Chapter Text
Mei Hatsume from the support course makes the investment of a lifetime when she agrees to work with Midoriya on support weapons he can use. Now that the thought of losing One For All has become a very real possibility in Midoriya’s overactive mind, Ochaco can tell he is driving himself a little crazy trying to prepare for worst-case scenarios, scenarios that didn’t even happen in the original timeline.
Being in communication with Midoriya puts pink-haired Hatsume back into Iida’s orbit. She gets a huge kick out of speaking to Iida, despite his own best wishes for the opposite. Iida keeps up a steadfast front of civil politeness, but Hatsume (and the rest of the world) can tell that she grinds his gears like nothing else. Genuine torture for Iida is free entertainment for Hatsume, and Iida makes his friends swear on their lives that Hatsume will never be invited to join the Initiative.
“We have too many people already,” says Iida. “Secrecy is going to become unmanageable.”
“Okay, okay,” laughs Ochaco.
“Hatsume is a ruthless, morally bankrupt capitalist. How do we know she’s not the UA traitor?”
“Okay, Iida, we both know that’s not true.”
Once Todoroki finds out he has a secret black sheep sibling, Toga, Ochaco, and Midoriya put to use their cyberstalking skills to help him track down any hint of Dabi’s presence online. They uncover an ancient, faceless twitter profile with a 90% chance of belonging to Dabi. Of course there are few identifying features and no real name attached, but there is a damning post dated from seven years ago, written, “They will find Endeavor dead in Musutafu and it will be by my hand.”
Todoroki says, “What do we do about this?”
Ochaco replies, “What do you want to do about this?”
Todoroki thinks on it. He thinks on it as he visits his mom, he thinks on it as he deals with his dad, and he thinks on it every time he can feel the heat pulse from his right side. Another brother. Fire and vengeance.
With the new additions of Iida and Todoroki included, members of the Future-Fix-It Initiative have a grim deliberation meeting where Midoriya stands in front of the diagram on Ochaco’s bedroom wall and has a minor breakdown about how things so far have not gone according to plan. The Incidents have more or less followed the original timeline, with all of the drawbacks included.
Ochaco the hypocrite lifts her head out of her hands and says, “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Midoriya.”
Midoriya wails, “We haven’t changed anything at all!”
“Even the first time around, so much of it was left to chance. I think that even for how smart you are, saving people involves a lot of. . . acting without thinking.”
“We need to think less?”
Toga nods enthusiastically. “It’s what I’ve been saying!”
“I can’t do that!” Midoriya cries. “We need to think better.”
Ochaco, out of answers, scrubs her eyes and groans.
Iida flips through the analysis notebook with a mighty, uncomprehending frown on his face. “Even if things could have gone better . . . it does not seem as if they are any worse? We are all still alive. That is positive.”
Todoroki, managing to look serious with his legs crossed on top of Ochaco’s pink fluffy rug, asks, “Was Toga really a villain?”
“Yup!” answers Toga. “Ochaco says I got some good hits in. I was soooo good at being bad.”
“And that doesn’t worry you?” Todoroki asks the sharp-toothed girl.
Toga gives a shake of her head. “I can do whatever I want always. Just think about it— I can take all that energy I used for the League and totally use it for whatever I need to do with you guys instead!”
Ochaco says, “I’m glad Toga is here,” and stares down Todoroki and Iida in turn, searching for challenge.
Todoroki, to his credit, doesn’t hesitate. “Me, too.”
Iida raises a surrendering hand. “As am I. Despite— well.” He lets the notebook fall shut. “Anyway, I think we should get the pro heroes involved.”
“No,” Ochaco, Toga, and Todoroki say at once. The girls look at Todoroki in surprise.
“Do you honestly think anyone is going to believe us, Iida?” asks Todoroki.
Iida points at him with the notebook. “I am the brother of Ingenium and you are the son of Endeavor. I know nepotism is underhanded, but it has to be good for something.”
“Fine. If they do believe us, it’s going to ruin Uraraka’s life. The Hero Commission will take her if the League doesn’t.”
All eyes turn to Ochaco. She shrugs and smiles weakly. “I already got to live the once.”
“Nobody,” says Toga savagely, “Is taking Ochaco anywhere.”
“No, wait. The Hero Commission are the good guys. It’s in the name!” Iida retorts. “Look, I know Toga is a conspiracy theorist— and Todoroki— god, and Midoriya—“
“And me,” add Ochaco pointedly. “And you. Yes, you, too, Iida!” She jabs a finger at the diagram on the wall and the notebook in Iida’s hand. “You’re right here with us!”
Iida takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose like he’s afraid his brain will leak out of his ears. “We are not professionals. We just learned that with Stain.”
Toga says, “Ochaco was a pro.”
“The licensed heroes existing right now will have resources that we just don’t have!”
Todoroki says, “We can still get resources. I’m the son of Endeavor and you’re the brother of Ingenium. Midoriya is All Might’s secret son—“
“Todoroki, I’m telling you I am not!”
“—And we are all UA students.”
Ochