show up to Recovery Girl’s office that much. It got to the point where if she knew they were training, she’d just spend the day doing paperwork there if she had the day off. Though with the preparations for the upcoming exam, she was at her home office. So Izuku had no one to discreetly heal his on-fire ankle. 

“Just sore,” he bites out to Momo, sitting down on the bench on the wall with a wince. Five minutes ago, when said injury occurred, it had almost appeared as if he had used OFA without breaking anything for the first time. All Might looked so happy- well, Izuku couldn’t bring himself to say anything about the ankle. He didn’t want to give the hero a reason to doubt him. 

“Do you need an ice pack?” Momo asked, eyes still narrowed. It was impossible for Izuku to hide anything from her. 

“That’d be great,” he says, his voice clipped. All Might looked between them in confusion. 

“Okay great,” she produces it, holding it aloft in her hand, “come and get it.” 

He levels a glare at her. She does the same. They hold this staring contest for only a few seconds before Izuku finally tries to do something. He grits his teeth, standing up and taking a step over to her to grab the ice pack. But the second he puts weight on his tender ankle again, his face crumbles in pain. 

“I knew it!” Momo’s triumphant voice calls, “I knew it, I knew it, you broke your ankle!” 

“Did not!” he shouts back with all the maturity of a toddler. 

“Quiet, children. Quiet!” All Might booms when they devolve into squabbling, both of them shutting up. He looks over at Izuku with his ‘I-am-being-a-firm-adult’ look, which he was trying to develop after hitting Izuku with his ‘die-villain-die’ look one too many times over a messy push-up form. 

“Young Midoriya,” All Might asks, “Is your ankle broken?” 

“In many ways, it isn’t-” 

“Is the bone fully intact?” he amends harshly. 

Izuku huffs, “Well, no.” 

All Might’s frown turned troubled, and he puffs up into his muscle form. He strides over, grabbing Izuku by his shirt collar. He walks him over to Momo’s side of the gym, depositing him on the bench next to her before powering back down. Izuku yelps when his friend presses the ice pack into his ankle. 

They sit in silence for a few minutes, Momo helping to ice and wrap Izuku’s ankle while the boy himself does little but worry about the absent expression on All Might’s face. His thoughts spiraled out of control, anxiety creeping up on him and turning his body cold as he imagined what the number one hero might be about to say to him. You aren’t progressing quickly enough. You’re too weak for the quirk. You need to give it back. I chose wrong. 

Izuku is preparing himself for the worst of it when All Might speaks. 

“Am I a bad trainer, Young Midoriya?” he asks, his voice tinged with just a trace of self-doubt. 

His heart drops to his stomach. I’m such a shitty student that I’ve made All Might doubt his capabilities!  

“No, no, you aren’t! I promise-” All Might interrupts Izuku’s panicked ramble. 

“Have I given you a reason to hide things from me? I don’t think I’m so harsh that you’d want to hide a broken bone from me, but maybe I’ve been too mean…” his words are so soft he’s nearly talking to himself. Izuku’s heart drops further. Right through his body and into the basement. 

Momo, in her infinite wisdom, senses the change in the air. She stands up, stretching as she looks at the watch on her wrist. “Oh, my, look at the time. I have homework that must be done! I think I’ll head out early for the day.” 

She practically runs out. Izuku doesn’t point out that her watch was merely for fashion purposes and didn’t actually show the time, or that she didn’t have any homework to do because it was all already done. He’s just grateful to have a moment alone. All Might sits next to him, his face troubled as he stares out at the equipment. 

“I…” Izuku doesn’t know what to say. So he says all he can. “I don’t want you to think I can’t do this.” 

His voice is a small and trembling thing. As if saying it would speak it into existence. All Might sighs, rubbing his face in his hands. When he turns to Izuku, his face is weary. 

“Young Midoriya, I’ve never done this before,” he admits, “I’ve never trained anyone, and I don’t spend much time around young people. Only my goddaughter Melissa, and I never had to train her. I know I don’t always say what I mean, or maybe I say it and it doesn’t come across the way I want it to.” 

“Well, I don’t think you’re doing too bad of a job,” Izuku shrugs, “I think it’s your student that’s the problem.” 

All Might inhale sharply. He seems to consider Izuku’s words for a moment before speaking again. “I…hm. I don’t want to lie to you. I did not have these problems when I first got One for All. Maybe a broken finger or sprained ankle here and there, but nothing like this. That’s why I might seem to be frustrated sometimes because I don’t have any experience and I don’t know how to help you. But I also got One For All when I was older than you, and I was much, much bigger. I don’t know too much about the past users, but I know my master, Nana, was surprised at how easily I got it. Maybe that meant she struggled when she first got it.” His voice turned wistful when he mentioned his master, the user of One for All that came before him. Though he quickly turns back to Izuku, “I don’t know if that’s true, and I don’t know if maybe my training is the problem. But what I do know is this: you’re the one I want as my successor. I am willing to train you until you get it, no matter how long that takes.” 

Izuku’s eyes filled with tears, sniffling quietly. “But you- you said that the great evil-” 

“All For One is dead,” All Might says firmly, “I killed him. Which means there isn’t any great rush for you to get in fighting shape. We can take our time. Without him to bother us, there isn’t any reason to push you. You’ll become a great hero, Young Midoriya, I’m sure of it.” 

Izuku can’t help it. The words fill in the hole that had been left when he first realized why his father left. He leans in and hugs All Might. The hero stiffens for a second, arms held aloft awkwardly like he isn’t quite sure what to do with them. But after a moment- just before Izuku pulled back, he rested them lightly on his back, hugging the boy back and politely pretending not to notice the tears wetting his t-shirt. When they disentangled, Izuku’s eyes were red and puffy, but he was smiling broadly. 

“I promise I’ll keep working,” he says, “I promise I’ll become a worthy successor.” 

Even if All For One was dead, Izuku was going to push himself. He needed to prove it: to his father, to All Might, to himself, and everyone in the whole world that he had what it took. He was going to conquer One for All and become the greatest hero the world had ever seen. Nothing would stop him. 

____

Hisashi had a problem: his son hadn’t answered a single one of his calls of his own volition in six months. 

Six months! That was absurd! I mean, six months out of a fifteen-year-old’s life was practically forever. Sure he had picked up the phone once or twice (likely at Inko’s request, as Hisashi made sure the boy minded his mother) but even then, it was all teenage attitude and angst! It was incredibly frustrating for Hisashi. 

I mean, as the once demon-lord of Japan, the feared All for One, he was used to being able to handle disrespectful people immediately through the calm and collected means of murder. That or he stopped these issues before they ever started by making public examples of people. But it’s not like he could do that to Izuku. Just the thought of it made Hisashi sick. He couldn’t even spank Izuku when he was a child because he felt too guilty. Him. Guilty. Fatherhood had weakened him, though at least it was only on the front of his wife and child. He may be able to murder men and women in cold blood, but the concept of striking Izuku was a step too far for him. Every man needed to have a code, he supposed. 

Fatherhood had changed him in ways he couldn’t have imagined. Inko had changed him in ways he couldn’t imagine. When she was pregnant with Izuku, part of Hisashi feared it would be a repeat of Yoichi. He’d stifle him too much, and then he’d be turned against him. He regretted much of how he handled Yoichi, so he was determined not to repeat the mistakes of his past. When Izuku was born, Hisashi didn’t have a difficult time with that. He could hardly imagine doing things the way he did when he was a paranoid younger man. 

Hisashi liked to think he was a good father, all things considered. Inko at least told him so, though his wife had a habit of taking the overly optimistic approach to these things. He always helped Izuku with his homework and took him to baseball games, and all of the things a normal father would do. Izuku had been a happy child, at least. Always smiling and laughing. Even when the bullying began over his quirkless status, it’s like he couldn’t quite comprehend he was being bullied at first. It broke Hisashi’s heart. He had anticipated that there was a chance Izuku could be quirkless as Yoichi had been, and as an (extremely) older man he carried more of a chance of passing on quirklessness than someone born in the last two or three generations. Besides some slight protectiveness, it hadn’t changed the way he viewed his son. 

If he’s being completely honest, he’s just glad that Izuku didn’t get his quirk. Hisashi didn’t want Izuku anywhere near his dealings- ever. Izuku should live a happy, normal life. No need for blood to stain his hands. Perhaps that’s why he preferred his son to deal with the unjust scorn that came with being quirkless. He could have given him a quirk, he supposed, but he didn’t want it to give his son any encouragement to be a hero. Hisashi may have not wanted his son to be a villain or underworld boss like him, but being a hero was just as bad. Izuku could get hurt, or worse. He could die. If the price of his son staying off of the battlefield was being quirkless, so be it. Besides, the bullying was barely anything after he moved the boy to the nicest private school in the city. The administration knew parents paid too much tuition to let any bullying go on, especially for a reason like quirk discrimination. 

He knew his fathering as of late had been sub-par, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. I mean, he stayed away to protect them, not to hurt them. The heroes may think he was dead, but Hisashi still wasn’t taking any chances. Even if his face wasn’t destroyed, he still couldn’t go. He wouldn’t risk that buffoon that currently held his brother’s quirk learning about Inko and Izuku. Who knows what he’d do with that information? No, they were far too precious to risk seeing in person. He’d never forgive himself if All Might got his hands on his beautiful wife or precious son. 

This is why he needed to continue with his plan, even if he knew it made Izuku resentful of him. Hisashi dreaded what stories or reasons he might have cooked up in his head as to why he had left. The boy was already prone to building things up in his head, so Hisashi doubted he had kept the face explanation of ‘growing apart’ and ‘moving to America for work.’ Not his strongest cover story, but he had been on a time crunch after his battle with All Might. It didn’t help that Hisashi had been increasingly distant in the last few years before he left since All Might had been closer and closer to finding him. Inko seemed to have accepted it, though it broke Hisashi’s heart that she seemed to think he could discard her so easily. When he succeeded in taking Japan back over, he’d have to up his game. Flowers every week instead of every two weeks. More date nights. She should have known that Hisashi would never willingly divorce her. Really, they weren’t even actually divorced. Hisashi certainly hadn’t been untrue, and he knew that Inko hadn’t entered any relationships since their separation. Clearly, his enduring love for her was a mutual feeling, and once he was on top again he’d unpause their marriage and everything would be as it was. Inko certainly seemed amenable to this given her friendliness to him, the problem would be convincing Izuku that he never meant to hurt his mother. While Hisashi wished he could be mad about his son’s protectiveness over his mother, he really couldn’t be. He’s the one who raised Izuku that way, after all. 

Speaking of his beloved wife. 

He’s in the training room with Tomura when Sara by Fleetwood Mac starts playing from across the room, his phone ringing the tune that signaled Inko was calling him. He signaled for Kurogiri to take over Tomura’s instruction as he walked over, picking it up and walking into the room over as he closed the door behind him. He may show Tomura a more gentle, mentoring side of himself than he typically presented, but he still wanted to have a clear separation between himself as Hisashi and himself as All For One. No need to cross those wires for the boy. 

Hisashi activates the quirk on his voice before he answers the phone. He had picked up a voice mimicking quirk off of some little punk hanging around the bar, and he used it to replicate his pre-injury voice. After his battle, his voice was often gravelly or inaudible over the phone due to his life-support mask. He didn’t want Inko worrying after him, so he used this quirk for her peace of mind. 

“Inko!” he greets happily. It had been a few days since they had last spoken, and he found himself missing her voice. “How are you doing?” He cuts himself off before he can add on my love, my dear, my honey, any of the pet names he used for her. He didn’t want to play with her emotions, so he couldn’t use any of them before they could truly be together again. 

“I’m alright, Hisashi. Business as usual,” Her voice is not business as usual. Hisashi can hear a slight trace of anxiety beneath all of the sweetness. 

“Well, that’s good. How is the library going? I know last time we spoke you said you were considering getting a part-time job,” Hisashi had been the one to suggest she start volunteering to fill her time as Izuku got older, and now that he was about to enter high school it only made sense that Inko would need more things to fill her day with. Besides, she didn’t have to work if she didn’t want to. Hisashi sent her more than enough to support herself and Izuku, even if she refused to spend it as lavishly as Hisashi thought she deserved. 

“Oh, yes! Nakamura is going on maternity leave starting in March, so I’m going to fill in for her until she’s back to see if I like it. After that, we’re going to discuss more permanent positions…” Hisashi listened to her chat about her life for a few moments, simply enjoying the sound of her voice and the knowledge that she was happy. This is how their calls normally went, anyway, since Hisashi didn’t like lying to her but there wasn’t much he could tell her about his daily dealings that wouldn’t incriminate him. After a few minutes of her rambling, she gasps, “Oh, but listen to me go on! I forgot the whole reason I called you!” 

“Don’t apologize, Inko, you know I like hearing about you,” Hisashi says lightly, “but tell me what’s on your mind. Is it Izuku?” 

“Isn’t it always? I swear, I don’t know what on earth I thought about before I had a baby.” 

Well, Hisashi could name a few things he thought about in the four-year period between their first meeting and Inko having Izuku, but he knew she wasn’t as dirty-minded as him. That and it would be inappropriate for a casual conversation between ‘ex’ spouses. Though Hisashi did loathe that term, since he hadn’t taken his wedding ring off and his spy's recon missions had shown more often than not she wore hers on a chain around her neck. 

“Well, I do have to talk to you about something serious. I know you gave me full custody so I could make all the decisions, but I like to consult you for important stuff and this feels pretty important…” she dances around the point, only worrying Hisashi more. Finally, she speaks before Hisashi can beg her to be direct with it, “Izuku is applying to a high school.” 

“Oh,” he said. 

He hadn’t been expecting something so mundane. Hadn’t known what he was expecting really, except maybe if it was to allow Izuku to start dating. Inko and him had decided he needed to be sixteen, but they were a stone’s throw away from that anyway and Hisashi wouldn’t be surprised if he had found a classmate he liked and wanted permission. Though Hisashi hardly knew how he’d deal with that. No one would be good enough for his son. It was only made worse when he discovered his son had come out. He wasn’t homophobic- no, that wasn’t the case. It’s just that men were awful. Part of him had been hoping he and the Yaoyorozu girl would get together, too. She was a smart, hardworking girl and Hisashi wouldn’t have hated having her as a daughter-in-law. It would have saved him from vetting out any future romantic dalliances, anyway.

He tried to get back on topic. High school. Izuku. Why would that be worrying to Inko? “Where was he thinking? I thought he wanted to stay at East Academy.” 

“Well, uhm, it’s UA,” she says, “Izuku is applying to UA.” 

Hisashi short circuits. The Hero Academy. Izuku was applying to the Hero Academy. His son was applying to the same hero academy that had produced the last two users of his brother’s quirk. His eye twitches. 

“I see,” Hisashi hummed, trying to hide his internal screaming, “for the support course?” 

“Well, he said that was his backup.” Inko’s words push the knife deeper. “He’s been training with Momo at this gym nearby, he’s bulked up a lot. I guess he thinks he can get into UA with his new strength. I have to send you pictures, Hisashi, he’s really getting strong!” 

Hisashi manages to stop his mental spiral enough to respond, “Oh, that’s…good?” he could kick himself for how it comes out a question. 

“You don’t approve,” Inko’s frown can be heard through the phone. 

“No, no! I’m happy he’s getting healthy and learning to defend himself. It's just… the quirks of these kids at UA- Izuku can’t compete with that. It’d be dangerous. It’d be dangerous for him to be a hero.” 

“I know, Hisashi, but we should at least let him try. Besides, he’ll probably only get into the support course, and wouldn’t that be amazing? These analysts that go to UA, they have such amazing careers. He could be invited to work on I-Island!” 

Ah yes. The island where All Might’s wretched little pet engineer lived. Hisashi could still remember the destruction some of his devices wrought on him during their battle. How could Hisashi explain- without revealing entirely too much of his real identity to Inko- why he didn’t want Izuku in UA even as a support student? His son had a talent for quirk analysis- like father like son- but Hisashi didn’t want him doing quirk analysis for heroes! He would be exploited with his talents, or overworked, or become a target for villains. That could not happen. He’d be better doing quirk analysis at a private firm. But if he went to UA, there was no chance he’d settle for that. 

But what could Hisashi do? He gave Inko full custody to keep up appearances, so he couldn’t even stop him from applying if he wanted to. He could tell Inko he disapproved and didn’t want Izuku going, surely, but he wouldn’t want Inko to take the blame for crushing Izuku’s so-called dreams, but her doing it as a proxy for him would surely only cause his son to resent him more.

“Besides, if he gets injured during the hero exam then they have Recovery Girl on standby. That’s good, right?” 

Ah yes, Recovery Girl. Her real quirk was being UA’s anti-lawsuit device. She may be able to heal any injuries the students get, but that didn’t cut it for Hisashi. So sue him if he didn’t want his son breaking both of his legs even if they got healed right after. He didn’t think that made him a monster (at least not more than the murders did.)  

“Yes,” Hisashi tried to sound okay with it, if only until he found a solution. “I suppose you’re right. Well, I’ll wish Izuku all the best. Unless he’d be amenable to talking right now?” 

It was a long shot. More often than not his son managed to wiggle out of speaking to him. Inko makes a nervous noise and he sighs. 

“It’s alright, I know he’s still angry with me. Listen, I’ll try and see him soon. Work has just been so busy lately.” 

Hisashi wasn’t lying. Ever since Tomura turned twenty, his plans had been ramping up. Soon, he’d be a good vessel for Hisashi to transfer his consciousness into. Once he found a transfiguration quirk, he could even have his old face back. All he had left to do was destabilize hero society, kill All Might, kill any potential successors he might have chosen, transfer his consciousness to Tomura, and then start his takeover. Then, all of his dreams would be achieved, and he’d be back in the arms of Inko with Izuku by his side. He just had to make sure that could happen without any of Izuku’s silly hero fantasies interfering. Thankfully it wouldn’t be too hard. How hard was it to stop one quirkless boy from being a hero? 

He bid goodbye to Inko, walking back into the training room. Tomura was sitting on the ground, panting a little too hard for Hisashi’s liking. He’d have to get stronger and bulkier before the transfer so his body could withstand it. Kurogiri stood to the side, his impassive gaseous face focused on Tomura. He stood to attention when Hisashi snapped his fingers. 

“Kurogiri, contact Touji Aoyama. Tell him it’s urgent,” he orders shortly, already heading out of the opposite door that would lead to his office. He needed to start planning. 

“Of course, master. Shall I give him a reason?” Kurogiri asks, ever obedient. Hisashi nods. 

“Yes. Tell him I must speak to his son Yuuga, and soon,” Hisashi tells the warp villain. “He has a new assignment.” 

Chapter Text

Yuuga tried to justify it to himself sometimes. Lots of kids have a part-time job, he’d assure himself, yours just happens to be spying on your classmate. Nothing wrong with that. Well, nothing much wrong with that. It’s not like he was doing it to hurt Midoriya! If this guy wanted to hurt his classmate, Yuuga absolutely (probably) would not (maybe) even think about (possibly) doing it. (Maybe.)

What? He was a terrifying man who only ever called Yuuga over a secure phone that was kept alone in an empty room in his house. It was kind of hard to stand up to someone who was essentially the boogeyman. Even if Yuuga was braver, he liked to think he wasn’t folding like a lawn chair alone. He’d like to see some other teenager stand up to that. 

There was also the small matter of it being payment. The man had never explicitly said he’d take Yuuga’s quirk back if he failed to comply with his demands, but he didn’t have to say it for Yuuga to know it. Men like him didn’t do favors. He didn’t need his father’s hushed warnings to understand that. So maybe part of Yuuga’s willingness to do something like this was from a desire to keep his quirk. It’s not like he was an evil, evil person, right? Again, he’s only spying on one kid, and reporting what really constituted a wellness check. Yuuga didn’t think this shadowy villain was using the knowledge that Midoriya was really into Captain Monster comics lately and that he had gotten an A on the science final to formulate some evil torture scheme. 

Yuuga obviously had theories on why the villain wanted to know about Midoriya. Though really, there was only one that made sense. This guy had to be Midoriya’s father. Yuuga didn’t know that much about Midoriya, in truth, since the shadowy voice on the phone instructed him to keep a passingly friendly yet distant presence. What he did know is that Midoriya had a single mother, and a father who he hadn’t seen in years despite the fact that he sent (a not insignificant amount, based on the limited edition All Might merch) money to them each month. The only hole in this theory was that Midoriya was quirkless, just like him. If this guy had the power to give and take quirks, then why wouldn’t he give one to his own son, though he would to a classmate to get him to spy on said son? It didn’t make any sense.

When he got a call (outside of the weekly schedule too, which was already ominous) he had been expecting a request for some specific information about Midoriya. One notable incident of this was when his classmate came out, and the villain’s instructions became ‘watch out for girls Izuku might be talking to’ to ‘report the full names and social security numbers of any boys looking at him funny.’ Okay, the social security part was exaggerated, but that’s certainly how it felt to Yuuga. So imagine his surprise when instead of asking what Midoriya’s hyperfixation of the week was, he was told to apply for UA high school in both the hero course track and the support course track, with general studies as a backup. What kind of villain asked someone to apply to UA?! The kind his parents would ask for a quirk, apparently. Not that Yuuga was particularly complaining, as he wanted to go anyway. He had feared his charge of spying on Midoriya would force him to stay at EaMu, but thankfully it hadn’t. A rare stroke of luck for Yuuga. 

It was three days after his (rather successful) entrance exam that his traditional weekly phone call was scheduled. Results wouldn’t be out for another few days, but Yuuga didn’t doubt the man had questions. Thankfully (unfortunately?) Yuuga had answers. He had been in the same examination arena as Midoriya. Though there were certain things he didn’t want to report. I mean, he didn’t exactly want to tell the villain out of every horror movie ‘Hey, your quirkless maybe-son was bouncing off of shit with the speed of a cheetah and the strength of a pro hero before breaking all of his limbs while fighting a giant robot.’ It honestly felt a little out of his pay grade. 

He waited in the phone room anxiously. As per the man’s specifications, it was a small, empty room toward the back of his family home with nothing in it but a small wooden table, a black cell phone, and one chair. Why it had to be empty, Yuuga wasn’t quite sure. He understood it being in a secure place, but the theatrics felt…well… he was a theatrical person himself, but this felt like a bit much. Maybe it was just designed to freak Yuuga out. Impossible to say. 

The phone rang at exactly 8pm, as it always did on the third Friday of every month (save for scheduled calls). Yuuga still jumped when it sounded, tapping his foot anxiously as he picked up on the first ring. He stayed silent. He never spoke first. Only the caller. 

“Good evening, Yuuga. I’m afraid our call must be short, as I have much to attend to. Tell me, how did your exam go?” his voice is rasping, gravelly as if something was stuck in his throat. Just the end of a wheeze on some of his words despite the power he spoke with. There was also something else there. A light hissing of machinery. 

“It went well,” he says in formal, measured tones over the phone. This man was not his friend. He was, for all intents and purposes, his boss. His boss that would most certainly take his quirk away over a bad performance. Maybe worse, if his father’s fear was to be believed. “I believe I performed well on the written exam and the practical exam, but I cannot say the same for the support course trials. I chose the analyst track as it seemed easier than the gear track, but I still believe it was sub-par compared to the other students.” 

He gives the practiced answer. His mother often anticipated what questions he would be asked and drilled through answers with him. Not to lie, of course, he didn’t doubt the man would know if he lied. Merely to make sure Yuuga’s voice wouldn’t tremble in fear or attempt to stammer out an unsure answer. Men like this weren’t patient. 

“Yes, well, it is a difficult thing to do. Do you know anything of Izuku's performance?” His biggest evidence for the father theory was the use of Midoriya’s first name and the fond way he said it. That wasn’t the way you talked about someone you wanted to hurt.

“We were in the same practical exam,” Yuuga says, swallowing hard. No amount of coaching would make this next bit easy to say. “He, uh-”

“Good. Do you happen to know how many points he got? I do believe that is the way UA still does it.” He’s interrupted before he can confess what he saw. 

“Yes, sir. It’s point-based,” he confirms. “But Midoriya-” 

“So, how many points? If it’s for taking down those robots UA uses, I don’t anticipate he was able to take down more than two, and that’s assuming he was able to fashion himself a weapon.” 

“Yes, it was the robots,” he says again, “but sir-” 

“Yuuga, I said I don’t have time. I merely need to know how many points he got, nothing else,” his voice turns snippy and Yuuga’s blood runs cold. 

“Zero points, sir. I heard him say it to Yaoyorozu,” he manages to say despite the fear of upsetting the man. Though at his words, the man releases a ... .sigh of relief? 

“Oh, good. Good. I don’t know what I was so concerned about,” the man chuckles, further confusing Yuuga, “If he does get into the support course, that’s fine. You’ll simply need to keep an eye on him from the hero course or the general studies course. Perhaps you could become closer friends to bridge the gap that being in separate courses would cause. Well, we’ll think of that later. Thank you for the information, Yuuga, we’ll speak later.” 

“Wait, sir, I needed-” The villain hung up on Yuuga before he could confess what he saw. 

Yuuga puts the phone back on the hook before slamming his forehead down on the table, groaning. He was so dead. 

______

Momo thought she’d have an easier time telling her parents she had killed someone than that she had been accepted into UA High School in the hero course. 

She knew that they had thought applying to UA to begin with was silly. Why not continue at EAMU, which has the best credentials in the city, if not the prefecture? UA was undoubtedly a good school, but it was first and foremost for heroes. It was like going to a top-ten math and science college when your best subject was history. When she told them she wanted to be a hero, they nodded placatingly as adults often did when a child said something silly or unreasonable. Sure, they bought her good gear for the exam and contacted a hero friend of theirs so she could do the recommendation exam, but they hadn’t approved. Likely they just thought she would fail, and she just needed to get it out of her system. 

Momo knew what they wanted for her. A good school, a good normal school, a good college, and then graduate to become a socialite. The family businesses would go to her older sister, but Momo still had a part to play. A representative of the family to keep up their good name. Momo was charming and intelligent, a queen of poise and manners. Why ‘waste’ all of that fighting villains? How could she make an appearance at the yearly charity ball with black eyes and scraped knees? Even disregarding the optics of such a thing, she knew they didn’t think she was strong enough. Even with the muscle she had put on training with All Might and Izuku, they didn’t view it as strength. They viewed it as ‘ruining’ her good feminine figure by making it more ‘boyish’ with muscles. Part of them likely still thought this was a flight of fancy, and she’d drop it within a few months. Like she hadn’t been dreaming of being a hero since she could dream. 

Pacing around her room anxiously, she could practically see the hole she was wearing in her fur rug. The acceptance disk still sat on her desk, shining innocently at her as if it hadn’t just made all of her dreams come true and given her a massive problem all at once. She got in, great! Amazing! Fantastic! There were a thousand vocabulary words she could sift through and still not find one to articulate how happy she was about this, but none of that changed that she couldn’t go to UA unless her parents let her. She briefly entertained the concept of lying, of pretending to go to EAMU when in reality she was off cavorting with hero-aspirers, but the viability of such a thing wasn’t realistic. The amount of people she’d have to bribe, lie to, and trick was both morally impossible and physically unattainable. Her parents would eventually find out, and getting outed for lying would be worse than whatever they could say to her as a rejection. 

Momo tried to remind herself of that. The worst they could say was no. She knew they likely wouldn’t say yes, knowing that from the moment she told them of her plan to go to the exam, but the thought of the rejection still kept her pacing on her nice fur rug. Back, forth, back, forth. Maybe she could wear circles into this rug until the world ended, at which point a rejection wouldn’t even matter. 

The dinner bell rings, the musical chimes signaling she cannot put off her doom forever. The meal was served, and her parents would be wanting answers. 

She stopped herself before she could ruin the rug further. A deep breath in, a deep breath out. Walking off of the rug and to her vanity, Momo checked herself over to make sure she was presentable for dinner. Her hair was perfect, her uniform was still perfect, and her face was perfect. Momo was perfect. She always was, ever since childhood. So she tried to tell herself that. Maybe just this once, she deserved to do something like go to UA in repayment for her years of perfection. She deserved a chance, at least. Her parents had to give her that. 

Her mother and father are already seated when she arrives, talking quietly about some party or another they’d be attending soon. They barely acknowledge her as she takes her seat, laying her napkin down in her lap and smoothing it out anxiously. The maids bring out the first course, a light salad with a sweet vinaigrette. One of Momo’s favorites. Even the presence of her favorite appetizer couldn’t lift her spirits enough to tell her parents, so she let them talk as she sat quietly. She still hasn’t worked up the nerve to speak when the main course is brought out, though it seems her parents have grown tired of her inaction. Her father speaks just as Momo has washed down a bite of the veal with the watered-down wine she had begun drinking to get acclimated to the taste. 

“I am sorry, dearest.” His voice is disinterested, despite the sympathetic tone. Momo looks up in confusion, but he’s not looking at her. He’s still focused on his dinner even as he delivers his condolences. “I know it must have upset you, but it’s a hard thing to do. You can’t be a hero on a whim.” 

“Wha…” Momo doesn’t even get the chance to question what they’re talking about, as her mother barrels over her half-formed question. 

“You don’t have to explain yourself, darling. You got the results then disappeared into your room for an hour, now you mope about. A mother can always tell these things,” her mother leans across the table to pat her hand kindly. 

Oh, Momo doesn’t even know how to feel, they think I didn’t get in. 

“No, no, I got in,” she tells them, nearly wincing at how defensive her voice sounded. She tries again with the more refined tone she had been taught to use through years of lessons. “I’m sorry if I gave you another impression, but I was accepted.” 

“How wonderful!!” Her father sounds much too delighted with this information, based on how he had been when Momo first asked to apply. 

“You..approve?” Momo asks, hiding her nervous hopes behind a sip of her drink. 

“Well, I still would prefer East, but UA is a fine academic institution in the general studies course. Since the hero course didn’t work out, I see no issue with you going to UA to get this hero business out of your system.” 

Momo can barely even comprehend what she’s learned. Her parents were fine with her going to UA in the general studies course because they…didn’t seem to know she got into the hero course. Even upon learning she had made it in, they had still assumed she couldn’t have meant the hero course. Of course, of course if she got in it had to have been just for academics. There was no chance in their heads she could have gotten in based on strength or battle prowess or a hundred other things no etiquette class could teach you. 

She almost laughs. Whether to be relieved or insulted, she wasn’t sure. All she could think was that this was her chance. They didn’t need to know she was in the hero course at UA. They barely looked at her school paperwork and waivers, anyways. Just one of a dozen documents they signed in a day. If they didn’t know she was in the hero program, they couldn’t tell her no. If she was at the top of her class, then maybe she’d have hard proof to show them when they inevitably discovered her deceit. They’d have to listen to her, then. Right? 

“Yes,” she hums before she can think better of the lie, “that should suffice just fine.” 

Dinner passes slowly, after this, and they drift to other topics. Momo tries to hide the anxiety coursing through her, fighting to keep her hands still in her lap. She is mercifully excused soon after the final course, doing everything in her power not to sprint to her room. 

Closing the door behind her, locking it just to be sure, she calls Izuku. Her phone rings twice before he picks up, his excited voice immediately running a mile a minute. 

“ Hero course, hero course! ” His excited mantra crackles from the receiver, “ Yaomomo, I got into the hero course!” 

“Me too!” she whispers excitedly, even though her room was nearly soundproofed and so far away from her parents' room that it surely wouldn’t matter either way. 

“ Oh my god, this is amazing! ” Izuku’s voice is so thrilled Momo almost forgets she still has an issue to complain about, “We’re both in, and I can’t believe your parents ended up agreeing!” 

Momo almost told him what she had done. Almost. What was truly the benefit of telling, well, anyone, really? The more people that knew, the more tongues that could wag. She didn’t think Izuku would ever purposefully say anything, but he wasn’t a great liar and tended to ramble when pressed for information. So if it was safer for him not to know…

“Oh…yes. Yes, they agreed,” Momo knows she likely doesn’t sound convincing, but Izuku is too excited from his own acceptance to clock it.

  “I hope we’re in the same class! ” He moves on quickly, and her fib gets to rest undisturbed for now. 

She entertains the conversation for another hour, promising they’d talk more about it when they meet to work out tomorrow. Her bedtime routine is done right on schedule, and by the time she’s tucking herself into her very nice bed, she’s already got her plan. 

Momo didn’t need to lie forever. She just needed to hold off the truth until she had hard proof to her parents that she had what it took to be a hero. The easiest way to prove that? Well, she wasn’t sure. Maybe she’d have an opportunity earlier, but for now, the answer was clear. 

First place at the sports festival should just about do it. 

Chapter Text

Inko knows when something is too good to be true. After all, she has a long history of getting the rug pulled out from under her. She couldn’t afford to let it happen again.

It wasn’t that Inko wasn’t happy for her son. How couldn’t she be? UA, the best hero school in the country? It was a miracle, a dream come true, everything her precious baby boy could have ever wanted. His supposed quirklessness had been the one thing as a mother she couldn’t make better for him, and now it had disappeared as quickly as her son’s dependence on her. This was a good thing. 

So why couldn’t she just trust that it would stay this way? 

When his trainer, this mysterious secretary of All Might’s, came into her home sat on her couch and told her that her son had developed a quirk, she almost laughed in his face. The keyword being almost. Inko could never do something so rude. But still, the urge had been there. Who was he, this random man who had been often alone with her young teenage son without her knowledge, to tell her that the boy she had raised alone for the better part of six years had developed a quirk right under her nose? She surely would have noticed! It was only Izuku begging her to believe him- all the while refusing to demonstrate this mysterious quirk- that persuaded her to give her consent for the hero exam. She would have anyway, to let him try, but still. 

But then he got in. 

She looked at the paperwork the school sent her, and she saw that her baby boy wasn’t listed as quirkless, but as ‘generic enhancement quirk.’ Inko almost couldn’t believe it. It was too good to be true, and in Inko’s experience, that often meant it was. She had been proven right once, and she didn’t want Izuku to learn the same lesson. But if UA said he had a quirk, then he had to have one. Quirks could appear later in life according to her internet research, but she didn’t find any reputable sources of quirks disappearing. Only ghost stories and online urban legends. What a silly idea, that some shadowed man could emerge out of an alleyway and just steal a quirk. Inko had never heard something so ridiculous. 

She gave her permission for Izuku to attend UA, despite her nagging concern that this could all disappear from under him. Inko knew it wouldn’t be right to let her anxiety stop him from living out his dreams. After all, maybe things would work out for him. Quirks were something biological, and biology was reliable (except in the case of his extra toe joint, it seemed.) Her own disappointment hadn’t been biology, merely human-brewed misery. 

Inko could remember meeting Hisashi and thinking he was too good to be true. Even then, she knew that men like him didn’t appear every day. Sure, she was in shape back then. She was thin and pretty, with consistently cute clothes and carefully done makeup. Though back then she could have been considered something of a catch, it still didn’t change that Hisashi was out of her league. He was tall and devilishly handsome, with those eye-catching rubies for eyes and snow-white hair. Inko had been hired on as his secretary, for the quirk analysis business he owned. On the very first day in the office, he gifted her with a bouquet of pretty pink peonies as a welcome gift. It set the precedent for her job there. He was a good boss, really an excellent one. Never yelled at her, always gave her clear instructions, and always chatted with her whenever he came in for the day. That combined with her generous pay and the bi-yearly bonuses, she didn’t have any complaints. The job was too good to be true. 

After a year or so of making his copies and scheduling his appointments, the relationship shifted. Whenever she brought his coffee, he asked her to sit and have hers with him. He spent more time at her desk or calling her into his to talk to him. The welcome flowers became a weekly affair, and soon they shifted from friendly foxglove to romantic roses. Back then she actually had something of a self-esteem, so she didn’t miss his intentions. After a few months of this, she was eagerly awaiting him to ask her out. Inko couldn’t believe her luck that such an attractive, wealthy man had taken an interest in her. 

Their first date had been a walk in the park. Something easy and without much pressure to dress her best. They walked around observing the flowers, and they got ice cream together when the heat of the mid-July sun beat down too hard. She could still remember the flavor he got, blueberry vanilla. Back then she had been girlish and still believed in the fantastical elements of romance, so she bought a perfume with the same scent the next day. Part of her had thought it wouldn’t work, but his lingering around her desk had suggested otherwise. It became her signature scent after that. 

She hadn’t worn it since he left. 

In retrospect, she supposes she should have seen it coming. He never liked his picture taken, and the one or two she was able to take were only in their bedroom. Not only that, but Hisashi was cagey about his past or any family, giving her short answers or changing the subject. Then there were the lengthy phone calls he’d leave the house to take or the days-on-end business trips that arose out of nowhere. The red flags had been around since long before their very small and intimate wedding, but Inko had been so caught up in how good everything else was to properly think of the risk. 

When will you meet another guy like this? She’d ask herself at every ‘irrational’ anxiety, when would a guy like that ever go for you again? 

Most of her worries had been assuaged when Izuku was born. Her body changed, as it did with all women, but Hisashi hadn't seemed to care. He didn’t let it affect his behavior in bed, anyway, so Inko hadn’t thought she had anything to worry about. Hisashi was a doting father, too, always taking his turn to care for Izuku when he woke crying in the night. He even took him out to baseball games or to the park despite not being an overly social person, and Izuku never felt any deficiency in the amount of affection he was given by either of his parents. Things had been perfect again, like a fairytale. 

Inko knew Izuku thought his quirklessness had been the beginning of the end. It hurt her that he thought that, but she could see how he came to the conclusion. After all, the visible cracks in their family emerged at the same time. Though how could Inko change his mind convincingly? She didn’t want to tell him about the red flags before they got married. Izuku already resented his father for the obvious cheating, so how was Inko meant to tell him that the cheating had surely been a long-standing affair without fanning those flames? It was all Inko could do to make them talk once a month, and she didn’t think that the truth about the matter would help her out any. 

She was hurt about Hisashi leaving. So suddenly, too. Not even the strength to face her and tell her eye-to-eye that he wasn’t in love with her anymore. Inko had suspected the blow would come any day then due to his increased absences, but to do so while in another country, which he left for in the middle of the night? It was a strike as painful as a physical one. 

It was only her love for Izuku that kept her from anger. Hisashi, for all of his faults as a husband, was a good father. His sudden distance from Izuku after the ‘quirkless’ diagnosis was unforgivable, but he clearly loved his son. He sent lots of money, and always asked Inko how he was or what he was doing, and before the absences he had been the best father anyone could ask for. Inko would not be the cause of the demise of their relationship. 

So, she kept it cordial. Friendly, almost. If she could forgive Hisashi, then Izuku could too. Though the issue with this was that it reminded her how charming he was. Always so good at making her laugh, kind and sensitive to her thoughts. With the ‘old’ Hisashi back over the phone, Inko wondered why he had left her in the first place. If he was happy enough to let her raise Izuku and talk kindly with her over the phone, then maybe the issue had been physical. After the birth, Inko had gained weight, and it only increased as Izuku got older. Inko tried to remind herself that was no excuse, but it was hard when she remembered how fit and attractive Hisashi was. He could have anyone. Easily he could catch young women, models, actresses, and anyone he had a mind to. Maybe he just wanted to hold someone pretty at night, and Inko suddenly found that she couldn’t blame him when she looked at herself in the mirror. She was a mother, and a maiden no more. Gone were the days she could wear flouncy dresses or feel comfortable in low-cut blouses. Maybe if she had worked a little harder to stay in shape, then Hisashi’s eyes wouldn’t have wandered. After all, he was such a great guy. There had to be a reason he left, and the reason had to lie with her. 

Contenting herself had been easy, in the end. She still had Izuku, and Hisashi gave her enough money to live comfortably. More than comfortably, but she was never a lavish spender. So she’d answer his calls and take what attention she could still get from him, and she’d raise their son alone. The one or two dates she had tried to go on had ended poorly, either with low compatibility or mysteriously dropped calls. That hadn’t been a surprise either. She wasn’t exactly a young doe anymore, and her body had long since changed from the one that had caught Hisashi’s eye. So she took care of Izuku, worked in the library three days a week, and she contented herself. 

Today, she was contenting herself with shelving the new shipment of books for the children’s section. 

Thankfully they let Kugisaki shelve with her, one of the younger librarians. Inko couldn’t kneel very well, so the young girl got to do the bottom shelves while Inko and her step stool took the top and middle ones. Inko listened to Kugisaki talk idly about her new boyfriend, some minor hero that she recalled Izuku talking about recently. A new debut? Inko wasn’t sure. She tried her best to keep up with her son’s interest, but she’d never compare with the thesaurus in his brain for all things hero. Either way she listened to Kugisaki, the chatter a pleasant noise in the otherwise silent library. It was two in the afternoon on a school day, so the only people milling about were the mothers reading storybooks to little children or the few university students studying the new coursework for the soon-to-start semester. 

“...but that’s just what he thinks and honestly, who cares what Ghost Girl said anyways? I swear, he’s too invested in gossip,” Kugisaki chatters. Inko nods along even though she isn’t quite sure what Ghost Girl said in the first place. Kugisaki mutters something about the female hero before she stops, sighing loudly. “There he is again,” she said in annoyance. 

“There's who?” Inko asked, turning to glance in the same direction as Kugisaki once her cart was emptied. All she saw was the open library and one dark-hoodie-clad man walking in the direction of the hero materials. 

“That’s the guy I’m pretty sure is stealing some of our comics,” Kugisaki stage-whispers, coming up to stand beside Inko. 

“Really? What makes you think that?” Inko asked. 

“I don’t know, just his shady look. Always in that grungy hoodie and dark jeans. Not to mention his disgustingly dry hands. They brushed mine once when I was shelving and I swear I almost screamed when his skin flaked,” she shivered. 

Inko frowned. That was rude. She excused herself to go to the front desk and ‘take care of something’ in order to avoid responding. Kugisaki shrugs and goes back to her shelving while Inko makes her way to the circular desk, pulling up the cameras and getting eyes on the allegedly dry-skinned man. 

He was indeed in the hero section, looking at a copy of an older comic that Izuku used to like. When Inko found an angle that showed his face, she frowned further. He wasn’t a man. Probably not older than nineteen, even. His shaggy blue hair fell in his eyes, and she could see a yellowing bruise on his cheekbone. 

How sad, Inko thought. Such a skinny boy, and someone was clearly beating up on him. Her frown only deepens when she sees how he holds the comic in a strange four-fingered grip. A touch-based quirk? She knew how difficult those could be. When she worked for Hisashi’s office one of the women there had a quirk where anything she touched with all five fingers would immediately ignite. Inko had to make more than one stack of replacement paperwork over it. 

Her fingers go to click out of the cameras and put the matter to rest, but then she spots it. He rolls up the comic and shoves it in the front of his hoodie. So he was stealing. Though Kugisaki’s accusation may have been based on lookism, her theory was right. Inko almost reached for the button that would call in the retired cop, Haibara, who worked as security, her hand stopped itself. The boy didn’t look like a thief. He looked like a young man who didn’t think he had another option. There wasn’t maliciousness in the action. If anything, he looked nervous. He looked in both directions after he stashed the comic, eyes shifting worriedly from side to side. That wasn’t the method of an experienced thief. That was the anxiety of someone who would have preferred something safer. Her gut was telling her this wasn’t the kind of conceited teenager Haibara needed to kick out for them. 

Inko waffled over a solution. Her gut was something she did not have a lifelong history of relying on. She hadn’t trusted her gut when it came to Hisashi, she wasn’t trusting her gut when it came to Izuku’s mystery quirk, and despite her gut instinct being that this boy wasn’t a career criminal, she still had the urge to do the reasonable thing. Call Haibara in. 

Before she can think of a path of action, the young man is already on his way out. Inko was ready to chalk this one up to a case of indecision when someone else jumped at the chance. 

“Hey!” It was Kugisaki, now standing in the romance aisle which was directly parallel to the door. The man stopped right before he could open the door, looking at Kugisaki with the same posture as a deer in headlights, “I see that comic in your pocket!” 

Inko looked at the front door camera, seeing it from her angle. The bright red corner of the comic was indeed poking out from the front pocket. When she looked back up she saw the man turn to face Kugisaki more, his face red and his fingers flexing as he looked all around. An animal in a cage. Inko couldn’t help but feel a pang of protectiveness. 

“I- you, it’s-” he tried and failed to start a sentence, shoulders raised in a protective hunch. “I-” 

Inko couldn’t watch anymore. She grabbed a discarded library card on the desk waiting to be wiped and recycled and spoke. 

“Young man, you forgot your library card!” she called, both his and Kugisaki’s attention snapping to her. “Sorry, Kugisaki, he left it with me while he went to grab what he checked out!” 

Kugisaki looked at her disbelievingly, the man not much better. She waves the card at the man and after a moment of indecision, he walks toward her. He takes the card with shaking hands, reading the name that wasn’t his. 

“It’ll work until you’re ready for a real one,” Inko whispered to him softly, “I work the first three days of the week, so I’ll get you set up, okay?” 

He looks up at her suspiciously, “Why are you helping me?”

His voice is scratchy. Like he had been screaming for a while, or he had a bad cough and hadn’t cleared his throat in a while. It’s also unbearably suspicious and young at the same time, his eyes a bright red that reminded her of Hisashi. He shifts from foot to foot while he waits for her answer, glaring down at the library card.

“I don’t know,” she shrugs, “Maybe you just forgot to come and get one. Maybe you didn’t know you had to. It’s not for me to judge why people do what they do.” 

“You helped me because you…thought I forgot?” he asked, “You don’t even know me. I could be anyone.” 

“Exactly. You could be a lifelong sticky-fingered thief, or you could be someone who’s just never been to a library before,” she tried to elaborate when she saw the wheels turning in his head visibly, “I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes it can come back around in a helpful way!” 

“The benefit of the doubt,” he frowns. 

“Yes,” Inko nods. 

“So you just look at strangers and assume the best?” he asks like this is a foreign concept to him. “Why?” 

Inko would giggle if he didn’t seem so troubled. All she can feel is concern for this young man. What kind of life had he lived that he hadn’t learned that not everyone was an enemy waiting in the shadows? This was somebody’s little boy, now so suspicious of everyone. Her heart ached when she imagined Izuku becoming that way. 

“Because I’d want someone to look at me and assume the best,” she said at least, pushing the card forward a little more. 

The man looks torn, but he finally pockets the library card and mutters ‘Thank you’ in a voice that sounds like he didn’t say those words often. Inko smiled in a way she hoped was assuring, and he returned a half-grimace that seemed to be in earnest. It would do for now. 

Inko couldn’t help but be proud of herself as he left. She had gone with her gut, and it felt right. Maybe giving him this act of kindness would be what he needed. If she was lucky, he’d come back with the comic ready to make a library card, and that would be one instance where her instincts were proved right. Maybe with time, she could do it more often. 

But for now, baby steps. 

Chapter Text

In Izuku’s backpack, he had eight sharpened number two pencils, eight highlighters of varying colors, nine notebooks already labeled with his classes, one folder with all of his first-day paperwork and hero costume designs, and about a dozen other things he was sure he wouldn’t use that his mother had put in there for him. Normally he wouldn’t be so prepared, even for a first day of school, but this was UA. This was dream-come-true time. He couldn’t let his dreams fail because he was the dunce who had to ask for a pencil on the first day of classes.

So he got up early, washed his hair with the strong-smelling stuff his mom made him use to make his hair curly rather than frizzy, and ate a full breakfast. Two eggs and a bowl of All-Might-O’s. A heroic breakfast for a heroic day, as the cheesy tagline proclaimed. Izuku could hardly believe he’d be going to the same hero school as the man on the box of cereal he ate every day. He could hardly believe anything, in truth. Some nights he was even afraid to go to sleep, terrified that in the morning he’d wake up in the hospital after a week-long coma that came about after he got his brain bashed in for breaking into a warehouse full of criminals. But it hadn’t happened yet, so he pressed on. Izuku just had to remind himself that sometimes, things being too good to be true actually meant this was exactly as amazing and problem-free as it seemed and there are no skeletons in the closet or snakes in the sand to come and yank your dreams out from under you and cause your life to slip into a meaningless depression from which he would surely never recover. Sometimes things really were just great. 

His optimism meant he even let his mom take several pictures of him for the first day of school, which was normally something he dreaded. But the thought of not remembering this day in perfect technicolor detail was too much to handle, so he allowed her all of the photos she wanted. Though his mood did sour slightly when she talked about how excited his father would be to see how handsome he looked. 

Speaking of his father, the deadbeat had tried to call Izuku while he was trying to wrangle the red scrap of fabric around his neck into something that almost resembled a tie. Izuku had tossed his phone on the bed and closed the bathroom door, turning on the water for good measure to have plausible deniability that he hadn’t heard the angsty sounds of Everclear that signaled the DNA donor was calling him. Izuku wished he could answer the phone and hear a supportive voice saying he was proud of him, but the boy knew the likelihood of that was low. Besides, he wasn’t sure what would be worse. His father disapproving of him going to UA, or finding out he had a quirk now and suddenly being interested in him again. 

Izuku actually didn’t know if his mother told his father about the ‘mystery’ quirk. He hadn’t told her not to, per se, but he hadn’t been overly eager for his father to learn. After all, if he had left their family all because of Izuku’s deficiency, he didn’t want him reinserting himself now that Izuku had proved he wasn’t defective. Let his dad think he was just some suicidal maniac brute-forcing his way through heroics. He didn’t care either way (and if he did, that was no one’s business.) 

So, this all brings Izuku to right now. Standing in front of the holy land, also known as UA High School. Somebody pinch him. 

“Ow!” he flinched out of more shock than pain as he felt a pinch on his upper arm. His surprised grimace turned into a smile when Momo came around to grab his arm, smiling in that calm I’m-hiding-my-elation way of hers. 

“Can you believe it?” she asked in a quiet, giddy voice. 

“Barely. I feel like I’m dreaming,” he admitted just as quietly.

“For both of our sakes I hope you’re not,” Momo laughs. 

Izuku leads them through the halls. All of the student body got a map of the high school, so he was able to navigate their way to homeroom relatively easily even in the hustle and bustle of the first day. He spots a few people he vaguely recognized on the way, like the blue-haired boy from the written exam or the plain-faced one with the strange elbows from his practical exam. Izuku was practically in heaven with all of the quirks here just ripe for analysis. His hand itched to pull out his notebook, but he promised his mom not to analyze on the first day. He had to at least get past orientation before he began shamelessly doing something other than his classwork. Today was just about learning the ropes and meeting his classmates. 

By the time they made it to class, their fellow students had mostly arrived. Izuku knew if it wasn’t for him and his scenic route then they likely would have been there earlier, but hey, it was UA! He had to take it all in! Besides, on time was on time in his book. Izuku tried to look around the room, really gave a good effort at giving his classmates for the next few years equal attention, but all of that came to a halt with one head of ash-blonde hair already sitting on the far right row, one down from the front. His preferred spot. 

“Kacchan?” He can hardly stop the childish term of affection from coming out. Anything else would have sounded wrong. What else was he meant to call his former best friend?

Bakugou’s posture stiffened at the sound of Izuku’s voice. He turned slowly to face him, his vermillion eyes wide and frightened in a way that the other boy had never seen him before. Never fear, for Kacchan. Only confidence, or anger, or amusement, but never fear. 

Izuku took a step toward his desk, confusion overtaking as Bakugou hurriedly pushed away from his desk, the feet of the chair scraping a painful noise into the air that was barely covered by the quiet murmur of the students. He stood from his chair, shoulders hunched defensively as he reared his elbow back with such force his chair toppled backwards. Izuku’s bafflement only continued when the clatter of the chair hitting the ground made Bakugou flinch. Bakugou. Flinching. 

Izuku did not kid himself into thinking they were as close as they were when they were six. Hell, the last year or so of his time at Aldera Elementary had put the measure of their friendship as shaky at best. He knew why his parents had suddenly made him change schools, and he knew Bakugou’s behavior during the latter years of their friendship had been a part of it. It proved that clearly, Izuku had not known his ‘best friend’ as well as he thought he had, despite the fond memories he convinced himself to keep his rose-colored tint on. But if there was one thing Izuku knew, it was that Katsuki Bakugou did not flinch at loud noises, or show his fear. 

“Is everything okay, Kacchan?” Izuku asked, putting his hands up slightly to placate him. 

Based on Bakugou's reaction, the instinctive scowl, and the hard bull-like huff, he didn’t appreciate the consideration. His teeth gnash as his mouth opened with that all-too-familiar intent to throw insults upon his victim, but to Izuku’s unending surprise, it immediately closed again. 

“Jus’ leave me the fuck alone,” Bakugou’s snappy voice is half a whisper as he hurriedly rights his chair and slumps back down, looking anywhere but Izuku. 

“Wh- what?” How was Izuku meant to respond to that? He knows they didn’t end on the best of terms, but where was this sudden fear coming from? Bakugou had called him useless for being quirkless, not contagious! “Kacchan, is everything okay? Did I do something-?” 

“No, you fuckin’ nerd! Now leave me alone!” His palms spark as he slams them down on the desk, the aggression a more familiar emotion on his face. 

“Come on, Izuku, some people are just so rude,” Momo sighed, taking his arm and pulling him away. 

“I am not fuckin’ rude, Miss Priss!” Bakugou growled, turning in his seat as Momo dragged Izuku down the row of seats. “And for your-” 

“Quiet down. Can’t you tell people are trying to sleep?” 

A wave of silence fell over the chattering room at the decidedly adult, irritated voice that suddenly emanated from the long yellow cushion that had been slumped in the corner of the room. Izuku turned to look at it with a frown, tilting his head. Someone with a pillow mutation quirk? A face suddenly appeared from the pillow as it rolled over, showing an unshaven, exhausted face profile of a grown man. 

“Huh?” Izuku wasn’t sure who spoke the confused little noise, but he agreed with it wholeheartedly. Huh indeed. 

The pillow slowly stands up, and then the zipper is dragged down as the inhabitant steps out of the cushiony confines. Slowly, recognition dawns. He hadn’t been as recognizable without the glasses or angry, chastising scowl. 

“Eraserhead!” Izuku didn’t squeal, for your information, he made a manly noise of excitement. “You’re my teacher?!” 

Eraserhead nodded, as if in pain. 

“Yes, troublemaker, I am,” His voice was resigned, which Izuku took as a good thing. “Now everyone stop loitering around. Get changed into your gym uniform and meet me on the field.” 

“The field?” Momo asked, blinking, “but, orientation-?” 

Eraserhead’s eyes narrow, stopping the question in its tracks. Momo’s mouth snaps shut. 

“They can all waste time if they want, but I intend to do no such thing. I intend to see what you can really do,” he says, “now, the next person to question me will be expelled. Uniforms, outside, now!” 

The class scrambled to obey, Izuku included. But even as he changed into his uniform and walked out to the field to hear Eraserhead’s first-day trials, all he could really focus on was a boy with spiky blonde hair and a voice much quieter than he remembered. 

______

Izuku could remember the day he realized his quirklessness changed things. Even outside of the obvious challenges to heroism that his childhood stubbornness wouldn’t acknowledge, there had been changes. The way his mother treated him, his father, his teachers, his doctors, his friends, there was practically no end to people whose viewpoints had shifted by his lack of a quirk. Bakugou’s had been a particular sting, even if Izuku’s childish perspective refused to completely acknowledge that he wasn’t just playing or roughhousing. He probably would have put up with that torment forever in the hopes it would earn Bakugou’s love back if his father hadn’t seen the bruises and burn marks. At that age he had been angry he was moved out of Aldera, but he couldn’t help but see the wisdom in it now. 

Losing Bakugou hurt. Losing him because of bigotry had been worse. But part of Izuku had always hoped for them to reunite. An older, cooler him that had figured out the quirklessness thing and a more accepting Bakugou. Nowhere in his childish fantasies had he predicted this. He hadn’t wanted red eyes with hatred replaced by fear. 

After school, after a quirk test where he did far too middlingly and had to go to Recovery Girl for a broken finger, Izuku followed him out. 

“Wait!” He hated the way Bakugou stiffened when Izuku shouted his name. Hated it, hated it, hated it . 

“What do you want?” Bakugou asked, his voice half a growl as he didn’t turn to face Izuku in the dim light of the setting sun. He had stayed late, too, to get acquainted with the school grounds. There was barely anyone but them on the brick pavement that curved up the hill UA was perched on. Practically just the two of them. 

“I want to talk to you,” Izuku said, the words sounding half-assed even to himself. “We haven’t seen each other in years.” 

“Like that wasn’t what you wanted,” Bakugou scoffed, turning just enough that the dying sunlight was cast over his maroon eyes, painting them a glittering ruby. 

“What I wanted?” he stepped forward, flinching at the way Bakugou’s posture curled up defensively again. “What are you talking about? The last time we talked, you called me useless. You said you were glad I wasn’t going to be trailing after you anymore!” 

“Well, I’m sorry!” He blurted out, further confusing Izuku. When had Katsuki Bakugou apologized for anything? “Is that what you want me to say? I’m sorry, I was wrong, I haven’t done it again? Now please just leave me alone.” 

“Not until you tell me why you’re afraid of me!” Izuku took another few steps forward, grabbing Bakugou’s shoulder and turning the boy to face him. To look him in the eyes for once. 

“I won’t let you do it again!” 

Bakugou’s shout is sudden and almost shrill, and he grabs Izuku’s wrist in a sparking grip as he yanks his hand off, pulling it painfully to the side and twisting as his other hand came up in a tight fist, stopping short just an inch from Izuku’s nose.

The air was still around them, with no sound or wind or movement at all as the moment was committed to eternity. The sparking pain of Bakugou’s hand around Izuku’s wrist, the strain of his wrenched shoulder, the sweet smell of burning caramel just under Izuku’s nose. The crystalline tears just beading at Bakugou’s waterline and threatening to spill. Izuku was confused, he was mesmerized, he was scared. 

Who hurt you? He thought, and why are you acting like it was me? 

Bakugou’s eyes widened after a moment, one tear falling down his cheek as he looked at his hand on Izuku’s wrist in horror, releasing his former friend as if he had been the one burned. He skittered down a few steps, nearly tripping on the slope of the bricks as Izuku reached out a hand for him. He batted it away, putting his face in his hands as he took in a few heaving breaths. Izuku watched in helplessness as he slowly calmed down, reaching his hand out and tentatively setting off a few sparks. Like he was testing to see if he still could. 

“Kacchan?” he asked, his voice carried away in the wind. 

“Leave me alone, Izuku.” Bakugou has calmed down into that slightly irritated neutral that still seemed so foreign on his face. “I don’t want to talk to you or interact with you.” 

“But-” Bakugou is already walking away, and whatever Izuku might have been able to say dies on his tongue. 

He’s still staring at Bakugou’s form, watching it get smaller and smaller as he retreats to the base of the hill. Still trying to think of, well, anything. What could he think? Izuku couldn’t even begin to figure out what was going on there. He’s about to admit defeat and just go home for the day to try and recover the high of his first day at UA when his phone rings. His mood only worsens with the ringtone. But for some reason, he answers it when he fishes it out of his pocket. 

“What is it, Dad?” he asked, voice sour. 

“Bad day at school?” His father asked, as unaffected as ever. The teenage attitude didn’t seem to work on him, at least outwardly. “You know, UA isn’t for everyone. You could still transfer back into East.” 

“I’m sure you’d like that,” Izuku nearly spits, “but I’m going to be a hero whether you think I can or not!” 

“Woah, woah, Izuku,” his father’s voice turns placating, the soothing sound of his voice doing nothing to calm Izuku’s haywire anger. “I never said I didn’t think you could. I always believe in you, son, I’m just pointing out the obvious dangers of the profession. Even if you did have a quirk I’d still prefer you stay at East and go into a safer career.” 

Even if I did have a- oh. Izuku guesses his mom didn’t quite share that detail, then. Whatever. Good, actually, good! He doesn’t need his dad coming back around to try and analyze the one detail he’d ever be able to find interesting about his son! 

“Like you would care either way. I could die to some no-name villain and it’d be no skin off of your back!” He hissed, knowing some of this anger was misguided. Some of this was meant for the mystery of the Bakugou situation, not his father. But the anger was already spewing out, and part of him felt like he deserved this. Izuku deserved this. His father deserved to hear it. “You wouldn’t even come to my funeral, too busy with your new perfect family in America! Oh, I bet your new kids have all the perfect quirks you could ever want!” 

“Son-” Izuku barreled past his father’s shocked voice. 

“Because obviously, obviously that has to be what’s going on. Because at least if you’re making some other family happy then that’s a little better than you just leaving me and mom high and dry with no explanation. Maybe I shouldn’t even be bitter, I at least got you for nine lousy years. I can’t believe I thought that going to UA would get you to show your face. Of course, you couldn’t be bothered. Of course, you couldn’t even just congratulate me. No, the only thing you care about is-!”

“Izuku,” His father’s voice is not angry, or offended, or upset, or any of the emotions Izuku had wanted to get out of him. There had been no yelling Izuku could reciprocate. Just the hard, unyielding steadiness Izuku could remember from when he took work calls at home. 

“What?!’ he snaps, chest heaving, “What could you possibly have to say to me?!” 

“I love you.” 

Izuku does the only thing he can think to do. He hangs up. He silences his phone and shoves it into his pocket, ignoring the silent buzzing from what he knew was his father calling him back. He ran back to the smaller gymnasium he had toured at the end of the day with All Might, sprinting until he was pushing open the pale red doors. The lights were still on, and All Might was just finishing putting up some jump ropes as he came in, his shadowed blue eyes flicking to Izuku in surprise. 

“I want to practice,” Izuku said desperately, trying not to think about the way his chest must be heaving or his eyes must be watering. 

“Right now?” he asks in bafflement. 

All Might leaves the rack of ropes where it is, walking over to tower over Izuku as he examines him with a tilt of his head. He nodded rapidly, knowing that if he tried to talk, words would fail him. Izuku is terrified he’s going to ask what’s wrong, or just tell him to go home and calm down, but instead, All Might lays a hand on his shoulder comfortingly. 

“Okay,” he said softly, “We can practice. Go get changed.” 

Izuku did, and he left his still buzzing phone on the bench in the locker room and tried to think of anything else. 

Chapter Text

Katsuki Bakugou had been quirkless for eleven days, thirteen hours, and twenty-nine minutes of his life. Eleven days, thirteen hours, and twenty-nine minutes of pure hell.

As a nine-year-old, excellence had been all he ever knew. Perfection. Best grades, best quirk, best work ethic, best everything. He was the best, and his quirk was more than a little of that perfection. The ability to create explosions was a cool-ass quirk, so cool, that humility wasn’t a word that entered his vocabulary. Why should he have to pretend to be humble? There was nothing humble about the explosions he could create, nothing about his singularity that should require him to pretend to be on the same level as the know-nothing losers in his school. Oh, you’re holographic butterflies are pretty cool, but did I mention I can literally blow up anything I want with no materials at all? No, no, we’re still on the same level though. It was stupid. It was ridiculous. There was nothing that insulted him as much as having to pretend that he was on the same level as stupid, useless, quirkless Deku. 

He was- he was an idiot! A stupid, useless, moron who Katsuki couldn’t stand to have trailing after him, always mumbling some stupid praise or analysis. Maybe he could have learned to tolerate it if the nerd wasn’t so content on still trying to be something. He didn’t have a quirk, didn’t have any great athleticism, yet he still talked like he and Katsuki were on the same level. Like they weren’t eons away from each other. So confident and self-assured that they could be partners. 

It was insulting. Degrading, even! The nerd couldn’t do anything, and yet he still acted like he was even on the same planet as Katsuki skill-wise. Always trying, always working, like a little bit of hard work could surpass Katsuki’s universe-bestowed talent. As if! But even when Katsuki began to work just as hard to compensate, the nerd kept at it. Like spitting in his face. 

So, of course, Katsuki had to knock him down a few pegs. He had been cordial long enough. A shove here, a clipped comment there. Katsuki tried to do the merciful thing at first. Let the nerd get the hint and back off before things got ugly. But he always bounced back. Without fail, every insult was brushed off and every hit or shove of his shoulder was treated like an accident. Katsuki could tell Izuku was mocking him. What, was the nerd trying to act like even Katsuki’s bullying wasn’t good enough? Like he would stand for that! 

With this disrespect not to be tolerated, he upped the ante. Threw in a few insults more biting than typical, let his palms spark with every grab to the nerd’s bony little wrists. It only took a week of that before Izuku was gone from Aldera. Mission accomplished, or so Katsuki thought. He had the nerd out of his life and now no one in this stupid school was delusional enough to pretend they were anywhere near the same level as him. It was meant to be smooth sailing from there. 

Katsuki could keenly remember the day it happened. Painfully vivid even five years later. They said time heals all wounds, but that shit was slow-going in this case. He was walking down the street with his lackeys, names he couldn’t even pretend to recall now. Wings and Teeth, as he called them. Shitty quirks and shittier personalities, but at least they sufficiently fluffed Katsuki’s ego. Not like he needed it, but the extras in his wake should hear it. 

They were going to the movies that day. Some new All-Might documentary or other. Normally his mom would have driven him, but it was a beautiful Saturday morning and it was a short walk. There was no harm, so why not let him get some exercise in? The lackeys lived close to him and had absentee parents or something because they joined him easily. 

Some kind of business convention had been going on at the venue across from the theater, so the sidewalks were crowded with people. Katsuki pushed his way through the crowd, not letting any stuffy salaryman stop him from getting front-row seats to this documentary. It was a few dozen feet away from the theater that he felt a cold hand on his shoulder, just barely dragging along until a freezing cold finger slid along the junction of his shoulder and neck where his t-shirt had slipped down. 

Katsuki yelped, an icy cold feeling enveloping his entire body. It seemed to radiate from where he was touched, sending shoots of a paradoxically cold numbness through his entire body until he lost the feeling in his fingers and toes, the skin of his palms itchy and dry. 

He rounded on the man, a curse on his tongue to keep his filthy predator hands off of him, but there was nothing. A dozen suit-clad backs that all looked the same to Katsuki as his friends watched his outburst in puzzlement. They knew better than to ask if he was okay, but the look was in their eyes and it pissed Katsuki off all the same. He scoffed, turning away from them as he rubbed his still-numb hand over the skin of his collar, pulling his shirt up as he continued on his path to the movie. 

But the feeling didn’t completely abate. Sitting in the theater, his icy skin slowly melted. He could feel his toes and fingers, and the sickly feeling in his stomach left, but nothing could shake the hollow feeling in his….well, he didn’t quite know where it was. Something was just missing. His hands still felt strange, too. His palms felt dry and scratchy, not at all like the soft flesh the nitroglycerin sweat he produced conditioned them to. He ran his fingers along it, the dry flesh dragging against dry flesh. It was unsettlingly unfamiliar, and the longer it lasted the longer he could care less about this stupid movie. It wasn’t even good, anyways. Old recycled footage. The lackeys agree with him easily when he says they should bounce (or demands it, rather) and they leave the theater loudly complaining to the ire of the other movie-goers. Katsuki didn’t care. He never cared what other people thought of him. He was too good for that. Too good for people to find fault with. 

Despite his carefully timed eleven days, thirteen hours, and twenty-nine minutes, the actual time was longer by a matter of two or so hours. It wasn’t until he was standing in an arcade with Wings and Teeth that he realized something was terribly, horribly, awfully fucking wrong. 

Wings beat him at Karate Master Fighter 3, Katsuki’s new favorite game since he couldn’t find a half-decent opponent in Hammer Hero 2. Izuku was his partner for that, usually, but the extra couldn’t stop pissing Katsuki off, so that wasn’t an option anymore. Wings was shit at Karate Master but had seized the chance to get Katsuki with a Double Ninja Kick Combo when he was distracted by his phone ringing in his pocket. He laughed in victory, the sound nasally and grating on Katsuki’s ears. 

He rounded on him, content on giving him a sharp punch to his upper arm with a little extra oomph of a spark to hammer in that being a sore loser was a shitty thing to do, especially when you only won the game on a fluke as a talentless loser. But when he curled his fist and summoned the usual spark in his palms, only one of the blows landed. 

Wings hissed when his fist, decidedly unexplosively, landed on the meaty flesh of his upper arm. He bitched and moaned, asking what that was for, but all Katsuki could do was stare at his still-closed fist. It hadn’t ignited? 

Katsuki’s eyes darted to the flashing red clock in the corner of the arcade machine. 12:30:23. The middle of a perfect, sunny day. The only time he had ever failed to ignite was the time at the ice skating rink where he was freezing his ass off, and it had been late at night, too. Even then, there was something. A little pop in the joints of his wrist. A warming in his palm. But now, nothing. 

He drew his hand back, flattening it out and holding his palm up as he tried again. Nothing. He shook out his hand, ignoring the stupid confused looks from the idiots in front of him. He tried again. Nothing. Like his quirk was just gone. Like it never existed in the first place. Almost like Deku. 

The nausea hit nearly instantly. Shoving past Teeth, he ran to the bathroom and just barely got his hand wrapped around the edge of the trashcan before he was vomiting up his lunch. His stomach rolled, tears filling his eyes as he coughed up bile and acid. 

By the time he’s able to stand back up, raggedly breathing as he wiped away the vile spittle that lingered, the icy numbness has returned to his body. Wings and Teeth were staring at him from the doorway, but he didn’t care about them. He cared about his quirk. Without it, who was he? Nothing. Nothing at all. Brought down low to the ground with the other extras, brought down to the dirt with Deku. Oh, Katsuki could hear the laughter now. Mocking him, pitying him, degrading him. 

He spiraled and spiraled until he could feel nothing at all, only the black hole in his vision that showed him the image of Deku laughing in his face. 

The next thing he knew, he woke up to two paramedics standing over him, giving him stupidly pitying looks as if they could just tell that Katsuki was suddenly defective. He would have shouted at them to get away or thrown a punch or something, but his mother was there, too, and he didn’t want a lecture from her. 

So he tolerated being taken to the hospital, and the poking and prodding the doctors put him through. Could you use your quirk this morning? Of course, he fuckin’ could. When did you notice it stopped working? Probably around the time he passed out, einstein. Any other symptoms? None besides (ir)rational irritation at these stupid questions. 

They kept him for two days. Dozens of tests were run, and it was eventually decided that it was ‘a random biological occurrence.’ Prognosis? Uncertain. Katsuki didn’t even know what they paid those useless jackasses for. What was he meant to do with something like ‘uncertain’ for when his quirk would come back? Would he just have to wait forever to find out if he could be something in this world? At least if he were someone like Deku, he’d know to admit defeat and take a swan dive off a roof and hope for a longer-lasting quirk in his next life. 

The next nine days passed as slowly as a decade. His mother didn’t let him miss any school, much to Katsuki’s chagrin. Stop acting like your life is over, kiddo. But wasn’t it? Who was he if not his greatest talent? So he was condemned to go to school and endure the pitying looks of all of the shitty extras. Get better soon. We’re thinking of you. You’ll get through it. Katsuki hated it. How could anyone, even someone as resilient as Katsuki, bear to be viewed as some weak, pitiable thing? Katsuki didn’t know how Deku did it. 

The thought had stopped him dead in his tracks. In the hall between Math and Science class, all he could think about was Deku. How could he manage a life like this? How could he stand having his dreams crushed at such a young age? The sudden spike of empathy was foreign to Katsuki, and he sat at the back of science sullenly as he mulled that thought over. Well, failed to mull the thought over. His brain warred with itself on what opinion to form, and came away with nothing but a stupidly uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach that could even be called guilt. 

Deku haunted him for those eleven days. Every spike of insecurity- how did Deku deal with that? Every snide comment, how would Deku respond? Every thought of throwing himself from the top of the school, did Deku think this way? 

Admittedly, part of what kept him from deciding to just give up was the fact that Deku had lasted so long with seemingly no cares at all. If Deku could manage for nine years, Katsuki could at least hold out for a few miserable months until some of the stupid specialists his mother hired could do their damn jobs or give up and refund them the stupid fees. So with no choice but to live and Deku the only thing he could think about, Katsuki thought. 

He thought, stupidly, irrationally, crazily, maybe he deserved this. It was this thought that proved to Katsuki that maybe, his thoughts of Deku had been onto something.

March Thirteenth, 1:50 AM. Eleven days, thirteen hours, and twenty minutes after he first realized his quirk was gone. Katsuki had trouble sleeping ever since he lost his quirk, his nights often consumed with nightmares about what the rest of his life would look like. So tonight he wasn’t even pretending to try to sleep, instead sitting at his desk with his lamp turned on just low enough so he could see the paper underneath it without the light being bright enough to show through the bottom of his door. 

He was on draft four…five? He wasn’t sure. Could he even count the first eight, which didn’t get beyond the first few words? All he knew was that his wastebasket was overflowing with crumpled-up papers. If he still had his quirk, they’d be singed too. At least the fire extinguisher underneath his bed was getting less use these days, if silver linings counted for anything. Either way, they were failed attempts to do something Katsuki couldn’t remember doing that many times in his life. Apologizing. 

Dear Deku, 

Nope. Don’t call him Deku, for one. Not a great call, for an apology. Even someone like Katsuki could tell that. 

Dear Izuchan, 

Fuck no! What was he, five? 

Dear Midoriya, 

Oh, that was just informal. Failing to acknowledge Deku, to acknowledge Izuku, was failing to acknowledge that the depth of his betrayal came from their previously held affection. 

Dear Izuku, 

It would have to do. 

Dear Izuku, 

I just wanted to say, if I was ever a dick, I’m sorry. I don’t think- 

And that was as far as the furthest one had gotten. The rest hadn’t really gotten past the I’m sorry bit. The lump in his throat prevented him from elaborating, so it was a struggle to accept any of them as worthy enough of being an apology as well as sufficiently pride-retaining as Kasuki needed. Such a thing was beginning to look impossible. 

He laid his head on the desk with a quiet groan. How had his life gone so poorly that he had to write an apology to shitty De- Izuku? How had his life gone so wrong that he felt the urge to apologize? In what world should someone like him care about the feelings of someone like Izuku, especially on a matter he would have defended his opinion of to the death a few days ago? The whole emotional intelligence thing was exhausting him so thoroughly, that he was almost tempted to give up and go to sleep. 

When deciding whether or not to do that, in the process of standing up and stretching out his sore arms, Katsuki felt a cold breeze behind him. A tiny noise, barely more than a gush of air. Then, a sharp prick at his neck. 

Katsuki couldn’t remember anything after that. For every painfully high-definition memory of these eleven days, there was nothing of the few minutes between 1:50 to 1:59. What happened there, he didn’t know if he’d ever know. 

After the prick, all he knew was that his eyes fluttered open at the sound of the gush of air again. One eye opened blearily, vision hazy as he looked in time to see a few vague wisps of purple energy disintegrate in front of him. He blinked, both trying to clear his vision and get rid of the tiredness in them. After a moment more, he was aware enough to realize he was lying on the floor, turned onto his back, and his bare forearm freezing with that same icy numbness as before. 

Katsuki sat up, his body feeling heavy and weak, but strangely…complete. Hope leaped in his heart, and before he did anything, before even sitting up or trying to think about the prickling feeling in his neck, he brought his palm up and stared hopefully as he summoned the familiar feeling of a crackle in his palms. 

And it sparked. 

Despite what he would have wished, recovery was not instantaneous. At least not in the matter of his mental health. He ran into his parent's room shouting with crackling palms, weeping in relief. The next day at school was a high he didn’t know if he’d ever get again, showing that his quirk was back and very much proving its pain-inflicting capacity on every stupid extra who thought to make a sly comment during his moments of weakness. But the euphoria of those few days didn’t fix the sting. 

Every time a stranger touched him in public, every cold winter day where his quirk took a half-second longer to activate, every time anything reminded him of what happened, he’d panic. His skin would go cold and his vision would go fuzzy and his heart would start beating out of his chest. Katsuki hid it at first, because it wasn’t anyone’s fuckin’ business, but his stupid mom could always see right through him and forced him to see a therapist. The therapist wasn’t actually half bad, she at least did her job enough that Katsuki no longer felt his palms crackle against his will every time a dumbass spoke to him. She also recommended to him that stupid poetry contest that he won, and she had been the first to suggest he try something like poetry to ‘channel his feelings’ or some other sentimental bullshit. He crushed it, naturally. Her influence, much to his chagrin and his mother’s vindication, hadn’t been all bad. It even meant he was able to talk about Izuku. 

So, Izuku. What to say about Izuku? Katsuki didn’t have to be a genius to connect the dots. He bullies izuku out of school for being quirkless, he becomes quirkless the next week. He gets his quirk back in the midst of writing an apology letter. Case fuckin’ closed, call the detectives home, we had an answer. But that was just ridiculous. Izuku was quirkless, everyone knew that. Quirkless, and with lame-ass parents with lame-ass lives. How could he have engineered Katsuki to lose his quirk? It was impossible! Yet every time a quirklessness-related insult came to his tongue, or any time he thought to say an ill word of Izuku when his mother brought him up, his body clammed up with the ghosts of icy fingers on his neck. The connection was undeniable, but even Katsuki knew he’d sound crazy to suggest such a thing. The only person he told was his therapist, who at least seemed competent enough not to send him to the nuthouse at the first suggestion of an unreasonable concept. 

Yukiko, his therapist, took the shamefully admitted loony-toons theory with all the seriousness of receiving the news of the death of a relative. Okay, maybe not like that, but she at least didn’t laugh or give him that stupid scrunched-eyebrows look that adults always gave kids when they said something concerning. She merely nodded her head, and then asked him to elaborate about Izuku. 

Katsuki would have rather died. But he did it. If only because Yukiko didn’t offer her stupid fuckin’ stickers if he didn’t give the session his all. Obviously, he’d give it his all, he was Katsuki Bakugou. That was all he was capable of giving. 

____

Talking about Izuku was very, very different than having to actually see Izuku in front of him. Especially when his irrational fears were starting to come across as very rational. 

The conclusion he came to in regards to the entanglement of Izuku and his brief brush with Quirklessness was this: correlation, not causation. Of course, when he was suddenly stricken with the same affliction as Izuku, his brain would create parallels. The timing- well, stranger coincidences had happened. One of the late-arriving specialists suggested it had been internalized guilt placebo-ing his brain into only thinking his quirk didn’t work so he could come to some sort of internal catharsis about the matter. Katsuki wondered how that guy ever got a degree in the first place, but at least it hammered in that for as ridiculous as that concept was, the concept that quirkless Izuku somehow engineered all of this was even more ridiculous. So why was there now a stupid amount of evidence? 

Katsuki stood in the corner of the locker room, hurriedly changing into his costume as he tried not to observe Izuku out of the corner of his eye. A quirk. Izuku had a quirk. As much as he’d like to deny it, he couldn’t really argue with the green flickers of energy that ran up the jumping and taut muscles of Izuku’s arm as he launched the ball ridiculously far. That was a quirk. But how had Izuku gotten one? 

Had he hidden it to mock Katsuki? Hide his little talent and parade around pretending to be weak so he could get the jump on him years later at UA? No, that was ridiculous. Ignoring that the logistics of which were near impossible (such as obtaining a somehow fake x-ray to show the government to lie to avoid quirk registration) why…would he fucking do that? Starting at age five? The commitment would be so astounding that Katsuki would have no choice but to respect it. Thankfully that (likely) wasn’t the case. But what options did that leave Katsuki? That he had miraculously developed a quirk right when he needed to get into UA? That was a crazy kind of coincidence. 

Almost as crazy as Katsuki losing his quirk when he bullied Izuku out of school for being quirkless. 

The thought, admittedly, freaks him the fuck out. Freaks him out worse than his initial reaction of just his paranoia fueling his fear at seeing Deku again. But now no one, not even damn reasonable-ass Yukiko, could convince him there wasn’t at least a little merit to his theory that Izuku had something to do with his quirk. Katsuki just had to connect the dots. 

But that was particularly difficult when Izuku kept giving him damn puppy dog eyes. 

Unfortunately, Katsuki had to quickly accept that Izuku likely didn’t have any knowledge of the plot, even if he was the center of it. I mean, Izuku couldn’t act for shit. Katsuki had seen him ruin enough school plays to be sure of that. There was the chance that time away at the school that turned you into an uptight douche had given him some talent, but based on the way he stumbled over the explanation of his quirk to the prying extras in their class, that was unlikely. That meant him greeting Katsuki so earnestly, and the consequential confusion at his reaction was all genuine. His interrogation after school had to have been, too. So Izuku not only didn’t know why Katsuki would be wary of him, but also seemed to think that he could greet him fondly again. Izuku- at least in childhood- always had a penchant for audacity, but not that kind of audacity. Not arrogance. 

So where does that leave him? Some mysterious quirk that could both take away and give quirks, but one that was unbeknownst to the general public? Of course it had to be unbeknownst, since such a quirk would obviously be held by a prolific hero in normal circumstances. So a villain? A villain who loved Izuku? Fat chance! Where would that even come from? Not a lover, since the first incident had happened when they both were nine, but what else? His auntie Inko was boring as hell, and her deadbeat husband was some boring salaryman who had abandoned his family for some ‘American harlot’ (as his mother put it) years ago. Besides, Izuku wouldn’t tolerate knowing a villain. He was too damn heroic for that. So someone Izuku either didn’t know or someone Izuku didn’t know was a villain. Any guesses Katsuki might have are undercut by the fact that the likely suspects are people he probably doesn’t know since he’s been estranged from Izuku for so long. It had to be someone he had never met before. 

But because of his theory being admittedly based on a couple of magnificent leaps of logic and a little (lot) of guesses filling in the gaps, this was nothing a respectable adult would listen to. The ramblings of a traumatized kid. So his only option was to wait, gather information, and avoid provoking this mystery protector of Izuku. 

But that was really, really hard when his entire assignment of the day was to beat the shit out of him. 

He looked at the paper in his hand with a frown, darting between it and the boy in question. He was wearing an absolutely ridiculous costume, one that had seemingly not changed since his eight-year-old brain came up with it. As the matchups were uploaded to the screen in front of them, he seemed caught between apprehension and excitement. If only things could be that easy for Katsuki. 

Looking at All Might (THE All Might!) Katsuki wondered if faking a stomach ache might be anything to try. I’m sick, I need to go to the nurse type beat. Though then he remembered that Recovery Girl was only a hop, skip, and a jump away and could heal any alleged stomach aches with enough time for him to be back for his matchup. Hmm, unviable. Family emergency? Oh please, like a hero as badass as Eraser wouldn’t see right through that. Besides, how would he know? His phone was back in his backpack. What he wouldn’t have given right then to be one of the lazy idiots who couldn’t part with it for even a moment. Asking to change partners was also painfully juvenile, but what could he do? He couldn’t find a way out, and he couldn’t hurt Izuku at risk of potentially reigniting the potential maniac who had potential quirk-snatching powers, potentially! What could he do but throw the fight? 

Katsuki Bakugou didn’t throw fights. Katsuki Bakugou didn’t lose. 

But Katsuki Bakugou also didn’t want to lose his quirk. 

“Fuck,” he muttered, scowling as his match was first. Not even an extra few minutes to think of another option.

“I’m excited to work with you, my villainous teammate!” The blue-haired one with the weird eyebrows and the too-loud hall monitor voice came up to him, holding out a hand for Katsuki to shake. He was the one with the speed quirk, if Katsuki remembered hard enough. He guessed it made sense since he looked like Ingenium. Nepo baby? Nepo brother? 

“Don’t-” Katsuki almost lets out his knee-jerk request for the taller boy to leave him alone and let him handle it, but he doesn’t really have the luxury of that right now, “Ah, I want to guard the bomb.” 

It would lower the chances of him running into Izuku. The nerd may have a quirk now, but who’s to say if he’s any good at using it? His broken bones proved he wasn’t operating at full efficiency, so he probably wouldn’t be able to get past Speedy, who seemed to be pretty familiar with his quirk and its uses based on the quirk apprehension test. The gravity girl might be able to get to him, but Katsuki didn’t care about beating the shit out of her. 

Speedy says something that Katsuki doesn’t care enough about to listen to, and he turns to walk into the building they’ve been allotted for this training exercise as he splutters something about manners. Either way, he follows. 

On the way in, Katsuki catches sight of Izuku leaning against the railing in front of the door, tracking his movements with the same look he got in his eye whenever a particularly interesting quirk he hadn’t analyzed before was in front of him. Like Katsuki was something to be decoded or studied. A mystery to be unraveled. He backs off once Katsuki throws a glare at him, looking away with red-dusted cheeks at the embarrassment of having been caught staring. Good. So the nerd learned shame at some point. In middle school he would stare all day, oblivious to the way most people didn’t like getting a microdose of what it’s like to be stalked. 

“You must be a good defensive fighter, for you to volunteer to guard the bomb,” Speedy said, much too loudly. 

“Nope. Just good at everything.” 

“Narcissism is unbecoming conduct of a future hero.” 

“So is not shutting the hell up.” 

Speedy does not seem to like that. Katsuki doesn’t care, though, since the start buzzer goes off and between the urge to keep yelling or go do his job, speedy begrudgingly goes to play offense. 

Katsuki examines the room, seeing the bomb quickly. Hard not to, since it was so large and painfully conspicuous. It seemed a bit unfair, in his opinion, but it was whatever. Not like they’d even get past the doorway if it was Katsuki in here. Unless of course, it was Izuku, in which case he would…

Fuck it. He’d figure it out. 

Several minutes passed in silence, with Katsuki leaning against one of the two large pillars somewhere in between boredom and anxiety. His hearing wasn’t too good, but even he could tell the silence was a bad sign. The middle floor was a maze, so were Izuku and the chick somehow managing to evade Speedy? Maybe he had zoomed his way face-first into a wall and was now leaving Katsuki to manage by himself. That would be just his luck. 

The silence stretches so long that Katsuki is beginning to wonder if he needs to go down there, but then he hears a quiet laugh. Barely more than a giggle. Katsuki stiffened up, hearing the sounds get closer. He turned, peering around the pillar to see that the chick was floating outside of the window, carefully prying it open with a small file. 

Painfully amateurish as a plan. What, did she and Izuku just think no one would be in here? Katsuki is almost offended. It’s painfully easy to just walk over as she gets the window open, extend one hand, and blast her weightless body back with an explosion. 

Katsuki watches the distance she gets before two of UA’s field robots fly up and catch her with an extended net. Damn. Good thing they had that. Katsuki hadn’t really considered the ramifications of pushing a completely weightless object with explosive force. He’s wondering if that gets him points off for near-manslaughter when the sound of heavy breathing invades his senses, coming from the sound of the unguarded door. 

Fuck! He had nearly forgotten about Izuku. In a moment of instinct, he turns, using his explosions to propel him forward so he can get there just barely in time to stop Izuku from touching the bomb. 

The force is so great he lands with a stumble, his still sparking hands gripping Izuku’s wrists to keep them up. His stumble forced them both back, and he pinned Izuku to the back wall before he realized it, the nerd’s head bouncing with a painful-looking thump against the drywall as he was backed up. 

Izuku’s face falls into a pained grimace, causing Katsuki’s heart rate to skyrocket. Fuck. He’s stuck between actions as his former friend shouted something at him he couldn’t comprehend at the moment. Too busy thinking of all of the ways he had hurt Izuku in the last thirty seconds. All the reasons his quirk might be taken from him again. The too-tight hold on his wrists, the sparking pain of the first landing, the way his head bounced against the wall, the way his arms were wrenched painfully up, there were too many to count. There are too many reasons. Too many reasons by far. 

“-are you even listening to me?!” Izuku’s irritated voice breaks through his mental spiral, and Katsuki focuses enough to see the angry expression on his face. The furious look in his eyes. Still that same, almost unreal color from the last time they had seen each other at Aldera. Viridian. 

“No?” 

“What do you mean no-?!” 

“Bakugou!” Speedy’s voice is here, and Katsuki turns to see him standing nearby, looking incredulous, “What are you doing? Tie him up!” 

“I don’t think so!” Izuku finally thought to launch an offensive, bringing his knee up and catching Katsuki in the stomach as he pushed all of his weight forward at the same time. 

Katsuki swore, the pain catching him off guard enough that he toppled over easily at Izuku’s shrug. He landed painfully on the ground, but Izuku was still on top of him, seeing as Katsuki hadn’t loosened his grip on his wrists. So they were at an impasse. Katsuki was on the ground, and Izuku knelt over him with angry eyes. 

“Are you actually going to do something or is this your whole strategy?” Izuku asked, a little bit of confusion seeping into his voice. 

“Good going, Bakugou! I’ll get him now!” Speedy was ready to seize his chance, but instead of walking over with the tape, he seemed to be ready to lunge and tackle Izuku off of Katsuki. At super speed, that would really hurt him. 

Could that be interpreted as Katsuki’s fault? 

“Shit!” He rolled over, taking Izuku with him until he knelt over his former friend. With this positioning, Speedy tackles him off and into the wall instead of Izuku. 

Katsuki groans as his back hits the concrete ground, Speedy’s considerable heft not helping anything either. He’s just opened his eyes to shake off the bruises when the buzzer goes off, and he looks over to see Izuku standing with one hand on the bomb and an incredulous look in his eye. 

“What the hell was that?” Speedy shouted at him, standing from the slight rubble of their impact, “You didn’t try at all!” 

Katsuki sat up, breathing heavily as he leaned against the wall and stared up at Speedy tiredly. When he looked at him expectantly for an answer, Katsuki shrugged. He summoned the words Yukiko had taught him to say. 

“It was all I was capable of giving,” he said lamely. 

He got up, trying not to think about the phantom feeling of cold fingers on his neck as he felt Izuku’s determined gaze bear into the back of his skull. 

Chapter Text

There was a unique kind of relief in knowing you weren’t a person who mattered.

Now that sounds bad, and it isn’t completely true. That’s Tomura’s ‘sad mind’ as Kurogiri used to put it. The kind of bullshit therapy talk that the faceless purple cloud would try and use to calm him down. Eventually, his master decided it was counterproductive towards his training and it ceased, but sometimes Tomura still liked to use it. Sad mind, angry mind, happy mind. Like little compartments in his head, all of which housed the unnecessary or useless thoughts that didn’t matter to his mission. So, he’d have a thought, and he’d sort it. The thought that to his master he was barely a blip, that was a sad thought. So Tomura didn’t think it. At least, not much. 

Sometimes it grated on him. Not the concept, but the fact that he thought that. It was a ridiculous thought. Obviously, his master didn’t view Tomura as a son, and why should he? He had a son already. Tomura was an entirely different thing, a successor. Hey, maybe he should take that as proof that even if he didn’t matter in the ‘son’ capacity, he was still important enough to warrant attention. Without all of the drawbacks, too. I mean, the relief in Tomura’s chest that he wasn’t subject to all of the constant worrying and brooding that the master’s son must be was proof he didn’t care! The hard stone of relief sat heavily in his chest. Or at least, that’s what Tomura supposed that feeling was. But what else could it be? He didn’t want to be worried after or minded. He wanted to prove to his master that he was capable of being the protege he needed. Strong, self-sufficient, and perfectly capable of doing his damn job and fulfilling his destiny without a shoulder to cry on or a pat on the back. Tomura didn’t need those things. He didn’t need those things because he wasn’t the master’s son, and that was just the way he liked it. 

Izuku Midoriya was interesting. Not interesting in the way a potential friend was, but rather in the way a Rubik’s cube was, or a puzzle in a video game. Something to be meticulously studied and decoded. How could his master care for something so…weak? Tomura had never met Izuku, but the few photos and videos he had seen (as a part of his strict instruction to protect Izuku if the need ever arose) proved that he was a scrawny, quirkless kid. The few other details he had managed to snag over the years only told him that he was going through some ‘teenage rebellion’ and he had a talent for quirk analysis just like the master did. But what beyond that? What was it that made him so… so? 

Was blood really it? You’re my relative, so I love you? It felt… Well, Tomura didn’t know how it felt. Wrong on a general scale, maybe. Unfair? That felt more correct. Tomura’s father didn’t love him because of blood. If anything, it seemed to make things worse. He treated the neighbor’s kids better than him. Maybe his experiences weren’t universal, but it still was a hard concept to grasp. That you could love someone just because they were related to you. Maybe that was the only reason some people could love someone. Tomura had only really loved and been loved by one person, his younger sister. Since then, only varying levels of somewhat mutual respect. Loving someone, and being loved, was a mystery to Tomura. 

While once Izuku and his lovability were a far-away mystery that was only meant for occasional curiosity, he was now a much more present figure in Tomura’s life. He now attended UA in the support course according to the master, and given that their long-planned schemes were now in the active stages, this meant that their previous ‘bull in a china shop’ approach was no longer viable. Izuku couldn’t be harmed under any circumstances, so they had to proceed with a titch more caution than previously planned. Since the master was a caring father, this also meant that if at all possible, no one was to be murdered directly in front of him, either. There was also the girl, Yaoyorozu, who was not allowed to be murdered. So many asterisks on a plan that previously had few rules beyond ‘murder at will.’ 

So, all of this to say, Tomura had to brush up on his ‘Izuku Information.’ Height, appearance, quirk (or lack thereof), and physical and mental combat capabilities. The file used to say ‘none so to speak of’ on the physical front (though phrased more kindly than that) but now it mentions ‘unknown amount of strength and combat training.’ There was a note on him having a personal trainer, Toshinori Yagi, but there wasn’t much known about what Izuku learned. The increased weight on his file (snagged from his file at his doctor’s office) suggested he had put on some muscle. The mental combat capabilities suggest what it always does, which is a fairly advanced knowledge of quirk theory. If this could be practically applied, no one knew yet. No one really knew much of anything, which was what led Tomura here. Sitting at a bus stop, bored as hell, stalking a teenager one day before the biggest mission of his life. 

Tomorrow would be the day their master plan finally was set into motion. They had gotten the blonde brat in the master’s pocket to give them a class schedule, and discovered that All Might would be in one of the large, sequestered training buildings on the far side of the campus in the morning of the following day. They would corner him there, using the brats in Class 1-A as distractions/hostages while they jammed communications and killed the Symbol of Peace with the crew of villains they had recruited and the newly-finished high-end Nomu. It was a perfect plan. 

Unfortunately, now that the master’s son went to UA, they had a few details to iron out. One of which was to discover how to make sure Izuku wasn’t at school when the attack happened. As he was support course they didn’t have to worry about him being at the actual murdering, but the soon-to-follow chaos and police presence would be ‘stressful’ on the boy, so now Tomura was relegated to figuring out if there was an easy way to waylay Izuku on his way to school to prevent him from attending. Really they didn’t need to stop him, merely delay him the hour or two it would take for Tomura to kill All Might and then abscond. The ensuing police presence and emergency would then make it so Izuku wouldn’t be allowed admittance to the school anyway. 

Why Tomura was doing this and not Kurogiri or some other lackey, he wasn’t quite sure. Maybe the master was trying to teach him patience or some other skill he lacked. Maybe he only trusted his protege to do any stalking of his beloved son. Tomura didn’t know, and he tried not to care. Izuku was merely a responsibility to the master. Tomura was trusted by him. That mattered more than love, surely? Either way, it meant Izuku’s trek to school had to be stalked to see if any buses could have their tires slashed or roads closed off to make it so he wasn’t in the general area. Seeing as Tomura didn’t get this assignment til noon, it meant he now had to wait outside of UA to follow him home and hope his way home was roughly equivalent to his way there. 

He sat on a bench across the street from the bus stop at the hill of UA. Most of the students seemed to walk or get dropped off by parents or valets, but a small portion rode the bus or walked to the nearby train station. It was still a half hour to the school’s final bell, but his master was very adamant that Tomura not take any chances. So now he had to sit on this uncomfortable green bench, hunched over on his GameBoy while he waited for the brat to make himself known. 

This shit was so boring. 

Tomura tipped his head back and groaned as his Gameboy flashed the little red light in the corner that signaled it was about to die. Just great. He had his phone, but he had forgotten his gloves and he hated using his phone without his gloves because it was a decent chance he just disintegrated it. If Kurogiri had to get him a fourth phone this year, Tomura was pretty sure the next one would be a flip phone. 

“Stupid little…” Tomura’s curse was for naught, as the Gameboy entered low power anyway. Not wanting it to die, he shuts it down and shoves it back in his backpack, zipping it up before bringing his feet up onto the bench, resting his chin on his crossed arms as he lazily watched the bus stop like the green-haired boy would materialize. Any second, now…. 

“I’m so sorry, would you mind if I sat?” A soft voice interrupts his brooding. 

Tomura realizes he was taking up pretty much the entire bench. Whoops. Normally he could care less about what civilians thought, but when he turned to tell the woman to go sit somewhere else, he suddenly found that being rude was a very, very poor idea. After all, the master would not appreciate it if Tomura cussed out his wife. 

“Sure,” Tomura’s voice comes out more an uncertain squawk than a word, but the way he scrambles to sit up and get his feet off the bench got his meaning across. 

He scooted to the far end, making himself as small as possible as Inko Midoriya sat down, her purse placed primly in her lap as she hummed a merry tune. Tomura, meanwhile, was trying not to breathe too loudly and bring attention to himself. 

Inko was… she was Inko. The master’s wife. A sweet, motherly woman by all accounts. But someone who falls into the same category as Izuku. A distant figure who he has a vague order to protect if necessary. His interaction with her at the library had been an accident, and one he had not been eager to repeat. Getting caught swiping comics from the library was unfortunate, but not uncommon. It was the whole reason he was at that library in the first place rather than the ones in Kamino. He had burned through enough libraries in Yokohama that he had to extend his search out to Musutafu. His usual plan was cut and run, but he had been stopped by Inko, miraculously, covering for him and even suggesting he come back for a real library card. Like he would ever do that. The offer had been appreciated, though, even if he had trouble believing it was just out of the goodness of her heart. Maybe she got a bonus for getting people to sign up for library cards. Either way, he needed to stay away from her. She couldn’t get any inkling of who he actually was or his connection to her husband. 

The silence stretches for long enough that Tomura starts to wonder if he’s gotten lucky and she’s not going to say anything. That hope is squashed shortly after this thought. 

“I hope you’ve been considering it.” 

“Huh?” It is as eloquent as he can manage. He looked over to her and blinked owlishly as she smiled kindly at him. 

“The library card. You might not remember, I was the woman at the library last week,” she tells him as if that incident had not burned itself to the inside of his hippocampus. 

“No, I..I remember. I just haven’t had a chance to come back,” he lied. 

“Oh, well that’s alright. I get busy, too. I had to leave the library early today because my son forgot some paperwork he needed, so I just came and dropped it off,” she tells him, “he just started at UA.” 

“Fun,” Tomura said, voice strained. Small talk was not something he was trained in. 

“So, what are you doing here?” 

Tomura could have cursed. Fuck. He was not used to having to make a cover story up. He fumbles with his words. In his haste to come up with a distraction, he pushes his black baseball cap up and out of his eyes with all five fingers. He doesn’t even notice until the dust falls into his face and makes him sneeze. 

“Oh, my, that’s quite a quirk you have on you!” Inko’s voice is far from terrified or scared as was the typical reaction, but rather intrigued. “Did you disintegrate it?” 

“Decay?” it came out as more of a question. He never got to explain his quirk to people. More common was him using it to kill someone or threaten them to silence. 

“That is so interesting. My husb- my ex-husband would go crazy for that quirk. So would my son,” she sighed wistfully, and Tomura was confused for half a second before remembering that while the master still called her his wife, he had told her the divorce was genuine. Based on the way he talked, Tomura commonly forgot that legally they weren’t together. Tomura thought perhaps sometimes the master forgot that, too. 

“Causes me more trouble than anything else,” he shrugged, out of a lack of anything else to say. 

“Destroy a lot of hats?” 

“Shirts, mostly.” 

Inko laughed at this, which pleased Tomura somehow. People didn’t laugh at his jokes very often. 

“Can I ask you for a favor, young man?” 

“Tenko,” the knee-jerk introduction almost makes him shout ‘FUCK’ loudly. What was he doing, giving out his real name, of all names? Even introducing himself as Tomura would have been stupid! Though maybe that was better? Tenko Shimura was dead, and it’s not like that name meant anything to Inko. It was still a bad idea across the board, but what could really come from it? 

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Tenko. I’m Inko,” it’s a strange feeling, to hear someone say his childhood name after so long. He doesn’t hate it. “Would you help me garden?” 

“Help you- what?” Wasn’t his first guess. 

“I have a plot at the local garden, and I am dealing with a nasty mint infestation from the last tenant. I can’t seem to get anything to stick because of all of the mint, and pulling every weed myself takes a while. It’s a little out there as far as requests go, but I was wondering if you might stop by once a week or so and disintegrate the weeds for me?” 

It’s such a tentative and normal request that Tomura has no idea how to respond. It’s baffling. He’s never been asked to do something like garden before. It was always his mother and sister that did the gardening when he was little. Tomura could remember how happy they looked doing it. Tending and providing nourishment to the little plants. He could still see the smiles on their faces every time a new flower bloomed. 

“You don’t have to,” she sighed after a moment, “I know it must be a strange ask from someone-” 

“I’ll do it,” he blurts out. 

“You will?” 

“I will,” he nodded seriously. “I’m free on Sundays.” 

Tomura can do nothing but nod and smile in a way he hopes isn’t awkward. Inko pulls out a notepad from her purse and writes down her phone number for him, making him promise to text her soon so she’d have his number and could schedule a day to garden. He folded it in a careful four-fingered grip and tucked it into his bag. 

“Oh, man. I wanted to offer Izuku a ride home from school, but it seems he got on the bus when I wasn’t looking,” Inko’s dismayed voice makes Tomura snap his head up to see that the student body of UA was now out and about as everyone made their way down the hill. The bus sped off down the street and turned out of sight before Tomura could even think about waving it down to try and get on. Inko turned to him while he stared at it in disappointment. “Well, I better get going. Have a nice day, Tenko!” 

“Y- you too…” she was gone in a second. Leaving Tomura with no information on Izuku’s route to school and a standing gardening appointment. 

No wonder he wasn't sent on jobs like this. 

Though he couldn’t bring himself to be disappointed, for some reason. Whatever lecture about responsibility he got was made worth it by the weird feeling of lightness in his chest when he thought about Inko saying his name. 

___

Momo’s ducks were decidedly not in a row. 

For someone very used to having everything in perfect order, she thought she was managing decently well. Her parents didn’t know she was in the hero course, her nanny was clearly onto her, and she was behind on her speech for the annual young debutante ball. These problems had varying levels of fix-ability, as it were, but they were still stressors. Difficult to do, as well, what with her proclamation that she would win first place at the sports festival to prove her worth. Every moment of her extremely limited free time was spent training with Izuku and All Might, and this meant that her extracurriculars had suffered. She couldn’t tell her parents about her lies until she had proof she deserved to stay, her nanny was a lie detector so avoiding her until the sports festival seemed to be the best choice, and she was going to fix the speech issue now. The speeches were never long, and she was a fast writer. An hour at her desk at home could finish it. 

Momo waited for the bell to ring impatiently. She wanted to write it now, while she was inspired, so she didn’t have to struggle through it. The class had finished up and they were in a study hall, but it was so close to the bell and her stuff was already packed that she figured getting her notepad out of her bag wasn’t worth it. She could get in the car, write down some notes, and be sitting at her desk with her paper in thirty minutes. Her plan was perfect and maximized for efficiency. 

The clock didn’t seem efficient, though. Was it slower than normal? Perhaps it hated her. 

“Keep tapping your foot. You’ll wear a hole into it in no time at all,” Momo’s face flushed bright red, and she looked over to see Jirou’s teasing smile. The girl had chosen to sit next to her in their last class of the day, art history, much to Momo’s joy and dismay. As much as she enjoyed having a pretty girl sit next to her, it was difficult when said girl distracted her from the art. That wasn’t Jirou’s fault, though. She couldn’t help being prettier than the art. 

Momo had thought of that one as a ‘pickup line’ as Izuku called them, but lost the nerve to say it. She couldn’t be so brazen with Jirou! 

“Sorry,” Momo apologized, stopping the impatient rhythm of her foot. 

“Your finger have something against the desk?” 

Momo looked down, realizing her tapping finger had picked up where her foot left off. She flattened both hands against the smooth wood, apologizing again. 

“Don’t apologize. I get in hurries, too. What’s got you so worked up?” Jirou asked curiously, melodic voice easily cutting through the quiet chatter the room had fallen into. Momo could have wept in relief that they were actually having a conversation. 

“I need to write a speech for this party I’m going to,” Momo told Jirou, “I.. I am not the best at speech writing. I prefer to write when I have inspiration, or I just sit and stare at the paper for hours. I’m ready to write now, and time seems to slow down just to spite me.” 

“Dude, that’s so relatable. That’s how I feel when I want to write a song,” Jirou smiled. 

“You write songs?” Momo asked. 

“Yeah, all the time. I’ll have to show you if I ever finish one,” Jirou’s face dusted pink, and she waved the subject off quickly. Shy? Embarrassed by her work? Momo knew of many such writers. 

“I would enjoy that,” Momo smiled, and then dared to take it a step further, “Maybe-” 

The bell rang loudly, the sound sending the room into a flurry of loud voices wishing their friends goodbye for the day and the sound of chairs scraping and zippers zipping. It definitely hated her. 

Momo sighed in defeat, standing up and putting her bag over her shoulder as Jirou was distracted by a classmate returning a borrowed pencil. She turned away, knowing she likely would have lost her nerve anyway. Besides, Momo was too busy to worry about things like a relationship. She needed to focus on winning the sports festival and maintaining her perfect grades if she had any hope of not being relegated back to EAMU by her angry parents. 

Midnight waved goodbye to her as she left, and Momo did the same with a slightly nervous smile. A few days into UA and she could still hardly believe it. Heroes everywhere, amazing quirks everywhere, it was practically heaven. She was surrounded by heroes who were passionate about teaching, and fellow students who were passionate about learning. Like walking in a dream. Aside from the crushing pressure of her lie, everything was amazing. Truly, nothing could bring her down. 

“Ugh, paid off the entrance exam judges, too? Daddy has to revoke your credit card.” 

Momo’s blood froze. She turned in the center of the hall, looking behind her to see a walking nightmare. 

White hair in a tight braid, pale purple eyes, and a cold, haughty face. A golden sun pin on her lapel. Yukiko Kanzaki was looking down her perfectly sculpted nose at Momo, and she was wearing the tailored uniform of UA High School. 

“Kanzaki,” Momo said, trying to force any modicum of happiness into her voice. It did not work. “I didn’t know-” 

“Of course you didn’t. I wonder if you’ve looked up from those little books of yours at all. Don’t know what’s in them, aside from maybe the credit card numbers you memorized to pay off the entrance administrators here,” she laughed in an almost practiced way. “Did you go business, or pay a little more for the hero course?” 

“I…” Momo grits her teeth. She hadn’t been prepared to deal with Kanzaki. 

“No, never mind. I see your epaulets mean hero course,” Kanzaki hummed, stepping forward in the hall until she was a breath away from Momo, “you must be 1-A, seeing as you skipped out on orientation. My, the whole class must be slackers. Must be why they put you in that one and myself in 1-B.” 

“You’re…you’re in the hero course?” Momo didn’t want to believe it. How could UA let in someone so awful? 

“Quick as ever, Yaoyorozu. No wonder they let you in,” Kanzaki smirked, “but I guess they gotta pay for these facilities somehow.” 

Momo’s face burned in humiliation. The hordes paid no mind, all students trying to get home or to their after-school activities. Despite the crowd, she was alone in this. No one to bear witness to the torment that came along free with Kanzaki’s presence. 

Kanzaki had been a torment to Momo for years now. Momo could still keenly remember when they met. Momo had been new to EAMU, having recently moved from Tokyo. It was middle school, and she had joined the theater club to make friends quickly. They were doing some old fable, a school tradition for the winter, and they had announced the castings. The sun princess, and the moon princess. Both coveted roles, apparently. Though the moon princess was apparently more desired, due to its plethora of dramatic monologues. Melodramatic, in Momo’s opinion. Though her thoughts did not stop her from receiving the role. When she found out, she went to congratulate the sun princess, one Yukiko Kanzaki. Momo thought it might make them fast friends. 

She had been wrong. 

Kanzaki did not like that she was not the moon princess. Momo’s unknowing crime, or rather her crime of not surrendering the role, had been point 0,0 of their relationship. Kanzaki had rejected every peace offer, convinced that Momo had paid the theater teacher to get the part. Her opinion of Momo’s spending habits has not changed since. 

So now they are here. Three years later, UA High School and not a kind word between them. Despite the fact that Momo knew her strategy of rationality and kindness was likely useless, she couldn’t bring herself to be as cruel to Kanzaki as the girl was to her. All she wanted was for the white-haired girl to see that Momo wasn’t her enemy, or some heiress with cash to burn. She was someone who worked just as hard as Kanzaki. If only there was a way to prove that. Maybe something she could do…

Or a festival she could win. 

Momo almost smiled. The Sports Festival. Of course! She had plans to win already, but this would be a bonus, too. She couldn’t pay to win the sports festival unless Kanzaki would like to argue she somehow predicted who she would be fighting, paid them in advance, and rehearsed everything. It would be hard evidence that Momo worked for what she had! Yes, this was it, this was perfect! 

“Well, Kanzaki-” her declaration is interrupted. 

“Stop jamming up the hall!” Bakugou’s gruff voice broke through, and Kanzaki shrieked as he bumped shoulders with her and nearly knocked her to the ground as he pushed past, scowling heavily. “If you’re going to yap, pull to the side!” 

“Brute!” Kanzaki shouted at him, baring her teeth. 

“Better than being an over-dramatic poet! Your overly-elaborate writing style alienates the reader, dumbass!” the blonde scoffed, looking over his shoulder, “Learn to write!” 

Momo nearly laughed. She hadn’t realized Bakugou had connected Kanzaki to the writer from the poetry competition. That was one thing his insults were good for. Kanzaki tittered in offense, disappearing into the crowd with a cherry-red face before Momo could share her plan to win the sports festival. 

That was no matter. Kanzaki would see it herself once Momo was on the first-place podium. 

Chapter Text

Izuku has nine missed calls, and those were just counting the ones from today.

Ever since his fight with his father, his first real one, in all honesty, Izuku had gone full radio silence. Usually, when he went too overboard on his dad he felt bad and answered his calls within a few days to alleviate the guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach, but not this time. Why should Izuku be the one to feel bad? His dad was the deadbeat here, and maybe he should hear just how much of a toll his absence had taken on his son. Izuku wouldn’t fold, this time. He hadn’t done anything wrong. 

The first day had been the roughest. His father waited all of one evening before tattling to his mother, and Izuku had woken up to his mother’s frowning face. She had wanted Izuku to call and make amends (and he appreciated that the word ‘apologize’ hadn’t come up) but respected it when Izuku staunchly refused. It was his decision, she said. The solidarity was respectable, especially considering the way Izuku heard her arguing with him on the phone later that evening about likely the same subject. With his mother taken out of the equation after declaring herself Switzerland, that only left his strictly remote father one option. Spam calling. Izuku had never heard Father by Everclear so many times in rapid succession. He was beginning to think he needed to change his father’s ringtone to something a little less angsty lest his classmates think he was emo. Not that he had anything against emo music, he just preferred the upbeat older stuff. 

Once upon a time, when he and his father had been close, his ringtone for him had been Family Man by Fleetwood Mac. That was his father’s favorite band, or at least it was when Izuku was young. It was always playing in the kitchen when his mom made breakfast, or on the record player in his office back when they lived in a house instead of the conveniently located apartment he and his mother had moved to after the divorce. His father had ringtones set for everyone on his phone, one of the ‘charming little things’ about him that his mother allegedly fell in love with. Though the most important people in his phone had Fleetwood Mac ringtones. Izuku could remember that his father had set his mother’s ringtone as Sara, as it was the song they danced to at their wedding. Izuku couldn’t help but wonder what American woman in his father’s phone now held that honor. Izuku hadn’t had a ringtone on his phone yet, since he didn’t get one until he was ten after his father had absconded. When he first got the phone and still held hope his father might return, Izuku had his ringtone as family man. Once he was twelve and realized this was a pipe dream, he changed the ringtone to the first angsty and overly on-the-nose song he could think of. Not that his father would ever know that was his ringtone, but still. Petty victories. 

Sometimes Izuku hated that his mother had kept Sara as her ringtone for him. Izuku suggested ‘Before He Cheats’ by Carrie Underwood, but she only laughed and changed the subject. Ever the middleman in their deteriorating relationship. More than once he tried to encourage her to date again, but she said she was content being his mother and working at the library. Izuku had to content himself with working on that at a later date. 

That was a tangent. The point was although his phone had to be moved to silent, yet the buzzing noise still tormented him. 

“Doesn’t he know you’re in school right now?” Momo frowned, leaning over and looking at the offending item, face-down and rested atop a stack of printer paper with another one over it to muffle the sound. 

“I wouldn’t be surprised if my mom gave him my schedule. He probably knows this is my free period,” Izuku frowned, failing to focus on the beginnings of his first language arts essay of the year. He looked back over at the now silent phone, sighing in relief when it didn’t immediately start up again. His father had a pattern. Burst spam calls of two or three, and then a few hours of silence before he tried again. He was texting, too, but Izuku had ignored them. 

“Have you guys ever fought like this before?” across the table they had been occupying in the library was Uraraka, who Izuku had become fast friends with after their partnership in the duos training exercise. Izuku appreciated the zero-gravity user’s upbeat personality and outgoingness. He also appreciated her willingness to see past the way he usually put his foot in his mouth when it came to making new friends. 

“Not really,” he sighed, leaning back in his chair and twirling his all-might-themed pen between his fingers. “I mean, we haven’t been close for a few years, but I’ve never actually yelled at him before.” 

“Maybe the fact that he isn’t giving you space is a good thing?” Uraraka’s positive spin didn’t quite work, but Izuku appreciated the effort, “like, maybe he wants you to know that he isn’t distant, and he’s trying his best?” 

“If he wanted to try his best, he’d buy a plane ticket for once,” Izuku said. 

“I have to agree with you. I know I’m not one to advocate for healthy parent-child relationships, but to not visit you since the divorce… I’m surprised this hasn’t all come to a head sooner,” Momo shook her head lightly, pushing away her (already finished) work. 

“Mostly because of my mom. I don’t know why she still likes the guy so much.” 

“Probably for your sake. Studies show bad-mouthing the non-custodial parent in a divorce situation results in diminished relationships,” Momo said, likely parroting something she had read. She had some study or factoid for everything. One of the many things Izuku loved about her. 

“Well, there’s a difference between bad-mouthing and singing his praises. Besides, it’s not like I can work on a good relationship with a guy who I only ever hear over the phone,” Izuku twirled the pen back into his hand, closing his fist around it. “It’s like he doesn’t even try. The guy probably doesn’t know anything about me that my mom doesn’t tell him, anyway. Why should I care if he doesn’t?” 

The bell rang signalling it was time for their next class. At the same time, his phone stopped buzzing. Izuku frowned, removing it from its printer paper prison. His mom definitely gave his dad a copy of his schedule. 

The group packs up their things, quickly vacating the library and heading toward the locker rooms to change. It was on this journey that Izuku began to get excited. 

When they had homeroom in first period, they had been informed that they would be having their first actual training exercise for the hero course. Rescue training. A valuable skill for any hero to have, even if Izuku was just a little more excited about combat training. They’d be traveling to the USJ, which was one of UA’s most advanced hero training sites! Izuku had been dreaming about getting to go there since he first knew what it was, and now he would be training in it. The anticipation is enough to banish his thoughts of his father for now, and he shuts his phone completely off as he shoves it into his bag, catching up with Iida and Kouda as they slip into the locker room. 

He went over to his locker, pulled the case containing his suit out of it , and laid it on the bench in front of him. He changes quickly while Sero and Kaminari argue loudly about a theoretical match-up of Wash vs Endeavor. 

“Dude, what do you think would happen if a fire guy got wet? No fire, duh,” Kaminari said, shaking his head at Sero like it was the easiest thing in the world. 

“Are you stupid?” Sero scoffed, pulling on his helmet, “Do you think a little water could actually stop Endeavor? Besides, Wash’s quirk is 80% bubbles!” 

“It’s a stupid argument to begin with. Endeavor is the number two hero and Wash is obviously a popularity plant,” Bakugou muttered, shoving his hand into his gauntlets. Izuku changes into his suit while trying not to stare. He was dying to know how the gauntlets helped Kac- Bakugou’s quirk work, but nearly a week after their argument the blonde hadn’t seemed to change his mind at all on his request for Izuku to leave him alone. 

Izuku, in between ignoring and brooding over his argument with his dad, had anguished over him. He had gone home to his mother the night of the argument and tried to ask after Bakugou, to see if his auntie Mitsuki might know the origin of his sudden fear of Izuku, but his mother had come up with no answers after a phone call. It didn’t surprise Izuku that Bakugou still kept his feelings close to his chest, but what had baffled him was that he now apparently had a therapist who heard the few feelings he did express. Bakugou, a therapist? 

Something had clearly happened, but Izuku had no answers. So he was giving Bakugou time before he tried again to find out what had happened to him and why he perceived Izuku as having something to do with it. 

Though it was really hard when everything about him was so painfully interesting. It was all Izuku could do to not beg to talk to him about his quirk, his costume, or even just his opinions on the latest hero rankings. 

“I don’t know, I think Endeavor is overrated,” Sato huffed, pulling his mask over his unruly brown hair. “I mean, twenty years as number tw-” 

“What do you think, Todoroki?” Iida asked loudly, likely trying to remind them all that the son of one of the two suggested combatants was currently in the room with them. 

“He could slip on soap, I guess,” Todoroki shrugged, unbothered as he kept icing his right side. 

The room went silent, trying to decide whether or not that was a serious suggestion or a joke. It didn’t seem serious, but Todoroki didn’t seem the type to joke. Though admittedly, Izuku didn’t know enough about him to be assuming he had a ‘type’ of anything. The boy had easily been the most withdrawn in the class, the easiest one to pass your eyes over. Which was extremely impressive considering that one of their classmates was quite literally invisible. 

Izuku was struggling not to explain that in a theoretical Wash v Endeavor match-up, Endeavor would win handily. The fire hero hardly ever lost, and he had won easily against several water-based villains. The only fights that Izuku could remember him struggling in off the top of his head were all against ice villains, which suggested that if his internal body temperature got too low he could struggle to produce flames. Wash produced washing-machine temperature water, which while that could get hot or cold nowhere near the levels to either freeze or overheat Endeavor. The winner wouldn’t even be a question. 

He’s about to try and explain this in a way that doesn’t make him seem like a know-it-all when Kaminari interrupts his carefully constructed internal argument. 

“No rabbit ears today, Bugs?” his teasing voice came, and Izuku startled as the electricity user draped an arm across his now green-suited shoulders. Izuku was getting friendly with a lot of the class, but he was still unaccustomed to the casual touchiness of Kaminari. 

Izuku flushed red, pulling at the collar of his green jumpsuit. After the joint training exercise, he now only had the green jumpsuit with no mask or head covering. He still wanted a little more than the jumpsuit, but it was another week before they got another shot at alterations. 

“Iida grabbed my ears during the training exercise,” he explained, face red as he tried to ignore how close Kaminari was, “Momo told me to get rid of them.” 

“Aww, I kind of liked them,” Kaminari said in mock-disappointment, “You could’ve sidekicked for Mirko, with that look.” 

“I d-” whatever Izuku’s overloaded brain meant to say was hidden and stopped by a loud crackle, and then an even louder yelp from Kaminari. He was yanked from where he was draped over Izuku, and Izuku looked over to see Bakugou with his hand fisted in the top of his leather jacket, pulling him toward the door. 

“Come on, dumbass, we’re going to be late for class,” Izuku heard his irritated mutter. 

“He’s right, despite his unbecoming behavior. Come, everyone, finish quickly!” Iida got the attention of the room quickly, easily falling into his new-found power as class representative. 

Izuku took the chance to quickly fold his things neatly (shove them into a ball) and put them back in his locker as he joined the rest of the class at the loading bay, all of them quickly getting onto the bus that would take them the short eight-minute drive to get to the USJ. Izuku sat in one of the front-facing seats with Momo. 

Izuku leaned back in the seat, looking over his shoulder to see all of his classmates cutting up and laughing. Such a big group, all of them seemingly so self-assured and confident. All of them had amazing quirks, and they all already seemed so adept at using them. Izuku knew he was at a bit of a disadvantage since most of his classmates had a full decade more time to get used to their quirks, but it was hard not to get intimidated. He just felt lucky they all seemed to be so…so…well, heroic. So far, UA was exactly what he had been dreaming of. Nothing short of perfect. 

Momo leaned over to him, speaking quietly in his ear as she looked in confusion at the empty seat at the front of the bus. 

“Where’s All Might?” she asked. 

Izuku shrugged, leaning to whisper, “Last I saw he was still doing hero work on the way to school. He might have run out of time.” 

Momo nodded, leaning back in her seat and closing her eyes as she tilted her head back. She had been working even harder than Izuku lately, joining him and All Might for training in addition to all of the training she put in at home. Then there was her status as vice class rep, then her perfect grades, and all of her duties as chairwoman of the young ladies society, Izuku didn’t know how she kept up. Normally Momo was an open book with him, but she had been strangely closed off whenever Izuku tried to ask why she was suddenly so obsessed with getting stronger. She had already gotten the highest score in the class for both the entrance exam (taking the recommended status into account) and the quirk apprehension test, but she still seemed to want to prove herself. 

Izuku was finding himself with too many mysteries to unravel. His dad’s strange behavior, Katsuki’s fear, Momo’s obsession… he was just hoping he’d stop getting more questions soon and would just get some answers. 

The bus stops in front of the USJ quickly, and Momo has to pull Izuku out of his seat so he doesn’t just sit and marvel at it for another fifteen minutes. It’s huge, way bigger than Izuku was expecting. He stares starry-eyed at it for as long as he can before he’s prompted to follow his classmates inside, and then he just freaks out all over again when he sees the inside. Coolest shit ever! 

“Alright, alright, settle down!” Mr. Aizawa’s voice cracked through the excited chatter, and he and Thirteen stood in front of the class. “Come on, quiet down or I’ll bring us all back to class and we’ll review hero codes of ethics!” 

This threat is remarkably effective, and the class settles quickly.

“Alright, good. Now, this is the USJ. Today our guest teacher is Thirteen, who some of you might have for your extracurriculars. As the best rescue hero on staff, she’ll be the one leading us today in our exercises,” Aizawa introduces, gesturing to the space-themed hero. “I expect-” 

“Mr. Aizawa?” Ochako raised her hand, flinching at the glare their teacher gave her for the interruption, “I’m sorry, sir, but I think the exercise may have started early.” 

“Started early?” Aizawa asked. 

Ochako pointed behind him, and Izuku followed her gaze. Having been so focused on listening to Aizawa, Izuku had missed the ever-so-slight hissing noise coming from further down the enclosed dome. He took a step over, looking to see what looked like a gang of motley villains emerging from several swaths of purple fog. 

Impressive effects, Izuku thought, The budget was amazing here. They all looked like real people, and the sound and visuals of their quirks were perfectly lifelike! But he couldn’t quite understand why they’d need villains for rescue training. Didn’t seem to really be on brand. Maybe it was leftover from a different class’s training? 

Aizawa turned around, and Izuku could see the moment he switched from a brow-beaten teacher to a ready-to-go hero. He yanked a hand in his capture weapon, and it started floating in that mysterious way Izuku could never figure out. 

“Children, I need you all to stay calm and listen to me very carefully,” Aizawa’s voice wasn’t the lazy drawl Izuku had gotten used to as his student. It was the loud, commanding tone he used when in the field. “This is not an exercise, and those are real villains. I want you all to listen to Thirteen and evacuate now.” 

The class broke out into murmurs as Aizawa stepped down, clearly meaning to approach the villains. 

“Wait!” Izuku stepped forward, ignoring the beating of his heart as he counted the villains without meaning to. Easily forty or fifty, and those were just the ones he could see, “But, you’re a stealth hero! You rely on darkness and surprise attacks to win. Not to mention your quirk only works on non-heteromorphic types..” 

“Troublemaker, you have a lot to learn,” Aizawa turned to glance behind at the group, his yellow goggles concealing all but a sliver of now blood-red eyes, “if I could only do one thing, I’d have been dead a long time ago.” 

He released the capture weapon, and swung out into the fray without a second thought. Izuku barely had a minute to process how badass that was before Thirteen’s panicked voice sounded. 

“Children, to the door! Quickly, quickly!” she ordered, waving her arms to emphasize. 

The class was way ahead of Izuku. He turned last, struggling to tear his eyes away from the effortless way Aizawa moved. No, effortless wasn’t the right word. There was nothing but effort in the way he moved. Every motion was purposeful and graceful, calculated to inflict just the right amount of damage. The easiness of his motion was evidence of nothing but years of hard work. The years of struggle and toil it took to become a real hero. 

“Izuku, come on!” Momo’s voice got Izuku’s attention, and he looked to see her several feet ahead. She tilted her head, looking slightly to his left in confusion, “Bakugou, what is the holdup? Stop staring!” 

Izuku turned his head. He may not have moved much, but Bakugou hadn’t even turned to face the direction of the door. He was still standing in his same spot by the edge of the stairs, eyes wide and jaw slack as he stared in horror at the blurry figures down by the fountain that rested in the center of the dome. 

“Purple fog…” he murmured, almost in a trance, “hissing…” 

“Kid, are you listening to me?” Thirteen was in front of Bakugou, waving a hand in front of his face. She had one hand on his shoulder, shaking him, while the other was held out toward the villains. “Come on, snap back into it!’ 

“Kacchan!” Izuku couldn’t help the way the childish term of endearment popped out, and he raced toward Bakugou instead of the door. He stood beside him, but the shaking didn’t seem to do any good. His eyes were nearly completely glazed over. “Kacchan, come on! We have to go!” 

“We don’t have time for this,” Thirteen said, looking back toward the villains, “Kid, can you carry him?” 

“Oh, yes!” All-Might’s weight training regimen had been so insane that Bakugou’s weight would be nothing. He reached down and hauled Bakugou over his shoulder, the blonde stiff as a board. It’s only one second of this before he seems to snap back into reality. 

“Put me down, nerd!” the blonde growled, putting one hand on Izuku’s back for balance and fisting the other in his hair, “Come on, I can fucking walk!” 

“You couldn’t a minute ago!” Izuku snapped back, wincing at the yanking on the tender strands of his hair, “Kacchan, we don’t have time for this! Ow, ow, stop pulling!” 

Izuku tried to put Bakugou down, but the blonde seemed intent on climbing off in the other direction. The sudden pull in either direction meant that they compromised, ending up going down. 

Izuku let out a quiet ‘oof’ as he landed on the ground, Bakugou laying over his back and still cussing in frustration. Their childish bout of wrestling had distracted Izuku enough that he nearly forgot about the everything in this situation. It isn’t until Bakuou freezes, straddling Izuku’s waist, that Izuku remembers they aren’t alone. 

“Is this truly the best UA has to offer?” The voice is low and almost echoing, disapproval and amusement intermixed in one, “A huddle of frightened children, and two who seem so foolish they can’t even understand an attack when they see one.” 

“I am not fuckin’ foolish!” Bakugou snapped, and Izuku could hear the crackles of explosions. 

“Bakugou, get off of me!” he said quietly, trying to look around Bakugou’s back to see what was going on. “What’s going on?” 

“No, stay on the ground!” Bakugou reached behind himself and planted a hand on Izuku’s chest, keeping him pinned flat on the ground, “I have a bad feeling about this guy!” 

“I hadn’t expected to find you here,” the voice says, and Izuku can feel Bakugou freeze atop him, “Have you finally found someone to protect, Katsuki Bakugou? Well, let’s see who it is.” 

“How do you know his- hey!” Izuku felt the ground from under him disappear, and he let out a slightly shrill scream as he was suddenly falling through a dark, misty space. He was only doing so for a moment before he was deposited back out onto the floor, rolling to his knees and looking up with wide eyes to see the owner of the dark voice right in front of him. 

Purple mist, hazy yellow eyes, and no shape at all beyond large and imposing. The figure before him was certainly a villain, and the purple mist suggested he must have been the creator of the portals both the villains came through and that he just used on Izuku. But was it a heteromorphic quirk? He seemed to be made out of the material he made the portals out of. Could Aizawa erase that quirk? How did one fight somebody with no body? Izuku was still trying to figure out his strategy when he realized that the misty figure was no longer speaking or moving. Instead, his yellow eyes were widened, the man having as close of an expression to shock as Izuku figured he was capable of. 

“Izuku?” he asked, the quality of emotion in his voice undecipherable. 

“Yes?” he answered, politeness kicking in a half-second before he realized that this villain knew his first name. “Wait, how do you know my name?” 

“Get away from him, you silent-hill knock-off-cosplay son of a bitch!” Bakugou’s voice, sounding so similar to when they would play as heroes as kids, finally breaks through. Izuku looks behind him, seeing Bakugou breaking through the struck-still crowd. 

“Ever meddlesome. Someone needs to put brats like you in timeout!” the villain finally seemed to remember he was here to do something. The shape of his smoke briefly coalesced into the form of a man, and with the wave of his hand a storm of purple smoke began forming around them. 

“Hey, stop that!” Izuku stood, lunging for the villain in the hopes that he might have some kind of a solid body underneath all the fog. 

“Not you. Stay still.” 

Izuku was suddenly pinned to the ground again. He looked up at the villain, craning his neck to see something that certainly was a human body, slacks and button up included. He was knelt down on the ground, one hand up and sustaining the storm while the other one was tightly on Izuku’s shoulder, keeping him from lunging back up at him. That body certainly hadn’t been there before, so was it something he could choose to have? It wasn’t an illusion, based on the very real force keeping Izuku in place. Maybe the mist condensed into a body? That would imply a finite amount of mist, though, with a certain amount having to be dedicated toward- 

“Let go of him, villain!” 

“It’s okay, he’s still muttering which means he’s okay!” Momo’s voice snapped Izuku out of his revere, and he turned his head to the side to see the group standing in front of the mist villain. 

There’s less than before, and Izuku has already figured out that they’ve been teleported around the arena by the time he sees a giant ice wall forming on the far side. The only ones remaining are Momo, Shouji, Iida, and Ashido. They’re huddled behind Thirteen, and Izuku can practically hear her thought process. She could try to suck him into one of her black holes, but Izuku was there, too. He had become collateral. 

“It’s okay, Thirteen, just suck him in!” Izuku shouted, “I can take it!” 

“What? No!” The mist villain sounded downright affronted. “That was your first choice?” 

“He’s right, Izuku, you can’t take it!” Thirteen’s voice was frazzled, and Izuku knew it was because of her typical status as a rescue hero. Aizawa had made the (very cool) point of having more than one skill, but his being able to work outside of stealth combat seemed a far cry from Thirteen, who typically sucked in debris from falling buildings. It didn’t help that her quirk was extremely lethal when applied incorrectly. “Villain, release him now or else!” 

“I have no intention to harm him, Thirteen. He wasn’t even meant to be here,” the mist villain seemed to be recovering his collected demeanor from earlier. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Momo asked, stance wide as her eyes darted between the villain and Izuku. “How do you know Izuku?” 

“That does not matter,” the villain intoned, “what matters-” 

Izuku seized his chance. With the villain preoccupied with Momo, Izuku wiggled until he had leverage to put both of his feet flat on the ground. Once they were, he kicked up and wrapped his legs around the villain’s arm, ankles locking together in the grip as he tried to make him lose balance. 

The villain only moved a few inches, refocusing down on Izuku. 

“Is that meant to do something?” he asked, and Izuku couldn’t tell if he was genuine in his question or condescending. 

“Nope,” Izuku said, “this is!” 

He activated One for All on his legs, squeezing to break the arm of his captor. It didn’t work, though, as the second the green flickers that signalled his quirk began, the villain’s eyes widened, and his body reverted back to that misty intangibility. Izuku didn’t waste that opportunity, rolling backward until he could push up onto his knees, fists raised protectively as the villain regrouped a few feet away, his yellow eyes the widest Izuku had seen them go yet. 

“How did you do that?” he asked, voice authoritative and loud. Like Izuku had done something wrong. But not wrong as in ‘you were my hostage and you attacked me,’ wrong as in ‘you are a toddler who stole a cookie from the cookie jar.’ It was really impeding Izuku’s ability to get into fight mode when this was downright casual. 

“Backflip?” Izuku asked in confusion, glancing behind him, “It’s uh, easier than most people think-” 

“Not the backflip! The quirk!” the villain hissed. “Which one of your classmates ’ quirks let you do that?” 

Izuku paused, weighing his options as ice crept through his veins. This villain knew who he was, that was undeniable. This villain wouldn’t hurt him. And based on the tone of his voice, this villain was under the impression that Izuku was still quirkless. 

“None of them?” he tried to fake nonchalance, “that was my quirk.” 

“No, it wasn’t,” the villain insisted, “that isn’t possible.” 

“I’m sorry, do we know each other?” Izuku stood from the crouch, looking around as if the answer would magically come to him. He knew he was bad with faces, but he didn’t think he was so bad that he’d forget someone like the mist villain. “This feels kind of personal…” 

“It shouldn’t be! You weren’t even meant to be here!” The villain was incredulous, slightly forming back into his ‘human’ form. 

“Izuku!” Izuku’s head turned quickly at Momo’s voice, and he saw her looking seriously at him and pointing to the edge of the main staircase where there was a harsh drop-off to the forest zone. At least a twenty or thirty-foot drop, “I need you to jump off that ledge!” 

“Got it!” he began running towards it without a second thought. 

“Wh- No! Why on earth would you do that?” Izuku’s foot barely has a chance to leave the edge before he’s falling into a portal again, and he lands on his feet in front of the mist villain. 

“Izuku, do it again!” 

Momo’s request catches Izuku off guard, and he looks back over to her with confused eyes. When he does, he sees that just behind her shoulder is Iida in a crouch, eyes focused on the door behind the villain. Izuku looks back over to Thirteen, and when he gets his eyes on the communicator around her wrist, he can see that it’s black. Jammed, or dead? Either way, it meant there was no way of getting help. Not unless one of them got out. 

He could see why they’d choose Iida. With his quirk, he could be at the main campus in probably six or seven minutes. But with the mist villain, he could easily be brought back to the back of the entry plaza, or even somewhere further in the USJ. Though with how distracted the villain was with Izuku….

The plan clicked. 

“Got it!” Izuku pivoted hard on his heel, going for the ledge again. He jumped over the responding portal, taking a hard leap so he got a foot into the air. The next portal formed in front of him, and he fell right into it, landing in a roll back in front of the mist villain. 

“Stop that! You cannot be this susceptible to peer pressure!” 

Their dance is repeated two more times. Momo’s demand, Izuku’s compliance and various tactics to buy them a few more seconds from last time, and the mist villain’s disbelief. Each time Izuku throws himself off the edge he tries to catch a glimpse of Iida. On the third, he nods at his classmate. He nods back. 

“When will you realize this exercise is pointless-” 

“I’ll show you pointless, villain!” Izuku turned on his heel as the mist villain got a portal ready in front of him, lunging back toward him with legs powered by his quirk. The villain doesn’t react quickly enough, likely too shocked by the forward attack. Izuku launched into him, and his shoulder made contact with something solid. They both collapse backwards, and Iida is out of the doors before he can regroup. 

“Curses!” the villain, well, is it cliche to say he curses? Either way, he shouts in frustration as Iida takes off. 

“Izuku, get off of him now!” Momo didn’t have to tell him twice. Under her direction he pulled back, slightly quickened by Thirteen’s quirk as she used it to quickly drag him to the gathered group. She recapped it quickly before stepping in front of the villain, now raising it threateningly toward him. 

“That was such a good plan, Momo,” Izuku said, squeezing her hand quickly when she grabbed it for reassurance. He can feel her anxiety, “I’m okay, but I have no idea how that guy knows me or what he wants from me.” 

“I think right now all he wants is for you to not be here,” Thirteen called over her shoulder, “there might be something to him not wanting to hurt you. Why don’t you go down there with Eraser and see if you can help?” 

“What? Down with the villains?” Ashido asked, brows drawn together. 

“Yeah. The way I see it, either they don’t hurt him the same as this purple guy, or the purple guy just teleports him back out of danger,” Thirteen explained. “I haven’t looked back to see, but I know Eraser can’t last that long against so many opponents, no matter what he says. He might need some backup, and I’m more willing to send the student with the mysterious invulnerability than one of the ones these guys are willing to skewer.” 

Izuku couldn’t argue with the logic. He would have suggested the plan himself if Thirteen hadn’t. Momo looks uncertain, but Izuku squeezes her hand again. 

“I can get you down there, Midoriya,” Shouji said quietly, opening up a mouth on one of his numerous extra appendages. “But I can’t guarantee you a landing.” 

“Can you aim for the river?” Izuku asked, turning to glance behind him. When he does, he gets a good view on what’s been going on in the central plaza. 

The villains, at least the group that Izuku had seen earlier, are all down. Heaps of them unconscious, several piled on top of each other. The only ones still standing that Izuku can see are a vague figure with what looks like a head of blue hair, a gigantic bird-like creature, and the thing it’s swinging viciously- Mr. Aizawa! 

“I need to get down there now!” Izuku said with wide eyes, “and I can’t afford to get there from the river! Momo, can you make me a parachute or something?” 

“How about a glider?” she asked, taking a knee and pulling down the high zipper of her suit, peeling it down her back as it began to glitter blue and white. 

It only took a few seconds to produce, as it was a small one, but every second was painful. Izuku couldn’t clearly see what was going on, but Shouji’s pained face told him all he needed to know. It was bad. 

Izuku took the glider from Momo once it was produced, holding onto the small metal handle tightly. Given how small it was he doubted if it would hold his weight, but he supposed a glider was meant to primarily just glide anyway. He nods to Shouji, and the taller boy lifts him up easily, one hand on either of his sides. 

“Stop that at once!” The mist villain was angry, but Thirteen was keeping him busy enough that he didn’t have a chance to stop them. 

Shouji tossed Izuku, the strength near-frightening from someone Izuku previously would have called quiet and withdrawn. Izuku sails through the air quickly, and he plummets just long enough that he’s getting ready for his quickly approaching broken legs when the glider finally seems to slow him down. He tried his best to aim it toward the central plaza, his eyes aimed on the creature slamming his teacher’s face into the ground. 

“Stop that!” Once Izuku was close enough that serious maiming was off of the table, he let go of the glider. He landed in a crouch behind the creature, shouting in a way he hoped came off as intimidating. It didn’t move, still content on killing the hero in its grasp. “I said stop!” 

Izuku lunged forward, powering his launch with One For All and grimacing as he felt pain shoot through his ankle. Damn it. He could only hope it was a sprain instead of a break. Izuku didn’t even have a chance to check, as he was now face-to-face with the creature. Well, not face to face. Face to hand. 

It turned so quickly that Izuku didn’t even have a second to comprehend it, and his face was suddenly in the grasp of the creature. He gasped out a breath, but it was muffled on the strange glossy skin of the creature’s palm, his mouth and nose covered by it as the massive fingers wrapped around his head, holding him completely aloft by it. One For All hadn’t seemed to impact it at all! Izuku tried to smack at it with weak, open-handed palms propelled forward by OFA, but he was met with similarly useless results. It’s as if the creature didn’t feel it, or like the power beneath his skin dissipated the second it landed. Izuku moved his hands to the fingers of the creature, trying uselessly to peel them off of his face as he kicked out toward it. It was no use. The creature’s wingspan was so large that his arm, while fully extended, was far enough away that Izuku’s foot couldn’t reach its abdomen. Not like that would do much, anyway, from what Izuku could tell. 

Izuku shut his eyes with a whimper, bracing for a crushed skull and what would hopefully be a quick death. Here lies Izuku Midoriya, an idiot who flew in with no plan. He hoped All Might’s next successor was smarter. Wait, there would be no next successor because Izuku had OFA. Oh, god, he was gonna die with the important quirk and make it so all of All Might’s hard work was for nothing! 

He’s wallowing so long in his failure that it takes him about ten seconds to realize that his skull is not crushed and his brains are not leaking out on the floor. Another five before he realizes that the creature has gone completely still. 

Izuku tentatively opened one eye, looking between the fingers of the creature to look at its face. It blinked at him, expressionless. Then, it set him down. 

“You’re not going to hurt me?” Izuku asked, tentatively. 

The creature squawked. Then, it turned back to Aizawa’s body. 

“Hey, no way!” Izuku darted forward, slipping under its arm to place himself protectively over Aizawa’s body. 

The creature squawked again, dismayed. But it didn’t move to reach for the erasure hero again, merely taking a step back and staring down at Izuku and Aizawa. 

“What. The. Fuck?” Izuku turned, seeing the blue-haired one a few meters away. He had a large, gray hand on his face that prevented Izuku from seeing what kind of expression he was making, but the incredulous tone told Izuku everything he needed to know. This guy had the same weird complex as the mist villain. “Are you doing here?!” 

He finished his words in a yell, gesticulating wildly. 

“I was trying to learn,” Izuku said in a huff, feeling a little free to mouth off with his mystery protection. “But you and your stalker friend have rudely interrupted that pursuit.” 

“Wh- are you kidding me?” He seemed defeated, almost scared? 

Izuku was too confused to think anymore critically. These villains knew him, they wouldn’t hurt him, and they were here to do…something? Izuku actually wasn’t sure. They hadn’t told him. All Izuku knew was that he was knelt over his dying teacher, his ankle was throbbing, and nothing made sense anymore. 

“Tomura,” the mist villain appeared behind the man, behind Tomura, with narrowed eyes, “I believe the best thing to do here is to leave.” 

“But All Might-” his voice is whiny and frustrated, and Izuku latches on to that. All Might. They were here for All Might? He supposed it made sense, as he was meant to be here originally. 

“All Might is not here, but the UA staff will be soon. With Izuku here, I doubt it would have been possible at this point anyway,” the mist villain spoke quickly. 

“Why do you know my name?” Izuku asked, and then tacked on, “We aren’t friends, either! Stop calling me by my first name!” 

“But the master told me-” 

“The master will not care what he told you before we knew Izuku was here. We must leave,” the villain urged, “Now.” 

Tomura hesitated for a moment before grunting out confirmation. The creature squawked and walked past Izuku, paying no mind to his defensive hunch over Aizawa, until it was behind Tomura and the mist villain. They didn’t seem to pay any attention to their fallen comrades, only disappearing without another word into a portal. Izuku watched as the purple fizzled out. Just as it did, the doors burst open. 

“Not to fear students, I Am Here and ready to- where did everyone go?” Izuku looked behind him at the sound of All Might’s confused voice. All Might looked around for a second before he leaped down, landing slightly in front of Izuku and looking down at him sitting alone with his battered teacher, no mastermind villains to be seen. “Young Midoriya, what happened?”

“I’d tell you if I knew,” Izuku shrugged helplessly. Then, he looked down as he felt a buzzing in his belt. He opened it and pulled out his phone. His dad was calling again. 

Izuku sighed, and then started crying. 

Chapter Text

Hisashi was not the type of man to get mad. In fact, he prided himself on his ability to stay cool in any and every situation he could find himself in. Even pertaining to the man who he loathed most of all, All Might. All Might ruining his vast criminal empire with his preachy little speeches on peace and freedom were annoying, but Hisashi had never let the prickling, nauseating, all-consuming annoyance ever show on his face or in his actions.

 All Might bashing his face in and forcing him to abandon his beautiful family until he could find a way back to the top? That had been a little harder to deal with, he’d admit that, but still, he threw no temper tantrums. Hisashi just kept on, assured that one day he’d be back on his throne, his perfect wife and son by his side, and the rambling, idiotic, delusional fucking menace would be nothing but an ugly head on a spike for Hisashi to admire when his blood pressure got too high. Even now, reduced to his lowest and scrambling to make sure this plan worked, he tolerated All Might flouncing about in that ridiculous suit and with that hideous hairstyle of his. It. Didn’t. Fucking. Bother. Him. and he meant that! 

But now, watching the grainy footage taken from some no-name thug he had recruited for his plan to attack UA, seeing the green flickers around his son’s eyes that had haunted him for years, Hisashi was beginning to feel some of that hard-maintained control slip from his fingers. 

“This is real?” he asked Kurogiri, knowing he was repeating himself and resenting the fact. Hisashi, All for One, was not the type of man who repeated himself. “You’re absolutely positive?” 

“Yes, master. I saw it myself. The boy was using One for All,” Kurogiri reported. Hisashi was suddenly glad that he had given the misty-faced nomu remarkably little control over the emotionality of his voice. He thinks he’d lose it if he was forced to deal with a simpering or scared whine in his ear right now. “His attack dissipating on the high-end proves it.” 

“So, Izuku has Yoichi’s quirk now,” Hisashi said, “Hm. I see.” 

There was silence for a long moment. Then, Hisashi stood, let out a roar of anger, and waved his hand so that the computer the video had been displayed on flew across the room, shattering to pieces against the picture of All Might that Tomura had childishly pinned to the dartboard. It does little to the picture, and this only enrages Hisashi further. He summons the picture over to him with another wave of his hand, clenching his fist so it balled up. Then, he set it on fire. Even as it crumbled to ashes, nothing calmed within Hisashi. 

Somehow the fool, the bumbling, moronic, whiny, self-righteous, buffoon had gotten his meaty hands on Hisashi’s precious, precious son. His own little boy. Sweet Izuku , of all people, now saddled with the quirk that represented all of Hisashi’s failures up until now. Yoichi’s quirk. 

Yoichi….what was there to say about Yoichi? Hisashi had been young, and blind, and angry and a thousand other things that contributed to his beloved brother’s death. Yoichi was small and weak, and it had been Hisashi’s job to protect him. They had no mother or father to rely on, not a single kind soul in the world, so Hisashi had to take drastic- no, necessary measures to assure his safety. Yoichi’s quirk had been so weak, so incapable of providing him the protection that Hisashi could provide him. 

Yes, the ‘vault’ had been a mistake. Among Hisashi’s biggest, truthfully, but what else could he have done? His brother was full of naivety about the world and how it worked. All of these thoughts of peace and kindness that had no place in the real world. The world had been a cruel place before Hisashi had brought order to it, and that required some level of cruelty. When Yoichi tried to escape, Hisashi could admit he didn’t react well. He should have spoken to him with kindness or understanding, do anything more reasonable than reinforcing the high walls of his room in concrete and encasing the door in iron. These measures had been to protect him from doing something rash like foolishly running off into the world, but they had only egged him on. Caught the attention of that horrible man who poisoned Yoichi’s mind against Hisashi and lured him out to die. Kudo had been his name, the first in the long string of fools that had forced Hisashi’s empire down into the pitiful force it was now. He tricked Yoichi, caused his death, and then he had taken his precious brother’s quirk. Starting the chain reaction that led it to now be in the possession of Hisashi’s son. Like fate was laughing at him. 

Hisashi could hardly stand it. A thousand terrible memories of Yoichi in his head suddenly come to the forefront of his mind, but this time with Izuku in that position. Izuku in that horrible, lonely room. Izuku being manipulated by Kudo. Izuku dying in the cold because of that godforsaken quirk. 

But these weren’t just nightmare scenarios. They were real. Izuku believing he could be a hero before, that was a childish fantasy. Like a grade-schooler thinking they could be an astronaut. Without a quirk to get him into a school, Hisashi had been about as worried at the prospect of his son becoming a hero as a new parent would be of their kindergartener getting accepted into the space program. Those things weren’t meant to actually happen! Just prideful declarations meant to be followed by a ‘That’s nice, dear’ while you schemed to get them into an after-school program that would be conducive to their actual future career. Well, a lot of good that strategy had done Hisashi. Years of music lessons to distract from hero-ing down the drain. Now Izuku was at UA in the hero course, and his flute lay forgotten in the corner. He had been such a talented flautist, too. 

Hisashi tried not to think about all of the very real dangers Izuku now faced. Flung off of a building. Smashed into the concrete. Shot through the heart. Drowned. Burned. Slashed. Stabbed. A thousand horrible deaths he could face, all while bleeding out in some ridiculous costume. Hisashi could not let it happen. He just couldn’t. 

But how to stop it? 

Hisashi took a step back, taking in deep breaths as his life-support mask struggled along to assist him. Kurogiri still stood unmoving in the corner, expressionless face not showing if he had any thoughts one way or the other about this uncharacteristic outburst. Hisashi appreciated that. He wouldn’t enjoy trying to replicate that quirk again. So useful, the ability to bring someone to him in an instant. Hisashi was grateful for it now, because he certainly had a few people to talk to. 

“Kurogiri,” he managed to say, his voice still shaking with anger, “Bring me Yuuga and the Americans. Now.” 

“Yes, Master.” The nomu disappeared into a cloud of his own mist. 

Hisashi waved his hand and the evidence of his anger was swept away. He smoothed out his suit, trying to will away any small clue that his legendary control had cracked, if only for a moment. He retreated back behind his desk in the small office he had built into his lab, knowing it would only be a moment before Kurogiri returned with the requested individuals. In the meantime, he glanced down at his phone. 

Despite having called Inko three times today, she hadn’t responded yet. Busy with the police questioning her, he didn’t doubt. He could have killed Tomura for making it so clear that he knew Izuku. Hisashi couldn’t have blamed Kurogiri, as part of the evidence was when he tried to prevent Izuku from that foolish scheme of his of trying to jump off of a ledge. But still, saying his first name? There was at least the excuse of the shock of him being there. How was he- how were any of them- meant to have anticipated this? 

Hisashi resisted the urge to call her again. Spamming Izuku was one thing, but that was more to make a statement. He didn’t want to annoy poor Inko or think he was trying to harass her. But he did need to know how she viewed the situation. Did she know that it was a non-traditional quirk, or did she think Izuku had just developed one? Was she aware of All Might’s involvement? There were too many question marks for Hisashi to come up with a plan right now. 

The only thing he knew was this: this must be stopped. There were no other options. Izuku needed that quirk taken from him, and he needed to be enrolled back in EAMU where he could start studying for a nice, respectable, safe career. Before he could decide on how exactly to do that, he needed to figure out exactly how brainwashed Izuku was. Hisashi could only hope that All Might hadn’t mentioned anything about him. The buffoon believed Hisashi was dead, from what Hisashi could tell, so hopefully he hadn’t yet mentioned the ‘mortal enemy’ of the quirk they wielded. He never intended for Izuku to find out about his ‘All for One’ persona, but he didn’t exactly want his son to be predisposed to hating it. 

Hisashi is wondering how exactly to go about getting the quirk away from him when he hears the slight hiss that signals one of Kurogiri’s portals. He pushes his phone into a hidden alcove on his desk and sits up, readying himself just as the three American idiots walk out of a portal nervously and Yuuga is deposited, crying loudly, on the floor. If Hisashi still had a nose, he’d be wrinkling it. It was only the knowledge that Yuuga was Hisashi’s only current inside look into UA (and the slight soft spot that formed in his heart from fatherhood) that kept him from silencing the boy. 

“Who here knew that Izuku had a quirk?” Hisashi asked, not in the mood to mince words. He looked between all of them, noting that despite the somewhat late hour, Yuuga was still in his school uniform. Expecting this conversation, maybe? “Raise your hand.” 

Only Yuuga did, the trembling limb lifting ever so slightly. The Americans looked uncertainly at each other, but did not give confirmation one way or the other. They were the ones with the invisibility quirks he had recruited on the advice of an associate, and gave them the tasks of looking after Izuku and Inko. They were bumbling idiots most of the time, but they at least gave half-decent reports that held up when Hisashi sent Kurogiri or a more talented agent to confirm the details or do a further investigation. 

“Yuuga, tell me why you neglected to inform me of this detail?” Hisashi tried to keep his voice even, almost gentle, but Yuuga was still crying loudly. 

Wailing and sitting on the floor, his hands covering his face as if could hide. Hisashi sighed loudly, pointing a finger and hitting Yuuga with a zap of a calming wave of energy. A useful quirk he had picked up some decades ago, and one he had used often with Izuku when he was tantruming as a toddler. It worked well enough, and Yugga’s sobs quieted until he was only sniffling, wiping at his eyes hurriedly. Once he had gathered himself enough, he stood up off of the floor, his posture closed off and defensive. 

“I tried, sir,” Yuuga sniffed, “on the phone call, after the entrance exams.” 

Hisashi frowned, thinking back. His phone calls with Yuuga were usually very quick, just little blips in his memory. What had the last one been about? The entrance exam? Yes, Hisashi could vaguely recall that. Yuuga had been very annoying that day. Constantly rambling and trying to interrupt Hisashi with miscellaneous details. Really, he should just know that Hisashi was only interested in the answers to specific questions- 

It dawned on him. 

Oh, whoops. 

“I see,” Hisashi nodded, trying to not start banging his head against the desk. Perhaps he’ll just start having Yuuga send him weekly written notes. “Well, I’ll allow that. I expect next time this happens, you stand your ground and interrupt me. Understood?” 

Yuuga nodded quickly. Good. Hisashi didn’t doubt they wouldn’t run into this problem again. 

“Now, you three,” Hisashi turned his attention to the Americans, “presumably Izuku had been training with someone. Why did this not get brought to my attention?” 

“His trips to the gym?” the leader of the group asked, his accent annoying and grating on Hisashi’s already frayed nerves, “We thought they didn’t matter. We thought we told you about his trainer.” 

“His trainer?” 

“Yeah, that tall blonde man,” the second one spoke, “Wiggles told you about him.” 

“Nuh-uh!” Wiggles hissed, elbowing his friend, “Bigs told him!” 

Bigs, the leader, shook his head, “I thought Marty told you.” 

Marty, the second in command, shook his head even more aggressively at the accusation. 

Hisashi’s eye, if he possessed one, would be twitching right now. 

“A tall blonde man has been training Izuku?” he asked, voice strained, “Is this tall blonde man All-Might, by any chance?” 

“Nah, too old and creepy looking. I thought he was a perv at first,” Bigs snorted. 

“So let me get this straight,” Hisashi stood from his desk, examining all three of them, “Izuku has been going to the gym with a tall, old, blonde, mystery man who you first mistook for a predator, and then you didn’t tell me because you…assumed the others would?” 

“Yeah, you got it right boss,” Marty said with a large and unintelligent smile, “We’ll make sure to mention it in the next report.” 

Hisashi took a deep breath, raised his hand, and activated a quirk. A moment later they were blasted against the wall with such force that the sound of bones crunching filled the room, and their blood splattered in a wide arc. Once they all slumped to the ground, dead, and Hisashi was sure they wouldn’t need another round, he could finally bask in the silence. Well, almost silence. Yuuga was whimpering in the corner, covered in blood. 

“Apologies, Yuuga. Kurogiri, get him back home,” Hisashi ordered, “and then get some more competent scouts for me.” 

“Yes, master.” 

Hisashi didn’t stay to confirm the details. He grabbed his phone out of the alcove and strode out of the office, patting Yuuga once on the head as he went and ignoring the full-body flinch it elicited. Just as he was out in the main part of his lab, his phone finally started ringing. He looked down and sighed in relief when he saw it was Inko, reading the name before he had a chance to be tipped off by the song. He answered quickly. 

“I’m so sorry, Hisashi, I meant to call you right away but I only just got out of the police station and got Izuku put to bed. Those detectives are very worried about how those villains knew Izuku..” Inko’s voice is worried, and Hisashi’s heart ached at the fear and exhaustion that was audible in her tone. She had nothing to fear, but how could Hisashi let her know that? 

“I’m concerned too, honey. I have many friends on the force in Japan, and I promise they’ll get it all sorted out. You and Izuku will be safe,” Hisashi assured her, “I can hire some bodyguards for you, if you like.” 

“No, no, the police put a cruiser outside our apartment. Besides, don’t worry yourself. I just feel so bad, it must be the middle of the night in America right now.” 

“Uh, I was up anyways,” Hisashi didn’t know what time it was in America. “Working late. But I did want to ask you something, if you have a moment to talk.” 

“Of course, anything.” 

“What was Izuku doing in that training building? I thought he was in the support course…” Hisashi tried to keep his tone casual, but the nervous sound of Inko clicking her tongue told him she picked up on his nerves. 

“Oh, I don’t know why I thought Izuku would tell you…” she sighed, “Honey- I mean, Hisashi, you wouldn’t believe it, but Izuku developed a quirk!” 

Hisashi resisted the urge to tell her that it was fine to call him honey. He had to remind himself that part of the long-term plan was not jumping the gun and confusing Inko further. They’d be able to reunite properly soon, and that's what mattered. Impatience would get him nowhere. 

“A quirk?” he asked with mock wonder. He had already figured that bit out. 

“Yes, a quirk,” Inko confirmed, “A basic strength one. He was so happy I couldn’t even dream of telling him he couldn’t try for UA. He must be pretty good at using it, too, because he got into the hero course!” 

“Wow, what a…what a miracle,” Hisashi’s voice was as happy as he could manage. 

“I know! I haven’t seen Izuku so happy in years! This trainer is a godsend, he’s the one that helped Izuku accustom so quickly. And, get this, he’s All Might’s secretary!” Inko’s voice perked up a little bit, “it’s so wonderful. His name is Toshinori Yagi. I can give you his phone number if you’re concerned, but he’s a sweet man. He’s kept me very up to date on Izuku’s progress.” 

The name rang a few bells. Toshinori Yagi? He thinks he remembers hearing about All Might’s secretary some years ago. The vain man had apparently hired a man with his exact hair and eye color. How conceited. It didn’t surprise Hisashi that All Might likely had Yagi handle the liaisons and the details with Inko. Probably wanting to avoid too much press or publicity of his new protege being handed out. 

God. His protege. Hisashi felt sick all over again. 

“That would be wonderful, Inko. Thank you.” 

Hisashi got off the phone with Inko after writing down the number he had no intention of calling himself. He assured her that he’d work out some details for their protection and investigate the incident, and despite Inko offering to make Izuku play nice for a few moments to call, Hisashi turned it down. God, just yesterday he had thought Izuku’s silent streak had been his worst problem. Now, Hisashi wishes the only thing he was dealing with on the front of Izuku was a teenage rebellion. 

Still having no clue what to do, Hisashi slinked to his preferred lab table, the various notebooks and diagrams doing nothing to soothe him. Izuku had Yoichi’s quirk, and now he was in danger. Now Hisashi was left with the difficult task of disentangling him from All Might’s web and getting that quirk away. 

Maybe he should be glad it was out of the hands of the moron, but the idea of his son having it? The implications were terrible. Hisashi couldn’t accept it. Was having trouble comprehending it, actually. The how and the why were beginning to torment him. 

Somehow, some way, the man Hisashi would have called the stupidest person he had ever had the cataclysmic misfortune of ever fucking meeting had tracked down Hisashi’s own son, groomed him, and then forced his quirk upon him. All without any of the meticulously placed safety nets Hisashi had put in place for his family catching it. 

Hisashi’s mind reeled with theories and thoughts that made no sense because previously he would have assumed All Might struggled to tie his own shoelaces. How could he have done something that would have required so much careful planning? So much foresight? So much delicacy? It just wasn’t possible. Hisashi had been so careful to draw no parallels between himself, Hisashi, and himself, All for One. All Might shouldn’t have even known he had a son, let alone figure out how to find him and then turn him against Hisashi without Hisashi ever even having heard an inkling about the whole scheme. And why on earth would he do this? The man did nothing but give his little speeches all day about doing the right thing and heroism and blah blah blah. A hero being a hypocrite didn’t surprise Hisashi in the slightest, but this felt out of left field. All Might thought Hisashi was dead! Why should a man so obsessed with his own naive little morals suddenly bend over backwards for a revenge scheme on his ‘long dead’ nemesis? It didn’t make any sense. That was unless, of course, he knew about Tomura….

Hisashi sat up at his desk, fingers clenching his pen so tightly it shattered. Tomura. Of course. Of course. How could he have not realized it sooner? 

Hisashi’s plan to create an evolved body utilized the grandson of Nana Shimura, a gesture that he could admit was rooted in petty revenge. Turning the boy All Might felt responsible for into the ultimate weapon for Hisashi’s rise to power. It was a genius plan, and one Hisashi would have previously said he executed with the utmost secrecy and delicacy. But that couldn’t have been the case. 

He means, it couldn’t be a coincidence. He takes and grooms Nana Shimura’s grandson, so clearly, clearly, All Might had taken his son and done the exact same thing to enact his revenge for the revenge plot. 

It was so evil that Hisashi was almost impressed. Pretending to be stupid for years in order to execute his revenge plot for Hisashi’s revenge plot by tracking down his son and manipulating him into being his protege? Hisashi had to give applause where the applause was due. All Might was obviously a secret mastermind. 

Hisashi would have to be more careful, going forward. If All Might had planned this so meticulously, who knew what else he had up his sleeve? Hisashi needed to up his game now if he had any hope of stopping this. 

He had to, for Izuku’s sake. 

Chapter Text

Katsuki knew that not being honest in therapy was counterproductive to the whole point, but he was still finding it hard to look Yukiko in the eyes and admit that when it came to a fight or flight response, he was one of the losers who hit ‘none of the above’ and decided to freeze. 

“Keeping it inside isn’t going to help you any, Katsuki,” Yukiko sighed after the fifth or sixth long stretch of silence, leaning back in her armchair and leveling him with one of her signature ‘you can do better than that’ looks. Normally they worked pretty well in igniting his competitive spirit (with himself,) but today he was surprised he even managed to show up. 

Katsuki sunk further in his chair, an overstuffed and oversized red loveseat with dark burgundy stripes that he could run his fingers along the raised threading of. He continued kneading the caramel-scented dough in his hands. He used to not use the various slimes and doughs Yukiko kept in her office for her more fidgety clientele, since he was afraid of ruining their various fruity and floral scents with his heavily sweet-smelling sweat, but Yukiko had quickly picked up on the concern and gotten that one just for him. Katsuki could appreciate how she didn’t treat it like charity, merely leaving it on the shelf without a word. One of Yukiko’s many great qualities, and why he hadn’t switched therapists in three years. Far and away she was his longest held. The first four went by quickly. Vapid men and women who saw Katsuki as a case to ‘fix’ or merely an attitude to adjust. Just one more name on the paper. A future smiling face on a website to proclaim how good the therapist was at mentally beating the trouble out of a troubled teen. 

Yukiko’s heavy sigh brought Katsuki out of his mental tangent, and she peered over her thick purple glasses at him, raising a brow. 

Katsuki shrugged. He looked away from her disappointed look to pretend to examine her therapy room, roving his eyes over the various paintings and weird wooden wall art. Nothing was new, but the faint sounds of the white noise machine at the door sounded different. Maybe she got a new one. 

Normally he wouldn’t be so shamelessly avoiding talking about his feelings, but he would like to see one of the extras not struggle in his circumstances. This shit wasn’t easy. Some days were harder than others, sure, but today was notably sucky. He glanced at the clock on the wall, but he still had thirteen minutes. Yukiko was gonna want him to talk at least a little more. 

“Let's talk about Midoriya.” 

“What’s there to say?” Katsuki asked, wincing at the gruff sound of his voice. He was never more aware of how rude he was capable of sounding then when he was with Yukiko. Normally he couldn’t care less how people perceived him, but Yukiko can and will leave if he talks too rudely to her. “I mean, it is what it is. He’s being targeted by villains. What’s that got to do with me?” 

“The report your mom gave me said you tried to protect him,” her voice, as it always was, is devoid of any kind of emotion one way or the other. It was impossible for Katsuki to tell her what she wanted to hear if he didn’t know what she wanted. 

“I thought you didn’t like to have any context outside of what I told you?” Katsuki asked, sitting up further in his chair as he repeatedly folded the dough, “Something like my perception is the only one that matters?” 

“In matters of your feelings, yes, but this was a matter of your safety. I needed to make sure you weren’t downplaying the situation to yourself,” Yukiko told him honestly, “and I don’t think you are. I just want to know why your first instinct was to protect Midoriya.” 

“My first instinct was to freeze like a fuckin’ moron,” Katsuki muttered. 

“Your second instinct,” Yukiko amended. 

“I guess…” Katsuki sighed and leaned forward to the glass-topped coffee table, stuffing the dough back into the container and screwing the lid tight. Then he leaned back in his chair and looked Yukiko in the eye, “I always thought that my quirk disappearing had something to do with Midoriya, but I guess this kind of forced me to realize that..that…I don’t know, that it wasn’t him? He seemed just as scared as all the other losers. I guess I just didn’t want him to get snatched or hurt or something…” 

He deflates as soon as the words leave him, sinking back into his chair. At least he was rewarded with the small approving noise Yukiko made. 

“I guess I don’t really know why I did it. I just acted on instinct,” he finishes, crossing his arms on the cushy armrest and leaning his face down into them

“Then it’s your job to find out why that was your instinct,” Yukiko told him, looking at her watch, “alright, I'll call that for the sappy stuff. Good job today, kiddo.” 

“Thanks,” Katsuki said blandly, voice muffled in the crook of his arm. 

“So, I know you’ve been avoiding thinking about it, but I really need you to start trying those alternate therapists I suggested,” Yukiko’s voice shifts to the more firm, administrative tone she took when she scheduled stuff or assigned him emotional homework. 

Katsuki’s mood soured. Oh, this. He had been hoping that the problem would resolve itself. Unfortunately, the problem was her seven-months-along pregnancy. 

“I’ll be on maternity leave starting in a month, and we’ll only have time for two more sessions in that time. I need you to pick an interim while I’m gone. It’s only gonna be for four months, but I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to skip entirely. The list I gave you has some great therapists on it, and you have time to have a trial session with all of them before our last session,” Yukiko lectures him. 

“I don’t want to talk to any of them. I can just wait for you,” he muttered. 

Yukiko gave him an unimpressed look. “Choose, Katsuki. Talk to my receptionist and she’ll set the appointment up.” 

Katuski glumly agreed and took the list from her again, folding it neatly and sliding it into his bag’s side pocket instead of crumpling up and shoving it in a random folder to be forgotten about like the last few were. He’d be fine just condensing his feelings into a little corner in the back of his mind until Yukiko was available again, but she insisted that wasn’t ‘healthy’ or ‘logical’ or any dumb bullshit like that. So now he had to force himself to sit through another ‘getting to know you’ session with four therapists who wouldn’t be anywhere near Yukiko’s level. Maybe he could just lie and only see one for a trial session and fake it til he made it, which would be making dumb stories up with an easy moral to get and pretend to have some kind of an ‘ah, I shouldn’t have done that’ awakening so the moron of the week would let him off the hook for the rest of the session. Or maybe he could conveniently have a cold twice a month every month for the next four months. He’d have to shop options. 

He walked out of her room with his bag slung over his shoulder, giving a barely-passable nod of acknowledgement to the receptionist before he was finally back outside, taking in a deep breath of the cool early-May air. He usually took the bus to and from the therapy office, but he didn’t think he’d mind the fifteen minute walk today. Besides, it would mean he had some time to himself before his mom wheedled him into how his therapy session went, which was always just her feeling out if she had to start looking into new therapists. Though these days she went easier on him, since Yukiko had been around so long. The normal breaking point was the six-month mark and she had long passed that with her special skill of competency. Really, if Katsuki didn’t know she was quirkless he might think her real quirk was her miraculous ability to not piss him off. 

Maybe Yukiko being quirkless was what gave her a head-start over the other therapists. She had more of a perspective on Katsuki’s initial ‘incident’ that caused his mother to seek him out a therapist. It was hard to understand what it was like not having a quirk when you had one all your life, but Yukiko understood the issue very well. She also didn’t pity him for the situation, since it was the one she had and would always live with. There was also the matter of how it augmented her perspective on the initial concept of Midoriya…

Katsuki sighed, tilting his face up to let the sun shine on his face, basking in the warmth. Midoriya was a black hole in his mind, weighing him down as a presence that did nothing but confuse and discombobulate. Every emotion he thought he had about his former best friend was thrown out of the window the second they were actually in front of each other again. Katsuki had convinced himself that he didn’t give a damn about Midoriya other then the slight apprehension that he had something to do with his quirk disappearance, but being forced to stand in front of the other boy and really look at him was starting to prove that the emotions he had were much, much deeper. 

Fear, on the surface. It was shitty to be afraid and it wasn’t something Katsuki was overly happy with himself for, but even he could ‘rationalize’ (with the help of Yukiko) that it only made sense to be afraid of hurting or pissing Izuku off if he had drawn a mental connection between him and the crime. But it was more than the fear that pissed Katsuki off. It was that fucking guilt that welled up in his chest every time the nerd cast his sad, misty-eyed gaze onto Katsuki. 

Why should Katsuki be the one to feel guilty? Even if Midoriya had nothing to do with the quirk-snatching, it was still the presence of him that caused it in theory! If Midoriya had just kept his fucking mouth shut Katsuki wouldn’t have to have- 

Hm. No. Katsuki was in the wrong for that. He had to remember that. It wasn’t right to bully people just for being quirkless. 

Why should Katsuki be the one to feel guilty? 

Oh, yeah. He bullied Midoriya. Pretty relentlessly, too. Yukiko hadn’t held back when they talked about that. 

But why should Katsuki be the one to feel guilty over something that happened six years ago? What, just because he never apologized? 

Well, that actually seemed like a half-decent reason….

Katuki shook out of his thoughts. Apologizing to Midoriya… it just wasn’t advisable. He had already lost progress on the ‘getting Midoriya to disregard him entirely’ plot by protecting him at the USJ, so he couldn’t risk reconciliation. Though Midoriya wasn’t acting like the past bullying had bothered him at all, Katsuki knew that couldn’t be the case. He had done some pretty shitty, discriminatory things. Katsuki wouldn’t be surprised if the nerd was using his chipper attitude to try and lure Katsuki into a safe state of mind so they could talk out what happened in an open and reasonable way! Oh, the scheming on that nerd. Katsuki wouldn’t fall for it. He knew that Midoriya likely knew nothing of the villains, but Katsuki did and he knew that associating with Midoriya risked another bout of quirklessness. The best thing to do was stay away entirely and hope that he could get moved to 1B next year. 

Though this thought process did force him to recall the homework Yukiko had given him. 

Why had he protected Izuku? 

The base logic of Midoriya was just as in the dark as the other losers in the class was fine, but it still didn’t explain why Katsuki had felt the urge to (in a way) tackle him to the ground and put his body over him human-shield style. If the villains knew Izuku, then that was a reason for them not to hurt him. So what if Katsuki thought he’d get snatched? That was only an errant thought, a half-excuse for Yukiko so she wouldn’t make him dig deeper in the moment for a reason. With the attack happening, Katsuki was scared out of his mind, and with no good reason to actually protect Izuku, why had Katsuki done it? 

Katsuki groaned, putting a hand over his face as he stopped on the sidewalk in front of his house. 

“Fuckin emotional bullshit, stupid ass therapy. Stupid fuckin-” 

“Young man?” a tentative voice spoke in front of him. 

Katsuki put his hand down, looking up at the speaker. He almost jumped just from the tallness and the thinness and the slendermanness of him, but he held it in long enough to see just who was there. 

“Mr. Yagi?” he asked, squinting up at him. He moved an inch so the giant man covered the sun for him, “What are you doing here?” 

Mr. Yagi was a school administrator, someone who Katsuki had only met once or twice. He’d forget about him entirely as a non-hero member of faculty, but it was kind of hard to ignore the 7’3 behemoth with the ripoff All-Might haircut and the ill-fitting suits. 

“I’m sorry for the surprise visit, young man, but I just wanted to talk to you for a moment,” he said, worriedly adjusting his grip on the briefcase he held. 

“Is this about school?” Katsuki asked, and then just so his mother couldn’t kick his ass for poor manners, “Do you want to step inside?” 

“If you’d like, but this will only take a moment,” Mr. Yagi said, shifting from foot to foot. 

“Shoot, then,” Katsuki crossed his arms, waiting for the question. 

“What do you remember about when your quirk was taken?” 

Katsuki’s eyes widened. 

“Come on,” Katsuki sighed, gesturing with his hand, “You’re gonna wanna sit down for this.” 

______

Toshinori knew he had a bit of a habit of taking his victory laps early, but this example was particularly bad. 

When the attack happened on the USJ, he hadn’t thought much beyond the normal perturbment and panic that should come with an attack of this caliber. School grounds were broken into, something that should have been impossible, and students were hurt by villains who seemingly had a goal of hurting him. That was bad, but it was still kind of par for the course of general hero business. The real issue had come from the fact that two students had not only been known by the villains, but clearly had a history with them. 

When they reviewed the scant footage that had survived the electrical interference, it had only made things worse. Young Bakugou had been one thing, but Young Midoriya? There was a deep history there. Not only had the villains known his name and refrained from attacking, the mist villain had gone out of his way to avoid any harm coming to the boy. If they had left it at his name then Toshinori would have just assumed that Midoriya being his successor had been leaked, but there was more to it than that. The villains hadn’t even known the boy had a quirk, so clearly this was someone that had known him for a long time. 

Toshinori started his investigation with Bakugou, as the clearly less involved party. Thirteen had remarked on him freezing when he saw the villains, and while someone else might chalk that up to him being scared, Toshinori knew that the fear had come from something much older than the current attack. So he had done some digging, called some sources, and ended up on the phone with Mitsuki Bakugou as she told him about her son’s childhood incident of losing his quirk. 

Toshinori had wanted to believe it was a fluke, some kind of strange illness or placebo, but everything the boy described to him (once Toshinori bit the bullet and decided old medical files wouldn’t get him anywhere) read exactly like the quirk of All For One. Empty feeling, an icy touch, nausea, it was the tell-tale symptoms of the man stealing a quirk. Toshinori was very familiar with learning about these cases. 

Though having it returned was slightly less common. 

When Toshinori interviewed Bakugou, the boy was less prickly than he was expecting. If anything, he seemed eager to talk now that he was being believed that his quirk disappearance wasn't a fluke and was instead something very serious. He gave all of the details in a calm, meticulous manner that did nothing but confirm Toshinori’s worst nightmares. 

The only silver lining was this: both the initial quirk stealing and the returning were both before the fated duel between him and AFO. So that incident didn’t necessarily entail that he was back. Though it was still concerning that Bakugou was convinced that the mist villain had been involved with the initial crime and was only just now attacking UA. A copycat crime? Revenge? There were too many variables still. The biggest one being what on earth Midoriya had to do with any of this. 

He thought of that on the drive over to Midoriya’s apartment. The boy was just as baffled and worried as everyone else, that was for certain. Toshinori hadn’t needed Tsukauchi’s confirmation to figure out that the boy was being honest about being completely in the dark on how these villains knew him or why they were protecting him during an assault that had, in all other capacities, seemed quite lethal. 

He pulls up to Midoriya's apartment a few moments later. He parked in front, getting out of the car and smoothing down his suit. He had only been to the apartment a handful of times, and rarely while Young Midoriya was out. The boy was currently training with Yaoyorozu in the gym, where Toshinori was meant to be meeting him in thirty minutes. Though before that, Toshinori needed to talk to the boy’s mother without him knowing. 

He didn’t like being sneaky, but he was seeing few other options. The boy seemed to be in denial that the villains knowing him was as big of an issue as it was, and he didn’t want any police protection. Toshinori could understand the need for self-sufficiency, but what he also understood was that he didn’t need his apparently vulnerable protege getting jumped. There was also the matter of the villains knowing him. The boy had already gotten defensive at the few connections Toshinori had suggested. Thankfully, Inko seemed more than willing to discuss things objectively. 

He walked up the short flight of stairs, finding their door and knocking lightly. He heard rustling inside, a light call of ‘one moment,’ and then a few seconds of silence before the door opened to reveal a flour-covered Inko Midoriya. 

“Out of-season blizzard?” Toshinori asked, smiling awkwardly at her harried expression. Her dark green hair was tied up in a bun, her reading glasses pushed up into her hair and revealing a clean imprint of skin around the flour where they must have been a moment ago. Her comfortable indoor clothes were covered in flour and melted chocolate and a variety of other materials, and the clean red apron she had on suggested she had only just thought to grab it a moment ago. 

“Out of practice baker. Come on in, you’re right in time for the first batch,” she waved him inside, her house shoes tracking more flour everywhere. 

Toshinori tried to avoid stepping in any of it to worsen the mess, carefully following her to the kitchen where yet more flour awaited. He took a seat at the kitchen table while Inko went back to her station by the oven, shaping a variety of dough into different shapes. 

“I’m so sorry for the mess, Mr. Yagi, I’m a bit of a stress baker,” she tells him over her shoulder, her focus on the dough. 

“Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Midoriya, I didn’t give you much warning,” Toshinori assured her. 

“Just Ms, Mr. Yagi.” 

Toshinori almost winced. Her voice didn’t seem affected by the slip-up, thankfully. It was hard to remember when she still used her ex-husband’s name and wore the ring more often than not. Though Toshinori had to keep reminding himself it was none of his business. He knew love and marriage were complicated, and as a life-long bachelor (save for a very interesting summer with Dave) he knew he had no leg to stand on when it came to his opinions on it. 

“Have you had a chance to think of how these villains might have known your son?” He steered them to the topic at hand, the reason for his visit, quickly. 

Inko shook her head, knocking some flour from atop her shoulders in the process. 

“I’m coming up completely blank. I’ve never even known a villain personally, let alone exposed Izuku to one. Though he got in trouble some weeks ago for sneaking out…” she frowned. 

Toshinori knew about his midnight escapades to go analyze quirks, but he doubted that was the cause for the villains knowing him. 

“It’s a hard thing to consider. It might be someone that you didn’t know was a villain. I hate to ask, but anyone in your family who was…prone to delinquency?” he hated how he said it as soon as it came out of his mouth, but Inko didn’t seem to mind. 

“Not that I could think of. Hisashi was always very close to the chest with his family, though, so maybe something was going on there,” she shrugs, “but his family never met Izuku.” 

“What about your family?” Toshinori prodded as gently as he could. 

“Oh, I was adopted,” Inko said casually, sliding her most recent batch of…whatever it was she was baking into the oven. “I don’t know my blood relatives. I was raised by a lovely older couple. They both passed some years ago.” 

Toshinori perked up at that. Adopted? It could be that she was given up for her protection, and the villains still kept an eye on her and her family. Dear god, what if she was AFO’s daughter, and he had inadvertently made AFO’s grandson his protege? Toshinori tried not to jump to that conclusion, but he tucked it away as his working theory. He’d have to look into that further. 

“My condolences. So is there anyone else it might be? Maybe friends or partners you bring around Izuku?” 

Inko laughed loudly before covering her mouth, coughing to cover it up. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just, ah, there hasn’t been anyone since my husband. Especially no one that I’ve gotten even close to introducing to Izuku.” 

“Really?” Toshinori couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. Inko looked at him questioningly and he blushed, looking away from her and scratching the back of his head awkwardly, “I mean, I’m just a little surprised. A beautiful woman such as yourself and all…” 

“Oh,” her voice was small, and when he looked back she was the one blushing, fiddling with a tea towel that was doing nothing to get the flour off of her. “Well, that’s very kind of you to say. I just..I feel like my nerves get in the way more than anything else. I hadn’t even dated much before I married Hisashi.” 

“I get that. I think it’s been something like fifteen years for me since my last try,” Toshinori laughed softly, “though I imagine you have an easier time landing dates than me.” 

“What? No way! A sweet, tall guy like yourself. I’m sure you’ve got more admirers then you think,” Inko assured him, only getting pinker as she spoke. Her face was so hot Toshinori was surprised it didn’t bake the smear of dough on her cheek. “I mean.. I just..yeah…” 

They sat awkwardly, embarrassed and silent. The oven timer gave a merry little ‘ding’ and broke up the painful stretch, Inko hurriedly grabbing onto the chance. 

“Those are the cookies!” she proclaimed loudly, turning and sliding an oven mitt on as she took out said cookies. They smelled delicious despite their slightly lopsided appearance, and Toshinori once again mourned his all liquid diet. “Part of this batch is for my gardening buddy, but would you like some? I have plenty of extra!” 

Toshinori regretted he couldn’t accept. Well, he could, but he’d have to waste them. Unless of course he blended them? Though his doctor did tell him to avoid excess sugar. 

“I’m sorry, Ms. Midoriya, but I’m afraid my doctor tells me to avoid sweets,” he told her, weak stomach dropping at the sad little expression he made, “but perhaps next time?” 

“Oh, sure, next time!” Inko smiled, “Maybe you can just drop by next time you're in the neighborhood?” 

“You mean, like, on non-school business?” he asked, blinking. 

“Yes,” Inko nodded, smile turning a little awkward, “that is, if that isn’t an ethical violation…” 

“No, no! Absolutely I’ll call next time I’m nearby!” he nodded, “If that’s okay with you?” 

“Only if that’s okay with you.” 

“Yes, that’s very okay.” 

“Good, then I’m okay too, okay?” 

“Yes, okay,” Toshinori nodded, feeling very much like he had said okay far too much but still unable to suppress his smile. He didn’t get many invitations for social calls. He looked down at his phone at the sound of a notification, seeing a text from Midoriya asking where he was. “I’m sorry, Ms. Midoriya, but I have to head out.” 

“Please, call me Inko,” she told him, putting aside the cookies to walk him to the door. 

“Then you must call me Toshinori,” he insisted, and she nodded. 

“Okay, Toshinori. Well, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. And I can’t thank you enough for taking such good care of Izuku. Without his dad, I was worried…well, I’m glad he has a strong male influence in his life. I really appreciate it.” 

She patted him on the arm, smiling so sweetly at him it caused Toshinori to blush again. She held the door open for him on his way out, and he shuffled out with another litany of thank-yous and okays. As he walked down to his car, his eyes were drawn to a little falling of flour on the ground next to him. 

He looked at his sleeve, seeing a flour-dusted handprint on his suit jacket. He laughed, still flushed as he went to go see Izuku and try to get to the bottom of this mystery. Hopefully, it was nothing, and this could all be put behind them. 

Hopefully. 

Chapter Text

Ethical dilemmas, in Shoto’s opinion, were often not difficult at all until you added in the factor of personal suffering. This was the reason why Shoto went out of his way to avoid making friends, in order to not have anyone who might grow a complex about him and rescue him from his own personal ethical dilemma. There wasn’t room for pity or empathy when lives were at stake. 

It wasn’t a bad thing. Humans naturally could be selfish creatures. An ethical dilemma was easy enough when you were talking in hypotheticals. Of all of the dilemmas that had been put in front of Shoto to study, the trolley problem was still the one that he thought made the best example. In front of you, there are two train tracks: one with five people on it, and one with two people on it. A trolley is coming down the first track, bound to run over and kill five people. You, an innocent bystander, stand in front of a lever that can switch the trolley onto the track with two people. Do you let the five people die through laissez-faire, or do you take matters into your own hands and limit the loss of human life by switching the lever, thus condemning two people who previously would have been fine? 

The answer is obvious. You switch the track. The only real road, or rather, track bump, was that you assume direct responsibility for the deaths of the two people rather than responsibility by negligence with the original five. Though for some people, this didn’t factor in at all. Just as bad to stand by and do nothing. Shoto didn’t know if he agreed with that, but he understood it. A simple question with simple answers. 

The real ‘fun,’ as the ethical professors liked to call it, was when you added the personal modifiers. You start with basic things, only just barely plucking the strings of human empathy. The question is easy to answer in the breadth of a second when the only lives at stake are seven gray, faceless mannequins. Add on some modifiers and see how people begin to squirm. The traditional problem, but one of the two people on the second track is a pregnant woman. Does her unborn child afford her the right to live more so than the original five? What if the people on the first track were all adults, but the second track had two children under sixteen? What if one of the five was a convicted murderer? What if the president was one of the two? What exactly gave someone the right to live? 

Those were interesting to propose, but still behind a layer of objectivity. You had to really dig into someone’s personal life to find out what they thought. The traditional problem, but the second track had both of your parents. Do they deserve to live just because you're the one behind the lever? Does a person’s life only matter as much as their worth to the one pulling the strings? 

The particularly irritating ones liked to stick their noses up, ‘of course, I’d choose the two in every circumstance. Quantity of life is all that matters!’ Shoto would like to see just one of those people actually make that choice in real life. Too many people liked to think that they could do the morally righteous thing if it came down to it, when in reality most everyone would bend and break under the weight of their emotions. That wasn’t a bad thing, it was simply logical. 

So it was simply logical for Shoto to stay alone. 

Following that theme, he broke from his cavalry battle team as soon as he could. He had been hoping the sports festival could have been a strictly solo affair, but unfortunately, he was forced to cooperate for the purposes of the second trial. He was pleased with the team he had put together (or rather, that had put themselves together then offered him a spot,) but he still couldn’t help but think he would have done better by himself. It would have been nice to be able to pace himself and control himself. Maybe then he wouldn’t have slipped up. 

“I’ve never seen you use your fire before,” Yaoyorozu said from behind him. He stood on the field still, rubbing his left arm as he tried to figure out what had gone wrong. What had compelled him to use his fire against Midoriya like that? 

“I don’t like to,” he said softly. 

He looked up, scanning the roaring crowds of the UA Sports Festival. It was a big turnout. Though it seemed to be a normally sized crowd, based on the videos his father had made him watch. He had studied the last ten festivals to learn what to expect. They varied things every year, but there were enough things that stayed consistent that Shoto could see the logic in doing it, even if he was hard-pressed to agree with anything his father did. 

Speaking of his father, Shoto could see him lurking toward the front of the stands, his face twisted in a wide grin of pride that made Shoto’s stomach lurch. Of course. He had used his fire. Had his father mistaken it for a purposeful action and was happy because of that, or was he rather gloating because Shoto hadn’t been able to control himself? Either way, Shoto didn’t want to see him. He wasn’t sure if he could avoid it, though, since his father had access to the interior of the arena dedicated for students and faculty. He’d probably be cornered as soon as he stepped into a sufficiently empty hallway. Or perhaps a full one. Maybe his father thought he wouldn’t talk back with an audience. It was difficult to tell where his head was most of the time. 

His father had been irritated with him lately, and Shoto had been doing his best to not egg him on. The attack on the USJ had been a particular strain on their relationship, with a week of distance on the event not doing them any good. His father hadn’t disliked that Shoto took the opportunity to beat up on villains, no, he was quite proud of that, but he hadn’t appreciated the news that he hadn’t employed his fire even once. He had plenty to say on that front. Waste of energy, waste of potential, waste of time, waste of space. The usual. 

He had redoubled his efforts to get Shoto to use his fire at home, but he hadn’t broken yet. No, he hadn’t broken until he had looked into the eyes of Midoriya and suddenly been compelled. Was it who Midoriya was that had startled Shoto into using it, or was it what he represented? 

Shoto looked across the field, his eyes easily landing on Midoriya. He was still on his knees from the rough landing, now loudly crying in relief while Uraraka comforted him with a hand on his back. Shoto was astounded by the display of emotions. If he wept, for any reason, on a public stage then his father would have his head. Stop embarrassing me, he’d say, how will you ever be on top with that pathetic whining? 

“Do you want to get lunch with us, Todoroki?” He tore his eyes away from Midoriya to see Iida behind him, smiling kindly with his glasses pushed up onto his head, a drop of sweat from his brow. It wasn’t surprising, he had been handling the bulk of Shoto’s weight. Strong as well as fast. Shoto admired his work ethic. 

He pushes down the slight urge in his chest to say yes. He didn’t need friends. He didn’t need bleeding hearts in his business. He didn’t need his father disapproving of them and making a scene. 

He turned away from Iida, shrugging in a way he hoped would be perceived as apologetic, “I have to meditate, before the brackets start.” 

“You’re so focused, man, it’s impressive!” Kaminari laughed, walking over, “I can barely-” 

He brought his hand down, and Shoto instinctively flinched, stepping away from it. It sailed harmlessly by, the intent to land on his shoulder in a friendly manner occurring to Shoto only after he was receiving confused looks from his teammates over his defensively raised arm. 

“Oh, sorry,” Shoto forced his arms by his sides, face flushing in embarrassment as he looked away from it, “still in… still in battle mode, I guess.” 

“Yeah, sure man. My bad,” Kaminari said, his smile bogged down into a half-grimace by the look of concern on his face. Shoto hated it. Hated that he couldn’t control himself. 

Shoto turned, trying to get to one of the exits as fast as possible without running. He ignores Midnight announcing the optional games in the lunch break, slipping into one of the archways and disappearing into the arena’s underbelly. None of the faculty and security milling about pay him much mind, thankfully, so it isn’t long until he’s able to get a good distance away from the far away sounds of his classmates laughing or bemoaning their loss, all of them headed to the lunchroom to prepare for the upcoming brackets, be it to fight or cheer on their advancing classmates. His fought with himself over whether or not he wished he could join them or if he was grateful to have a few moments alone. 

He found one of the rooms marked ‘students’ in green lettering, the way faculty let them know which lounges they were free to bum around and which were for the adults. Shoto opened the door, looking inside and breathing a sigh of relief that it was empty. More relief filled him when he saw a small snack bar. At least he wouldn’t go hungry. 

He swiped an apple off the tray, sitting down at a plain wooden table by himself as he began to eat. He never ate too much before a fight, anyways, so this would be fine. He would just sit here and eat and meditate. 

He heard the sounds of Yaoyorozu and Iida laughing in the hall, their voices growing fainter as they went further down the halls. 

Shoto frowned. 

He imagined, briefly, what it might be like. The whole ‘friends’ thing. The main thing he could figure was that it was loud. Whenever he saw people hanging out, it was typically a loud affair. Laughing and yelling. Sometimes he laughed with his siblings, but never for long. He knew their age difference might have something to do with it, but Shoto couldn’t help but think they didn’t like him very much. Fuyumi was always around, but usually busy with cooking or her lesson plans. She always asked him about his day, but her eyes took on a pained quality that Shoto couldn’t figure out the reason behind every time she looked at him. Natsuo was less present, only appearing once every few months since he had started college. He still sent Shoto Christmas and birthday presents, but every year they got vaguer, further away from his tastes. Lack of effort, or lack of knowledge? Shoto wasn’t sure what would bother him more. 

But siblings didn’t have to be his friends. No one had to like him. It would just be nice if someone did. Maybe someone he could train with, or get food with, if that was a thing people did with their friends. Though Shoto also couldn’t begin to imagine how to make one, even if he wanted to. 

Because he doesn’t want to, not really. Well, he knows that he can’t. It wasn’t worth it to imagine what he might want. An impossible wish was just a regret waiting to happen. Shoto was fine alone. It was the right thing to do. It was the right thing to do and he was happy doing it. 

Shoto looked down at the apple in his right hand, noticing his grip on it was so tight that his thumb had dug into a bruise on the side of it, the red skin splitting under the force until ripe juice trailed down his thumb, the flesh gathering under his thumb. His other fingers dug in, too, and there were four neat crescent marks where his nails had dug into the surface of the apple. Frost crept up the apple, a thin white shell coating the parts he couldn’t reach. His grip was so tight it sent an ache of pain up his arm, which then led him to realize his chest was painfully tight, rapidly rising and falling in a way that suggested he was hyperventilating. 

Shoto didn’t feel like he was hyperventilating. He didn’t feel like anything at all. Just a kind of hollow he had come to consider comforting, and the feeling of apple digging under his nails. 

He took in a deep breath the way Fuyumi taught him too. A hard, slow breath in through his nose, and a slow breath out of his mouth. She always made him breathe that way whenever he got that hollow feeling. Somehow, she could always tell. Sometimes she’d touch her hand to his shoulder, and it was always icy cold the way his mother’s hands used to be. Even without the warmth, the cool pressure of her fingers through the fabric of his shirt always seemed to do more than the breathing. 

Shoto put his own hand on his shoulder, the one not squeezing the apple. His left hand grabbed his right shoulder, pressing down against the thick fabric of the UA tracksuit as he tried to emulate that feeling. It wasn’t working. It didn’t feel like anything when he was the one doing it. Besides, it was all wrong to feel like his mother or Fuyumi. His hand was too large, too spindly, too warm. Not good enough. 

He’s still trying to get his breathing in order when a loud, authoritative voice makes him flinch again. 

“Did you choke on that apple, boy? Calm down.” 

The sound of his father’s voice makes Shoto flinch. He turned quickly, the apple tumbling from his numb fingers and rolling across the floor until it hit his father’s boot. He leaned down in a motion too graceful for a man of his size, picking up the bruised fruit, the apple dwarfed by the size of his hand. He examined it, raising a brow at Shoto. 

“Is this all you’re going to have?” 

Defensiveness rears to life in Shoto’s throat, and he just barely manages to suppress the sound. It’s just a question. It’s not an attack. But he couldn’t believe that. Everything was an attack from him. Everything is a critique, a reprimand, a chastisement, a shout.  

“I’m a little nauseous,” he says, in lieu of a response. Non-answers were safest. Things he could amend or expand upon if he had gauged what response his father wanted to hear wrong. 

His father frowned, squeezing the apple until it lit, and then it was ashes a moment later. Considered and discarded, as was his method. 

“More than nauseous. Your nerves are getting the better of you, Shoto.” 

“I’m not nervous,” Shoto lies. 

“Really? Because I think you are. You’ve bent so quickly to using your fire, after all. You’ve used it twice today,” his father takes a step closer, and it’s all Shoto can do to not scramble further away from him. 

“Twice?” he asked, looking back toward the buffet like he might have the stomach to try and eat something else. “I only used it once, during the calvary.” 

“Then what would you call that little number on your shirt?” 

Shoto looked at his shoulder, seeing his shirt sleeve smoldering where he had held it in his left hand. Enough of it had burned away that there was a sliver of pale flesh visible, marred by a small purple bruise. Shoto couldn’t even remember how he had gotten it, but there was the instinctual urge to cover it anyway. A bruise was a weakness. A bruise was a blow he couldn’t dodge. 

“An accident,” Shoto brushed it off. 

“Well, you should go and get a new one before the brackets start. Appearance is a good fifteen percent of hero work, you know,” his father thankfully drops the subject easily, going into a lecture. 

“I will,” he nodded, picking at the cuticles of his left hand. It was still hot, and his palm smoked lazily, curling up in the air as the remnants of fabric in his hand burnt up. “I’ll go do it now.” 

He tries to leave with that, hoping wherever the replacement uniforms were would afford him enough privacy to spend the rest of the waiting period alone. As he brushes past, a heavy hand lands on his shoulder, a too-hot finger landing on the bare skin of his shoulder and making him hiss as he holds back a flinch. 

“I didn’t dismiss you, boy,” his father’s voice rumbled, and Shoto looked back up at him with wide eyes, “You’re going to stop being ridiculous about your left side, right?” 

“I thought you said I could do what I wanted,” Shoto said slowly, trying to think back to their last fight where he had shouted at his father that he didn’t want his power. He had seemed to chalk it up to teenage rebellion and hadn’t done anything at the time. Was this the other shoe dropping? 

“Well you can do whatever you want within reason. These silly little exercises that UA does are your business, but the sports festival is a world stage. If you lose this festival, especially because you refuse to use the bulk of your power in some misguided attempt to paint me as the bad guy, then well….” Shoto’s face fell at the tone in his voice. “Well, I don’t know what I’d do with you.”

“I won’t-” 

The door slammed open again, and Shoto blinked as he looked at the wide eyes of Midoriya. 

“Wh-?” 

“There you are, Todoroki! Mr. Aizawa has been looking for you everywhere!” He says, his voice animated and cartoony in a way that even Shoto could tell was fake. “He says it’s very urgent!” 

“We’re in the middle of something, you brat. Didn’t your father teach you any manners?” Shoto’s father asked, irritated but loosening his hold on Shoto’s shoulder. 

“More than yours taught you. I just said it was urgent.” 

Shoto nearly choked, a disbelieving laugh escaping him as his jaw dropped at Midoriya’s words. His father looked like he had just been spit on. 

“Come on, he said it was reeeeeally important. Like, now ,” he dragged out the syllables on ‘now,’ gesturing over his shoulder with a thumb. 

Shoto looked back up at his father, who grumbled and released his shoulder. Shoto fled as fast as he could out of the room, following Midoriya. They walked in silence through sparsely populated halls, Midoriya whistling a merry tune that echoed both in the concrete halls and also in Shoto’s skull. He had never seen someone disrespect his father so…so easily. It hadn’t seemed possible two minutes ago. 

“Where are we going?” Shoto asked, once they had done an entire lap of the arena and ascended one floor. 

“Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t seen Mr. Aizawa all day,” Midoriya shrugged, “but I think the closet full of extra jackets is around here somewhere…” 

“Wait,” Shoto stopped in the hall, face in a half grimace as he watched Midoriya stop in front of him, turning back with an expression that was suddenly much more serious than it was before, “how much of me and my father’s conversation did you hear?” 

“All of it?” Midoriya said, voice more a question while marred with a tone just a touch too self-assured to qualify as guilt. “I wanted an autograph, and then after that I was worried.” 

“So you…” Shoto tried to remember anything that had been said, anything that might have been damning. How did normal father-son duos communicate? 

“Is everything alright with your home life, Todoroki?” Midoriya asked once the silence had stretched. 

“That’s not your business,” he snaps on instinct. 

“You're right. It isn’t,” Midoriya agrees with him, “but I’m still asking.” 

“Why?” 

“Call me nosy.” 

“Why do you care?” Shoto amends. “We were just… we were just talking. He’s got a bit of a harsh voice, but that’s just how he sounds.” 

Midoriya doesn’t look convinced. He shifts from foot to foot, reaching up to play with the collar of his tracksuit as he takes in a deep breath, his green eyes focusing back on Shoto. 

“Listen, Todoroki.. I know this isn’t my business, but I heard and I just can’t let it go without making sure you’re okay. Me and my dad don’t get along either, you know, so I totally get it. He’s… I kind of know what it’s like, having your dad be lauded as this great guy but in reality, he’s totally an ass. The resentment that can bubble up, the wanting to hide it because of embarrassment, I’ve been there. I know what it’s like,” his voice is painfully earnest, and his gaze is full of more empathy than Shoto felt like he had been given in years. 

“Wow, Midoriya,” his breath came out shaky, “I had no idea All Might was like that.” 

“Ye- Hwha?” Midoriya makes a confused little sound. Shoto could understand it. He probably didn’t understand how poorly they were hiding that. 

Shoto had figured it out very quickly. Midoriya’s fighting style being so similar to All Might’s, the way they took lunch together, and the fact that he was often seen before and after school with the hero’s secretary didn’t leave many explanations. Especially given that after the USJ attack, All Might had been allowed to sign Midoriya out as opposed to every other student who needed to be picked up by a family member. Obviously, they were related and Midoriya just didn’t want people thinking he only got into the school because of nepotism. Shoto didn’t blame him for that. If Endeavor had been one of those heroes who opted to keep their name private, he would have jumped at the chance for his parentage to remain unknown to the school. Less pressure that way. 

“We- uh. No. You have the wrong idea about that,” Midoriya shook his head and Shoto narrowed his eyes and frowned. “No, I promise. I wish my dad was All Might, honestly. My dad- my dad is just a deadbeat. I did know All Might before the school year started, but it wasn’t because he’s my dad.” 

Understanding dawned on Shoto, “Oh, so you’re his successor, then?” 

Midoriya shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, and Shoto knew he had hit gold. So, the kid idea was wrong. Whatever. The core idea of it was still right, which was that Midoriya represented All Might. The reason why Shoto had been so desperate to beat him in the cavalry that he had even employed fire was because Midoriya was All Might’s chosen successor, which meant he was the one person Shoto needed to beat. More than anyone else, it was Midoriya. If Shoto beat him, then he might have a leg to stand on. 

“Midoriya, did you know that my father has never once been number one?” Shoto asked him. 

Midoriya nodded, an uncertain look on his face, “Yeah. He debuted after All Might, and All Might has never been below the top ranking. There was never a chance for him to be number one.” 

“Yeah, that’s right. He’s never been better than All Might. He never will be, either. Now that All Might is aging, now that he has a successor, it’s going to be sooner rather than later he retires. Even if my father becomes number one after that, it will only be because All Might retired. The public will never view him as someone who earned it. No matter what he does, his lasting legacy will be that of the number two hero.” 

“I guess that’s true,” Midoriya frowned, “but what’s your point?” 

“Do you know what a quirk marriage is, Midoriya?” Shoto needed to get this out to someone. He needed, even if it wasn’t a friend, for someone to know his problem. Since Midoriya had already gotten himself involved, he was the ideal person. 

“I do. Two people marry to have a kid with a powerful quirk. It’s illegal, though.” 

“Not if you’re powerful enough, or sneaky enough, or rich enough. All three of which my father was. My father married my mother to create what he predicted would be the ‘perfect’ quirk. He made three imperfect drafts, my siblings, before he got to me. I am the result of years of effort on my father’s part to engineer the best quirk in the world,” Shoto told Midoriya, tracking every movement of his face. It was blank right now, but the rising horror in his eyes was hard to miss. Midoriya wore every emotion on his sleeve.

“Shoto…” Midoriya’s soft voice isn’t enough. It was coming out. Shoto couldn’t stop it now. Years of resentment poured out of his mouth in a messy slew of too much. 

 “Just creating the quirk wasn’t enough, though. He needed to hone it. Train it. Every day since I was old enough to walk, I’ve been trained. He would do anything to turn me into a hero. He’s gone so far that my elder brother died, burned alive while trying to prove his mettle. My mother went insane, leaving me with this.” 

Shoto put his hand up to his scar, running his thumb along the scarring, the skin was waxy and taut after years of different therapies to reduce its visibility. They hadn’t worked. If the boiling water hadn’t been enough, his mother’s panicked and misguided attempt to freeze the skin had solidified the severity of the injury. 

“Why are you telling me this?” Midoriya asked him, his voice faltering and weak. 

“Because I want to prove to him that I can be a hero on my terms, not his. I can become a hero without ever using the half of my quirk that comes from him. I can be a hero with just my mother’s genetics,” Shoto told him, “and the way to prove that to him now is to beat you.” 

“Beat me?” Midoriya seemed to have already caught on to his meaning. 

“The way I see it, and the way he’ll see it, is that you represent the number one of the next generation as All Might’s protege. If I beat you, it’s symbolically me taking the number one position of the current generation. If I beat you without his fire, then I prove my point even faster,” Shoto said, “that’s just the way it has to be.” 

It’s silent for a long time. This hall is deserted, the faint sounds of the still-roaring crowd outside the only noise between them. Midoriya looked at Shoto like he was a mystery, a puzzle he needed to solve. Shoto could admire that he was problem-solving, even now. 

“His fire, huh?” Midoriya asked softly, finally speaking, “What makes it his?” 

Shoto frowned. “Were you even listening? His gen-” 

“Yeah. His genetics. His genes. But it isn’t his fire. It’s your fire. You make it, and you decide how to use it,” Midoriya says, taking a step forward, “Why should you just…just give a part of yourself to him just because he has half of the same quirk?” 

Shoto’s stomach does an unhappy flip, turning at Midoriya’s words. What did he mean by that? Shoto tried to avoid thinking about it. 

“You shouldn’t have to prove anything to him, Todoroki,” Midoriya insisted, “and if he’s hurting you, then you can tell someone. You don’t have to play these games with him. Come with me, and we can go talk to-” 

Oh, Shoto got it. He thought this was something solvable. He still saw a way out of this. He didn’t understand, not like Shoto did. Normally he wouldn’t feel the need to explain himself, but Shoto couldn’t let this sit. Bleeding hearts could wreak so much havoc. 

He took a step back from Midoriya, leaning back against the concrete of the wall. Midoriya frowned in frustration at the retreat, but followed his motion, leaning against the opposite wall, his arms crossed over his chest as he still leveled Shoto with that analyzing look.

“Have you ever heard of the trolley problem, Midoriya?” he asked, tilting his head. 

“I have. It’s an ethical dilemma,” he nodded. 

“And what would you do, if you were in the trolley problem?” 

“I’d pull the lever,” Midoriya says, “but that’s what you’re supposed to do. It’s so easy that lots of ethics classes don’t even use it anymore.” 

“Right. It takes out that level of personal stakes. But you understand that in most ethical dilemmas, the right thing to do is to save the most amount of lives?” 

Midoriya nodded hesitantly. 

“Did you know, Midoriya, that my father saved the lives of ten thousand people last year?” Shoto asked. “Ten thousand people would have been dead if not for my father, according to his official hero stats. Ten thousand. Last year was actually slow for him because normally he averages eleven thousand. He’s a good hero. A really good hero.” 

“So that means he shouldn’t be held responsible when he does something wrong?” Midoriya’s challenge is weak, and they both know it. 

“If I turn my father in for the abuse, he’ll lose his license at minimum. If I get put into my sister’s custody I’ll be safe, and I’ll be a normal teenager again, but there will be thousands of people who will die because he wasn’t around. He’s still in his prime, too, so he’d probably work and average those numbers for a few more years. Ten thousand. Twenty thousand. Thirty thousand. Even if he can only maintain his current stats for five more years, that’s a rough estimate of fifty thousand people who might die if he’s not around. Fifty thousand people, versus one kid with a shitty home life.”

Shoto pushed off the wall, walking over until he was barely a foot away from Midoriya, the shorter boy looking nauseous and horrified and a thousand other things all at once. He looked at Shoto with empathy leaking out of his body like blood from a wound. 

“I’m not asking you if it’s right or wrong, Midoriya, I’m asking you if it’s logical. Once you’ve had a nice, hard look inside, there’s only one thing you have to ask yourself,” he said, voice so soft even he could barely hear it, “Are you going to pull the lever?” 

The buzzer rang, signaling everyone needed to get ready for the brackets to start. Shoto pulled back, sighing as he looked over his shoulder down the hall. 

“I need to go find a new jacket. Good luck in the brackets, Midoriya,” he said casually, waving, “I hope we get to fight.” 

He turned down the hall, intent on retracing his steps to the first floor and finding a teacher to ask about a new jacket. Just as he’s almost around the corner, he hears Midoriya shout. 

“Todoroki, wait!” 

Shoto looked behind himself, seeing Midoriya staring him down with a determined grimace. 

“If you’re going to beat me,” he says, chest heaving, “You need to give it your all. I’m not going to lose to someone half-assing it.” 

Shoto’s eyes widened, but he couldn’t respond before Midoriya turned and left down the other end of the hall, leaving him by himself, mouth slightly agape before he took in a deep breath. Shoto couldn’t focus on him right now. He had to focus on himself. 

Ethical dilemma or not, he would win today. Of that, he was certain. 

Chapter Text

The crowds of the Sports Festival were much more intimidating than Momo had given them credit for at first. Previously, she would have just thought of it as a speech she was giving or at a ball she was attending, but more crowded. Now, though, it was becoming very clear that these people thrived on misery.

Like the coliseum of ancient Rome, the crowd cheered for the victory of its favored gladiator in what seemed to be equal measure for the downfall of their chosen enemy. Every new body hitting the ground, every hand tapping out, every surrender, was met with voracious energy from the crowd as they trilled and cheered. Momo could tell what they wanted very early on. They wanted power. The flashier the quirk that got through, the more delight emanated. Every new contender that got put through either met with cheers and chants or boos and bereavement, all based on how good of a show they could provide in their next match-up. 

This pattern did not bode well for Momo. 

She had already figured out the pattern by the time Tokoyami and Iida had started their battle. The first matchup, Shinso and Izuku, was her first hint. Two people fighting with little to no actual quirk usage, or at least visible quirk usage. Even when the match was finished by Izuku using that beautifully executed flip, they didn’t cheer. Merely grumbled or clapped begrudgingly. Then there was the Uraraka and Bakugou fight. The crowd had gone wild over that one, even with the brief incident of Bakugou being perceived as a bully/misogynist/villain. Kaminari and Shiozaki’s fight had really cemented the pattern for her. Despite the fact that Shiozaki won easily, the crowd seemed disappointed that Kaminari hadn’t gone through. Momo had ascertained it was because despite the fact that Shiozaki was the better strategist, Kaminari had the flashier quirk. The Ashido/Hatsume fight followed the same pattern, and Momo could hear the crowds shouting support for Tokoyami and Dark Shadow’s skillful showing. 

So which side would the crowd favor in her fight? 

She knew it didn’t technically matter. The crowd’s opinion had nothing to do with how the fight actually turned out, and a lack of support didn’t necessarily suggest defeat was imminent. Besides, it’s not like her opponent had a particularly flashy quirk. Just a troublesome one. A really troublesome one. Almost a quirk as troublesome as the wielder. 

When the first round of fights was announced, Momo had already made a mental list of who she knew she could beat, who would require a fair bit of strategy, and who she’d need a small miracle to beat. When she declared she planned on winning the festival she knew she’d have to be prepared for anything, but there was something particularly insulting about one of her worst-case scenarios happening. 

Kanzaki getting through the race had been irritating. Kanzaki teaming up with Shinso and getting through the calvary race, that was worse. Objectively Momo knew that Kanzaki had some level of skill, but it was another thing entirely to see her fight and strategize so…so effortlessly. That skill combined with her fixation on proving that Momo was some kind of a fraud, well…. 

Having them be paired up in the very first fight was doing terrible things for Momo’s nerves. 

“Nervous?” Momo looked over at the sound of Izuku’s voice, seeing him lingering in the doorway of the small lounge she had been sitting in. It was a nice, cozy one with a comfortable couch and a long table filled with various fruits. Though some had left a pile of ash on the floor near the doorway. Rude. 

“Yes,” Momo admitted, waving him over. The room was empty save for Shiozaki in the corner of the room praying. 

Izuku came and sat on the couch beside her, not looking any different from before his fight with Shinso, though he still had the troubled furrow in his brow that Momo had noticed before the brackets officially started. Momo would assume it’s because his next scheduled opponent was Bakugou, but he looked that way before the first brackets even got announced. Something else was bothering him, but Momo didn’t have the time or energy to ask him about it. She needed to be focused if she had any chance of winning the sports festival and getting to stay in the hero program. 

“I could tell her that her eyeliner is uneven before the fight. Might throw her off her game,” Izuku suggested lightly. 

Momo laughed despite her nerves. It did sound like the kind of thing that would distract Kanzaki. 

“More efficient to tell her she’s got something in her teeth. Then maybe she won’t have the chance to use her quirk because she’ll be too worried to open her mouth,” Momo mused. She tried to think of a strategy. Maybe she could tape her mouth shut? She’d have to be quick if she went with that strategy. 

They lapsed into silence as Momo tried to think of a strategy. It was hard when every glance at the TV in the corner showed Tokoyami and Iida getting closer and closer to the match ending. Momo could hardly even begin to think of what to do when every new idea was immediately quashed by her heart leaping into her chest at the thought that the match on screen was about to end and she had such limited time before it was time to face Kanzaki. Once the fight was called, it was three minutes until she needed to be on the field. Three minutes. 

Momo tried to calm herself. Kanzaki was hardly the most fearsome opponent. Without their history making things personal, Momo would have even put her in the ‘easy to moderate’ category! A basic enhancement quirk that relied on her to be able to speak. There were dozens upon dozens of strategies to deal with something like that, most of which were readily available with the use of Momo’s quirk! She truly had nothing to worry about! 

So why couldn’t she shake the feeling of anxiety? 

It had to just be that if she lost, then she lost her shot at the hero course. If she couldn’t prove to her parents that she deserved her chance in the hero course, then she would likely be forced into General Studies, or even back into EAMU. For everyone else, this might have just been about getting a good internship or getting some camera time, but for Momo this was about her future. Failure simply wasn’t an option. Yes, that was it. She’d be this nervous with anyone. It had nothing to do with Kanzaki. She was just too in her own head about it. 

She’d calm down, think of a good strategy, and then boom, she’d win. Then she’d win the next match, then the next, and then she’d advance to the finals and she’d win that too and voila: first place! It was a very simple, very easy-to-follow strategy. Winning those matches would only be a matter of coming up with a very good plan. Momo was great at coming up with plans, so this would be easy. All she needed to do was think about the match. She just needed to think about the match and not concern herself with all of the ways this could go wrong. All she had to do was think of a way to beat Kanzaki, and not about the fact that Iida looked very on the ropes and his fight would be over soon. Just think about how to fight Kanzaki, and not about how if she failed she might lose her shot as a hero forever. She just needed to concern herself with a plan of attack about Kanzaki and not about how she might fail in front of everyone, proving Kanzaki right that she was nothing more than a pretty little rich girl. She just needed to think. She just needed to think. She just needed to- 

“Momo Yaoyorozu to the arena. Momo Yaoyorozu to the Arena.” 

The intercoms blared. Momo looked to the screen in horror, seeing Tokoyami helping an out-of-bounds Iida stand up from the ground. The fight was over. Momo had three minutes. Three minutes to get up, get to the arena, and come up with a strategy. That was fine! Plenty of pros came up with plans in way less than three minutes! Though in the time it took Momo to think that, she had wasted ten seconds. No big. Two minutes and fifty seconds was plenty of time, too. How much of a difference could ten seconds make? It took her eight to consider that. Two minutes and forty-two seconds. Five seconds as she realized how much time she was wasting. Three seconds to try and snap out of that thought train. One second. She just needed one second to think. 

“Momo,” Izuku’s voice was static in her ear. No, not static. That was the wrong word. That implied a kind of sharpness his muffled voice just didn’t have. Fuzzy? Thick? Like he was trying to say something from underwater. “Momo!” 

“What?” she asked. Her voice had the same watery quality she still couldn’t properly explain. Kind of like her voice was coming from inside of her own head. 

“Momo, aren’t you gonna get up? They just called your name!” Izuku’s hazy voice was quiet in her ear, and her skin felt thick and tough where his hand touched her shoulder. Numb. Pins and needles. 

“Yes, the fight. I’m ready to fight,” Momo heard the words, though she couldn’t remember speaking them. She couldn’t remember standing up, either, but she found herself in the wide hallway that led to the arena a half-second later. The timespan of a blink. 

Another blink and she was on the field, standing on the white line that marked her entrance spot as she stared at Kanzaki on the other end. The sunlight was in Momo’s eyes, and even when she squinted she couldn’t quite make out Kanzaki’s face. How was that fair? The sun was in her eyes. Kanzaki didn’t have the sun in her eyes. If only the sun wasn’t in her eyes, then Momo might have a moment to think. She might have a moment to come up with a plan. Yes, if only the sun wasn’t in her eyes. She turned to ask Midnight to switch positions, but her head pounded as Present Mic’s loud voice ricocheted throughout the stadium. 

“Yukiko Kanzaki! Her quirk: Haiku! Kanzaki can give herself a variety of groovy physical enhancements as long as she can articulate them in a traditional haiku-style poem. So cool!” 

Too loud, Momo wanted to complain, too loud by far. How am I meant to come up with a strategy? And why would he shout that? I already know Kanzaki’s quirk. Of course, I know her quirk. It’s how I’m going to come up with my plan to defeat her. I’m going to come up with my plan by exploiting her quirk. I just can’t let her speak. 

Momo was still thinking that when Kanzaki smirked, her face was painfully bright to look at in the sunlight. She opened her mouth, and her words seemed delayed a second behind the movement of her lips. 

“ The river flows through

Oh, quick and quiet as the stream

Silent and swift as me ” 

Unfair, Momo thought with a frown, the bell hasn’t rung yet. How can she give a haiku before the bell rings? That’s not fair. The bell hasn’t rung. 

“Are you even going to move?” In the time it took Momo to blink, Kanzaki was now in front of her. The haiku gave her speed. How had Momo not realized that? That was so easy. All of Kanzaki’s haiku were bad, elementary and easy to parse out what they were doing. She’d be more skillful in disguising her language. Momo would never make a mistake like that. She’d have a plan.  “Or are you too concerned with how you might look if you try and break a sweat?” 

Momo let out a frightened squeak, everything coming into terrifying crystal clear quality. Suddenly the roaring of the crowd was in her ears, and she could see the timer on the jumbotron showing how long the fight had been going on. Two seconds. That quirk really had made Kanzaki fast. It was still painfully bright, and the noise and sights of everything spiked pain into Momo’s already mounting headache, her eyes clenching shut as she took a step back. A sword. She needed a sword. Kanzaki was fast, but she had no combat training. If Momo could produce a sword or a rope, then she could beat Kanzaki, she could- 

“Yaoyorozu is out of bounds!” Midnight’s authoritative voice rang in Momo’s head, and she looked in shock at the teacher as she raised the red flag, “Kanzaki wins!” 

“What? I didn’t-!” Momo looked back. The step back she had taken to produce the sword. She had never moved from her starting point, so her step back put her foot out of bounds. Momo had stepped out of bounds within the first three seconds. 

Kanzaki hadn’t even touched her, and Momo had lost. 

Momo looked up at the jumbotron, her own defeated face staring at her. And the sun was still in her eyes. 

Chapter Text

It was a universally acknowledged truth that Katsuki could do anything he put his mind to. Well, maybe not universally acknowledged, but certainly a truth.

Katsuki didn’t give up. It wasn’t something he did. Giving up implied some level of laziness or lack of willpower, things that would never in a million years describe Katsuki. He was strong, determined, and he worked harder than any of the other lame nerds his age who wanted to be heroes. If he wanted to do something, he worked for it. Katsuki wouldn’t give up after a week of no progress. He wouldn’t give up after a bad grade on a test. He wouldn’t give up after an ankle sprain benches him for two weeks. He doesn’t do that because he knows that achieving your dreams means hard work, and a fucking lot of it. So no, Katsuki never gave up. 

But it was really hard to tell himself that when he was working up the nerve to go tell Midnight he needed to forfeit. 

This wasn’t giving up, to be perfectly clear! No way. Once again, giving up meant he was lazy or bored or some other equally shitty excuse. This was… this was a tactical retreat. Yes. That’s exactly how one could phrase it. Katsuki was tactically retreating. Nothing wrong with that. Besides, Katsuki would like to see any of the other nerds in his class not retreat when the only path forward involved beating up the one person who you had very much been warned not to touch by a quirk-snatching ghoul on live television. That was just plain inadvisable. 

There wasn’t much more confirmation Katsuki could get that his dequirkening had something to do with Midoriya directly. At first that had been something he believed but understood the far-fetched-ness of, but now it was damn undeniable. The mist villain who Katsuki could remember the sound and sight of knew his name and both knew Midoriya’s name and wanted to protect him. If that wasn’t sufficient evidence, Katsuki wasn’t sure what could be. He had come around on Midoriya having no involvement from his perspective though, especially after his talk with Toshinori where an adult with power took his theory seriously for the first time. Whoever did it knew Midoriya, but Midoriya either didn’t know them or didn’t know what they were doing. At that point, Katsuki didn’t even need Yukiko to tell him that it wasn’t Midoriya’s fault. Though for some reason, Katsuki hadn’t even wanted to blame Midoriya. If anything, he wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery. 

But he couldn’t start his investigation if he was found dead after kicking Midoriya’s ass on live television. 

When he saw Midoriya’s name on the brackets, he had hoped they would be on entirely opposite sides and the bird dude or Icyhot or any of the other extras would get him out before him and Katsuki fighting ever got anywhere near the realm of possibility. Unfortunately, the world seemed to be out to get him these days. Midoriya was only one spot away from him on the brackets, fighting some nameless dude from the general course that Katsuki hadn’t bothered to learn about beyond the fact that he had ridiculously tall hair. 

So, Katsuki prayed. He prayed that the nameless dude had a quirk called ‘instasleep’ or some shit where he could just command Midoriya to pass out on the spot. The fight had been before him and cheeks’ fight, but he purposefully avoided looking at the results. No need to let that fight affect his. He won that fight, though he couldn’t claim it had been easy. His chubby-cheeked opponent was just as dangerous as Katsuki had predicted, and if he hadn’t taken the fight so seriously from the get-go there was no doubt in his mind he would have lost. It did suck catching villain allegations for ten minutes straight, but at least Mr. Aizawa had stood up for him. Not that he cared about how the public viewed him, but still. 

The point is he won that fight. He won that fight and he looked cool as hell doing it. But after winning that fight, he was forced to face the brutal truth: Midoriya had won his fight, too. That meant his next opponent was Katsuki. 

He tried to think of alternate strategies. Anything that didn’t involve just forfeiting his position. Could he get Midoriya out of bounds without touching or hurting him? What if he just hurt him a little? Would a bruise on the upper arm and back from a judo flip cross that line? Or maybe the sports festival just wouldn’t count toward the ‘don’t hurt Midoriya’ mystery rule, since it was a voluntary sporting event. Surely not every competitor Midoriya faced today would have to worry about retribution? Or maybe the rule was just specific to Katsuki for some reason. (Well, not ‘some reason,’ Katsuki can acknowledge the childhood bullying is a modifier that matters.) Even if Katsuki managed to get Midoriya out of bounds without harming him, was it still a foul if he just beat him in the game? That didn’t seem fair. Though then again, Katsuki hardly thought whoever the quirk snatcher was would be a fair person. 

So his only option was to tactically retreat. Big deal. It was just some school competition. There would be others. There would be… 

This fucking sucked. 

Really, the only reason Katsuki was delaying now was because he was trying to figure out how to do this in the way that would attract the least amount of attention. If only he could go jump off of a tree and sprain his own ankle. That’d be a good strategy if recovery girl wasn’t ever-lurking. Katsuki never imagined his stay at UA including him wishing for a more permanent way to harm himself, but life was full of shitty little surprises like that. 

He sat in one of the many lounges that were available to the competing students. Thankfully he managed to find an empty one, but some janitor really wasn’t doing their job because a pile of ash was smeared all around the door like people had been walking on top of it. So gross. But he really didn’t want to move to another lounge and risk running into someone. He just wanted a few minutes of trying to delude himself into thinking that this retreat wouldn’t affect his reputation at all.

His phone buzzed with a notification from his mom, asking him how things were going. She and Katsuki’s dad were here, but obviously only allowed in the stands and concessions area. Briefly, Katsuki considered if she could get him out of this. Fake an emergency. Maybe she could pretend to have a seizure. Surely a family emergency was a way to get out of this without social consequence? Though knowing her, she’d insist he face his problems head on. Katsuki knew she still didn’t quite buy into the conspiracy thing, too. Still clinging to the hope it was a weird medical fluke and a child’s overactive information rather than an indicator her son had been the target of a villain attack. 

“Fuck me…” Katsuki muttered, rubbing a hand over his eyes. All that work against cheeks and now he was about to forfeit anyways. If it was always gonna end up here, maybe he should have just let her win. At least that way one of them could get some mileage out of this. 

“Oh, there you are!’ A loud and excited voice sounded to his left, and Katsuki removed his hand from his eyes to look over at the doorway, seeing Present Mic standing there. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, cool cat! I wanted to know if your quirk can be described more as ‘coolly combustive’ or ‘energetically explosive-’” 

“Uh, explosion. There’s not enough force behind combustion for my quirk to qualify as it,” Katsuki explains, “though you could also call it detonation-” 

“Dazzlingly detonating, perfect! You have a real talent, kid!” Present Mic grinned, “Hey, if you don’t get all kinds of crazy cool internship offers, you could intern with me at the radio station-” 

“Present Mic, is there a reason a student might get disqualified from the brackets?” Katsuki realized abruptly that there was a teacher in front of him, one who might have slightly more knowledge on what to do. 

“Huh? Like, disqualified as in can’t compete? Why’d you want to know that?” Present Mic asked in confusion, deflating slightly from his energetic persona to raise an eyebrow, looking over his skinny, impractical sunglasses. 

“Humor me. What could get someone disqualified?” Katsuki stood up, crossing his arms to show he was serious. He needed to do this quickly. If Present Mic was roaming around outside of the MC booth, then they were in the fifteen minute break that was to take place after the first round of fights. Him and Midoriya were first up after the break. 

“Well, not much. Unsportsmanlike conduct with other competitors, cheating, and disciplinary infractions are all I can really think of,” Present Mic says, counting on his fingers. 

“So, any disciplinary infraction? Normal rules like in school?” Katsuki asked, nodding to himself. Okay, that was easy. He risked ten of those a day on a normal day. 

“Yeah, I guess, but that’s never happened before,” Present Mic frowned. He looked at Katsuki for a long while, seemingly looking for something, “but you know, people get disqualified more often for just being unreachable.” 

“What do you mean?” Katsuki asked, broken out of his thoughts from thinking of what he could do that would get him DQ’d but that wouldn’t carry over into his disciplinary record. 

“I’m just sayin’ it happens to lots of kids. They need a breather, go out of the arena to take a walk around the grounds, and don’t realize it’s time for their fight. We can’t find em’ and just have to go on to the next fight and declare the present kid the winner. Even happened to me in my second year,” the voice hero shrugs casually. “So if you do decide to go on a walk, just keep an eye on the clock. It’s a beautiful day for it.” 

Katsuki watches as the voice hero leaves. He narrows his eyes at his retreating form. Well, that was…interesting. The voice hero had clearly picked up on what Katsuki wanted to do, but he hadn’t intervened or tried to change his mind. Katsuki had half-expected a boring adult lecture on facing your problems head on. Instead, he was given a practical solution and plausible deniability. Sure, Katsuki would look a little irresponsible, but that was easier to recover from than a cowardly label. 

He takes in a deep breath, taking his phone out of his pocket and laying it face-down on the table beside the couch. No one could claim he hadn’t answered any calls. Katsuki would be disqualified from the sports festival, and it would be written off as an accident. 

Then that would be all. 

Katsuki managed to get to an exit without any one of notice spotting him or clocking the way his head was low and his shoulders slumped in silent defeat. He slips out of a back exit quiet as a mouse, shrugging past the crowds of people who couldn’t get a seat and now camp out with radios and small screens displaying odds and commentary. Katsuki’s heart constricts again when he sees he was one of the favorites to win. Of course he’d be. He was just that great. But it still hurts. 

Even after rationalizing for an hour, it still felt shitty to go out this way. He knew he had no other choice, he knew this was the only safe option, but he still felt like such a loser as he walked along the stone paths that dissected the grounds of UA, leading him further and further from the screaming crowds of the arena. Crowds that should have been screaming for him. 

He tried to think about what he’d do once this mystery was solved. He’d have to show off at the next sports festival. Work hard enough that any opponent, even Icyhot, would look easy for him. Make up for lost time, as the saying went. Hopefully his performance against Cheeks would do enough for him to get a half-decent internship. He’d come back from this… hopefully. 

Groaning, he turned on to a path that would bring him closer to the heavy woods that curved around the left flank of campus. The crowds were practically nonexistent here, since the masses that couldn’t get tickets were camped out closer toward the entry ways with the unlicensed merch vendors and food trucks. It gave Katsuki a blessedly quiet walk, the only sounds the crowd behind him in the arena and the rustling of the trees. Perfect. 

Well, perfect until he heard the quiet hiss that froze him in place. 

He recovered quickly, swallowing the knee jerk fear and throwing himself off of the path and into the woods, landing until he was covered by a bush with enough moss that Katuski wouldn’t be clearly visible to passersby. The tiny branches scratched at his cheeks and arms as he rolled onto his stomach, elbows tucked under him in an army crawl as he looked up toward where he heard the hiss. Through the thick leaves and berry clumps, he could see the purple mist of the mist villain twenty paces away, hidden from the path by a layer of trees. It was a small clearing, enough for him to open a portal and deposit two large men, both of them dressed in black baseball caps and hoodies that hid the bulk of their features. The mist villain formed right behind them, in the same suit and metal collar that Katsuki had seen at the USJ. 

“Remember the plan,” he told them, his voice hissing and echoing all at once. The noise sent shivers down Katsuki’s spine. “Find him quickly, and scare him. Only enough that it’s classified as an incident and he can’t participate in the remainder of the festival. No broken bones or cuts that would require stitches.” 

Katsuki’s eyes widened as he pressed himself further into the earth, holding his breath as if the villains could hear the stuttering sound of his heart. Were they talking about Midoriya? 

“You got it. Anything beyond that against the boss’s rules?” The taller of the two men asked, his voice reedy and whistley. 

“Use your best judgement. This is merely to frighten him, not to harm him. Hit your pager when the deed is done and I’ll come to pick you up.” 

The two men nodded and parroted confirmation at him, and the mist villain left after that, the same popping and hissing denoting his departure. Katsuki watches them high five and mutter to each other about the ‘easy job’ they had found. 

“I mean, it’s twenty grand to scare a brat just out of junior high,” the shorter snickers. “How’d you even find this job?” 

“Friend of a friend. Listen, I normally don’t mess with kids but this Midoriya kid is going to have to deal with it. Papa needs a payday,” the taller man says, grinning disgustingly. 

Katsuki’s fists cracked against his will. The two men looked toward his bush. 

He grimaced for a moment before getting up. He was already caught, anyways, and these guys didn’t look that tough.

  Might as well, he thought as he brushed the leaves and twigs off of him, not like I have any other fights today. 

“What were you doin’ in the bushes, you little-” 

Katsuki reared back his arm, catching the shorter one right in the jaw with a right hook powered up by a blast, the crunch sickeningly satisfying as it made contact. The guy stumbled back, a wounded noise coming from him as he walked backward into a bush, tripping on it and falling into the thorny tangle as his friend came up, his hand morphing into a black rod, nearly a police baton. He swung it full force at Katsuki’s head, teeth gnashing threateningly. As if something so pathetic could be threatening to him. 

Ducking under the baton, Katsuki turned back around and grabbed the guy by his hood, yanking him down to the ground and forcing his descent to be quicker with an explosion-fueled shove on his shoulder that smoldered as he landed, the man groaning. 

“One shot each? That’s all it took?” Katsuki asked them with a sneer, looking back at the shorter one in time to see him running at him with a battle cry on his lips and a machete in his hand. 

Katsuki grunted as the man swung on him, grabbing his forearms just in time to keep the blades from sinking into either of his shoulders. He held them with as much force as he could, but the man in front of him had height and weight that Katsuki didn’t. Even holding him in place was a struggle, and the blades were slowly inching their way closer to his skin. Katsuki tried for some explosions, to maybe burn the ever-loving shit out of his forearms, but nothing happened. The fabric sparked and smoldered, but Katsuki grimaced as he saw what was underneath. Blade handles. The quirk transformed his whole arm, then. Based on his lack of screaming in pain, there weren’t any nerve endings for Bakugou’s quirk to fry. 

Shit, shit, shit. 

“Should’ve minded your business, kid,” Knife-Hands says, much more menacing now that the knives actually looked like they might actually get to his skin. The blade was just barely dragging against the fabric of his tracksuit, enough that the pressure of the point was pressing lightly against his skin. 

Katsuki desperately tried to think of what to do. The blasts weren’t doing anything because this guy couldn’t fuckin’ feel them, and he can’t try and let go of a blade to aim somewhere else because then he was going to get skewered. With the way this guy was bearing all of his weight on him, moving away wasn’t an option either. The knife would come down before he could get enough distance to avoid a new piercing. He tried to think of what to do. Any strategy that didn’t end with blood staining the grass beneath him. All he had to do was think.

The blade came down further, piercing his tracksuit and skin until a small drop of blood welled up. 

Fuck. He was so bad at thinking. 

Katsuki was on the verge of going fuck it and attempting another Howitzer Impact despite the pain in his joints when the hard handles in his hands suddenly had a lot more give, his fingers digging into what felt like flesh. When he looked at the blades, he now only saw two hands with dirty fingernails digging into his shoulders. Knife-Hands looked as surprised as Katsuki. 

“What did you do?” he asked Katsuki with a growl, taking a step back as he tried to re-knife his hands. 

“Not what he did,” a voice came from the treeline, and Katsuki looked over to see glowing red eyes, “what I did.” 

Katsuki didn’t waste the chance. He barreled forward, socking him in the face as hard as he could, putting even more force behind it. The impact is so hard it sends them careening backwards into his partner, who had just begun to get up. Katsuki hits them both with another blast, barely verging on a Howitzer and sending a spark of pain against his wrists. By the time the pain subsides, the two men are collapsed against each other by a tree. 

He looked back up at Mr. Aizawa, panting slightly as he rubbed and cradled his wrists. It was becoming clearer every day that he needed braces for his joints if he was going to have any kind of longevity for his hero career. 

“Where’d these guys come from?” Aizawa asks as he comes over, still bandaged and bruised from the USJ. He probed at one of the men with his crutch, only satisfied when they groaned weakly. Katsuki imagined that them dying would be more paperwork. 

“The mist villain,” Katsuki answered shortly. Aizawa looked at him, and Katsuki could tell he was raising his eyebrows beneath the bandages. “They.. they came out looking for Midoriya. Wanted to rough him up and scare him into withdrawing from the sports festival.” 

“So you decided to stop them?” Aizawa asked. 

“I… They didn’t…” Katsuki sighed, scratching the back of his head, “yeah.” 

“Hmm,” Aizawa hums. “Come with me, Bakugou.” 

Katsuki looked back at the villains questioningly, but Aizawa only waved his phone. 

“Staff is on the way. But we need to talk,” Aizawa insisted, waiting until Katsuki was beside him to start walking back toward the stone path. 

“Talk about what? I’m not in trouble for vigilante stuff, right?” 

“No, that looked like clear-cut self defense to me. But I want to talk to you about this mist villain and what he might want with Midoriya,” he told him, “I think you might have something to add to the investigation.” 

Katsuki wanted to deny this. He wanted to stay far away from anything involving Midoriya. But somehow, for some stupid reason, he couldn’t bring himself to turn this down. He shoved his hands in his pockets, following after Mr. Aizawa without any more questions. 

Chapter Text

Shirakumo died on a Monday, was cremated on a Thursday, and was written off as a ‘tragedy’ by Friday. One week, and all traces of him were out of Shouta’s life. The only thing he had left was the rubber bracelet decorated with some cartoon cat Shouta didn’t recognize that Shirakumo had left at his house the last time they had hung out. One stupid rubber bracelet was all he had left.

Well, at least it had seemed like something he’d find funny. 

The thing that stuck with Shouta after everything was said and done, once the memorial was made and condolences handed out, was how unfinished everything had seemed. This sensation of ‘that’s it?’ following him around in the days following the funeral. He kept feeling like something was missing, or that he had forgotten to do something. It all just felt too quick. Death, funeral, and…? And nothing. That was meant to be the end of Shouta’s involvement. All he had to do from there was go to therapy, or pick his poison on how one dealt with grief. 

His poison ended up being hard work. Every spare second was devoted to training, assuring that even when he was forced to be alone with his thoughts in the twilight hours before bed, his body was too exhausted to stay awake long. The deep ache in his muscles gave him something material to focus on, something heavy and present that could distract him from the all-consuming emptiness that threatened to creep around every corner. Anything he could, he’d do it to make sure he wasn’t forced to recognize just how unfinished everything was. Well, not was. Felt. He had to keep reminding himself of that. Death, investigation, ruling, funeral, done. That was all there was. 

But to Shouta, he just couldn’t bring his mind to put it down. Shirakumo may have walked through the door, but he hadn’t closed it behind him. 

Shouta wishes there was a happy ending here. A moral to the story, a lesson to be learned, a theme to decode, anything that didn’t just make this a senseless tragedy. But there wasn’t. There was no magic answer, no solution that could have Shouta pulling himself up by his bootstraps to take this feeling into his own hands. Shouta was a kid who couldn’t do anything, and Shirakumo was dead. Due process had come and gone, and there was no reason for that door to still be open. So Shouta did what every misguided adult and school-funded counselor told him. He let it go. 

Eventually, the door closed on its own. Years passed him by, and as he got older he got stronger. His hands became calloused, his face began to form wrinkles, and his heart hardened to situations he knew he couldn’t fix. If he needed closure on every unsolved case or unsatisfactory answer, he’d never get anything done. So by the time he was in his mid-twenties and had his fingers in every criminally inclined pie in Musutafu, the emptiness didn’t follow him anymore. The door was closed. Though on some days wind might whistle through the cracks, he found better ways to comfort himself than running until his legs gave out. Took comfort in the people he saved, in the good work he did, in Hisashi’s arms, he found ways to cope. 

Shirakumo was a senseless tragedy, and that was that. 

Though that didn’t mean he had put the concept behind him entirely. He might not have gotten any kind of closure, but that didn’t mean no one could get closure. It didn’t mean Bakugou couldn’t get closure. 

A slight ache rocketed up his still tender leg as he led Bakugou through the school, taking them to an office rather than back to the arena. He texted Hisashi a quick message that he wouldn’t be there for the next round of fights, only sliding his phone back into his pocket when his husband texted him back a string of nonsense emojis that Shouta had come to recognize as a catch-all for ‘got it’ or ‘heard.’ He almost fumbled his phone while getting it back into his pocket, the bandages around his fingers making his grip weak and slippery. Though he managed. Thankfully he was only required to wear them for another twenty-four hours, then he’d be recovered enough for Recovery Girl to speed-run him through the rest of his healing. He would have taken the bandages off earlier, but Hisashi would have made it a whole thing and Shouta didn’t want him worrying. 

“Do you need a hand?” Bakugou asked gruffly, trailing a half-step behind him. 

Shouta was almost surprised. Bakugou hadn’t seemed the type to offer help. Though Shouta was quickly learning many of his first assumptions about Bakugou had been wrong. The boy was full of surprises. Though that trend extended to much of the class this year, most of all Izuku Midoriya. Part of the reason he and Bakugou were about to have this conversation in the first place. 

“I’m fine, Bakugou. Merely slow,” Shouta assured him. He knew the clunky boot on his leg made his gait uneven, but he wasn’t forcing himself to go any faster. It hurt bad enough as is. He’d take some of the painkillers that the doctor gave him if he wasn’t so unsettled by the floaty, inattentive feeling it gave him. He struggled enough with control even when the coast was clear, so he didn’t exactly want to challenge those issues mere days after a genetically engineered creature had created never-before-seen injuries in him. 

They finally get up to the second floor where homeroom is, and Bakugou steps in front of him to hold the door open. Another surprise. Shouta steps inside, sitting down at his desk while he gestures for Bakugou to pull up a chair. Once Bakugou had done so, sitting down and looking anywhere but him, Shouta spoke. 

“So, those guys you were fighting,” he led with, watching the way Bakugou’s shoulders tensed, “they were looking for Midoriya, and the mist villain brought them here. Did the mist villain see you?” 

“No,” Bakugou said, “I, uh, I was walking nearby and I heard him. Didn’t know where he was coming from, so I dropped and rolled into the bush. He didn’t see me, but I saw him.” 

“I see. Did he say anything to them? You said they were looking for Midoriya.” 

“He told them to scare Midoriya, but not to hurt him too badly. The goal was to scare him or rough him up enough that he’d have to drop out of the sports festival,” Bakugou explained, his teeth gritting and knuckles flexing with every explanatory word. Far from objective. 

Shouta, master detective that he was, clocked something strange between Midoriya and Bakugou on the very first day. Very first period, actually. That interaction had rang alarm bells in Shouta’s head, and had he not had prior knowledge of the troublemaker he would have assumed some long-term bullying was coming to a head. Though he knew that the troublemaker was far from the type to bully. In fact, just based on a cursory glance he would have assumed Bakugou would be far more likely to engage in that kind of behavior. But it was Bakugou who was afraid of Midoriya for some reason. At least, Shouta had thought it was fear. He quickly learned the emotion was much more complicated than that. 

The joint training exercise had been his first major clue that there was something very, very complicated going on. Bakugou was a driven student, that much was obvious from the footage of his entrance exam, so his laissez-faire approach to the exercise was already a tip off that something was up. Bakugou didn’t seem like the type to want to sit and guard the bomb while all the action happened downstairs. His proactive (if not violent) approach against Uraraka confirmed that, as well as his knee-jerk take down of Midoriya. It was only when he had a moment to consider the situation that he froze. The other students, and All Might, had suggested or mumbled about him freezing up under pressure, spacing out, or being too selfish in the fight or not letting Iida help. But that had been far from it. Bakugou had reacted fast when Iida attacked, and the kid was talented enough to know what would happen once they flipped. That was a clear cut case of him protecting Midoriya. 

His theory was all but proven by the time the incident happened at the USJ. He mostly relied on second hand accounts, but he knew Iida and Thirteen’s accounts would be accurate. Bakugou froze when seeing the mist villain, and then put all of his energy into protecting and hiding Midoriya. So not only was he afraid of the person who knew Midoriya, that fear likely having something to do with Midoriya in the first place, he also wanted to protect him even after learning that he wouldn’t be harmed, at least not severely. 

Hisashi once told Shouta he was like a bloodhound. Once he got a scent of something interesting, he just couldn’t let it go. He had to follow the rabbit hole down as far as it went. 

He started with files. Everything publicly, or at least privately to the school, available about either of them. Midoriya had been ‘misdiagnosed’ as quirkless. He used to go to Aldera Elementary before transferring to East Musutafu. Bakugou had temporarily had a ‘quirk erasing illness’ as a child that had gotten him diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He had attended Aldera since he was a child. It didn’t take a genius to see that Bakugou and Midoriya had known each other before the transfer, and the quirklessness played into all of that somehow. 

Once he had as much information as he could get, he started calling. He called Mitsuki Bakugou, he called the detective on Bakugou’s case when he alleged someone had been in his room, and he called the doctor that studied Bakugou’s condition after receiving permission from Mitsuki. Then it had been as simple as terrorizing All Might until he was let in on the investigation, and then he got Bakugou’s statement in its entirety. 

He imagined that it couldn’t have been easy for Bakugou. Your quirk disappears randomly. It comes back randomly. All you have are a few threads that tell you ‘irrationally’ that it may have something to do with the quirkless classmate you bullied. Mitsuki had been cagey with the details, but had begrudgingly admitted that Bakugou ‘played rougher than he should have’ with Midoriya. Shouta could read between the lines easily enough. So his fear of the attack coalesces with the guilt he feels for what he did to Midoriya, and then that spirals and spirals with years of adults telling him what happened to him was a crazy fluke with nothing to be done about it. 

Just something he needed to get over. The end of his involvement. 

Shouta watched Bakugou squirm in his seat, the barely there motion of his fingers drumming against his legs. Right now, the media would be slandering Bakugou for irresponsibly missing the time he was meant to be back. Wasting his chance because he was too foolish to check his watch. Shouta knew better than that even without Hisashi telling him what happened and urging him to go and investigate. Bakugou had dropped out to avoid fighting Midoriya. Whether or not that was the fear of retribution or something else remained to be seen. 

But either way, this kid needed closure. On what happened to him, and on what he did to Midoriya. If helping Midoriya out and solving that mystery was what he needed to do to achieve that, then far be it from Shouta to judge. It helped that considering Bakugou just very publicly got himself disqualified for tardiness, his internship schedule was probably cleared up. 

“Bakugou,” Shouta broke the silence, and Bakugou’s eyes darted up to him quickly before skittering away again to examine something uninteresting on the desk. “What would you say motivates you?” 

“What kind of question is that?” he asks. 

“An obvious one. Indulge me.” 

“I want to be a hero.” 

“So, ambition?” 

“If that’s what you wanna call it,” Bakugou shrugged. The movement was jerky and quick, like he was second-guessing every action as he took it. 

“So then why drop out of the fights today?” Shouta asked. 

Bakugou frowned, brows drawing together in a scowl as he slumped back further into a chair, crossing his arms tightly across his chest, “I didn’t drop out. I took a walk and lost track of time.” 

“Mhm. You know I’m married to Present Mic, right?” 

“So? Happy Pride Month or whatever.” 

Shouta frowned, “Bakugou, he told me about your conversation.” 

“Shit, yeah,” Bakugou frowned, some of his anger turning into disappointment. He slumped even further down in his chair, like he’d prefer to slither to the floor and melt down into it. “Well, is this the part where I get the lecture about facing my problems head on?” 

“It’s the part where you explained to me why you would throw away your chance in a surefire fight rather in front of thousands of heroes,” Shouta said. 

“Did you really think the fight was surefire?” Bakugou asked. 

“Yes. You have better control over your quirk than Midoriya does, and good endurance because of the nature of yours. I would have put my money on you winning this year, Bakugou,” Every word Shouta said seemed to cause a dual reaction. A sense of ill-hidden pride at his skill, and the disappointment hammering in further at what he had fumbled. Shouta wasn’t lying, either. Every year he made a habit of predicting the winner, and more often than not he was right. Todoroki may have stood a chance, or Yaoyorozu if she got over that anxiety of hers, but Bakugou had been the obvious stand out. “and I think you knew that. You went in worrying about probably just Todoroki, right?” 

“Him and Cheeks,” Bakugou said, words muffled with embarrassment. At being called out accurately or sharing the vulnerability? Cracks in his armor of confidence. So much of Bakugou was bravado that seeing the weakness underneath almost appeared as a case of dual personality. 

“So, you knew you’d probably win. But you still dropped out. What to you was worse than throwing away a near-guaranteed victory?” Shouta asked. 

Bakugou didn’t answer immediately. He sat further up in his chair, taking in deep breaths as he closed his eyes, mouthing something that almost looked like counting. Breathing exercises? Shouta waited patiently, only glancing down and sliding his phone out of his pocket to check the texts. The fights were going faster now. They were on to the semi finals. It would end up being Midoriya and Todoroki, probably, and Todoroki would win. An easy, predictable outcome now that Bakugou was in here looking like he was on the verge of tears. 

“Did Mr. Yagi share the case details with you?” Bakugou asked once he had gotten his breathing under control, “or do I have to rehash it all again?” 

“He told me all of the relevant details,” Shouta assures him, “and before you ask, he’s not a gossip. I’m taking the lead on the USJ investigation and the details were prudent to know.” 

Bakugou didn’t look much relieved by the clarification. 

“So if you know my nutjob theory, you know why I dropped out. If I kicked his ass on live television, my quirk security goes back up in the air. And I don’t think I have to spell it out for you that this particular fear is justified, seeing as those shitheads made it onto campus easy enough,” Bakugou said. 

“I made that connection. But here’s my thing, Bakugou,” Shouta leaned forward, resting his cast-covered arm on his knee as he looked a Bakugou, the boy finally making eye contact, “when you heard those guys in the woods, you knew they were going to stop Midoriya from competing. If you let them by, then they probably could have done so in time for you to be at the arena while he was preoccupied, then you would have gone through without having to hurt Midoriya. Win-win situation.” 

“So?” Bakugou asked, that false-front of bravado weaker than ever when compared with the pale, sickly pallor his skin took on as the blood drained from his face.

“Fear of losing your quirk again is far from the only factor at play here. So, what do you think the missing factor is-?” 

Before he had a chance to lead him to the answer, to poke or prod him in a way that might elicit a reaction, Bakugou breaks. He groaned loudly, covering his face with his hands as he leaned his head back until it thumped against the top of the back of the chair. 

“I don’t know!” he nearly shouted, half-a-sob and half-a-laugh as his voice was muffled through his hands, “I don’t know why I did it, or why I protected him at the USJ, or why I don’t just try and transfer to Shiketsu. I just don’t fucking know why I do it!” 

Shouta blinked in surprise. This was not an expected reaction. Not an unreasonable one, though. He could work with that. 

“Everyone keeps asking me why I want to protect him, why I even care about that stupid moron after some villain buddy of his almost ruined my life, and the answer is I don’t fucking know ! I wish I did, because maybe then I might try and stop my stupid brain from thinking that way.” 

Shouta let him rant until he lost steam, voice warbling out into a long groan. Bakugou finished with a small, weak complaint. 

“I just.. I don’t know. I feel like there’s something I have to do, but everyone keeps telling me not to do anything. It’s not my business,” he said bitterly. 

The silence swirled around them. Bakugou looked like he appreciated the chance to catch his breath and try to get his bearings together. Shouta glanced back at his phone. The fighting was over, him and Bakugou’s stilted, silence-littered talk spanning the hour it took to get everything done. His prediction had been right. Todoroki won, quite spectacularly if the pictures Hisashi sent him were anything to go on. The scorch marks showed Shouta he had missed quite the show, with the stubborn boy apparently using his fire. Whatever had caused that probably had something to do with the strange tension Shouta had seen between Todoroki and Midoriya after the cavalry battle. That, and the unsettling presence of Endeavor lurking around every corner. Another mystery waiting for Shouta. But for now, this one. 

“I can’t help you work out your feelings, Bakugou,” Shouta told him, waiting to continue until the boy’s red-eyed gaze was back on him. Tear tracks had been messily wiped away. “I can’t tell you how you feel about Midoriya. But what I can do is tell you that you deserve to be kept in the loop when you’re so involved. And it just so happens, at least according to Nedzu, I need to take an internship student this year. That week, I’ll be doing a lot of work on the investigation.” 

Bakugou sat up straighter, blinking at him, “What… so are… are you saying I can help with the investigation?” 

“No independant combat until your work study, obviously, but I need someone to help me research and investigate a few leads. I’m only taking one student, so you wouldn’t have to worry about playing coy with your feelings, either.” 

“I’m not-” Bakugou bites his tongue and clearly thinks better of rising to the bait. It makes Shouta smirk. So he could learn. “Yes. Fine. I want to be involved in the investigation. What do I need to do?” 

“Don’t tell Midoriya, for one, and generally keep it to yourself. Other than that, just be prepared to pull a lot of long nights,” Shouta assured him, “Now, get back to the arena. Try and look sullen and broody at the after party.” 

“I’m not sullen or broody,” Bakugou complained, but it had none of his normal anger or heat. If anything, it looked like he was trying to hide a smile. Though, the mean sharky kind of smile. Not that Shouta judged that. Before Bakugou left, he turned and bowed his head respectfully, “Thank you, Mr. Aizawa. I won’t let you down.” 

“I expect not.” 

Shouta watched him leave, sinking back into his chair as he rubbed at his aching shoulder. Another glance at his phone showed a text from Mic, something about Todoroki breaking down into tears in a back room after the match. Shouta would investigate that later, but for now he needed to get the paperwork started for Bakugou to be his intern. 

Shirakumo was a senseless tragedy. He was a teenage boy who cared too much about everything around him and died trying to help people. He was an unfinished story and a closed door. But Midoriya wasn’t. He was a living boy, and Bakugou would still have the chance to help him. So, Shouta sighed. He shrugged his shoulders and accepted that sometimes he could take a break from the solo schtick. Besides, if he helped Bakugou get some closure, maybe that would help put what was left of Shirakumo to rest. Good karma, as Shirakumo used to put it. 

Shouta looked down at his rubber bracelet, thumbing it with his unbandaged thumb. The rubber had turned waxy and smooth from years of use. Maybe one day, Shouta might be able to leave it on his bedside drawer in the morning. Maybe one day he wouldn’t have to drag around ghosts anymore. And if he had anything to say about it, Bakugou would never have to in the first place.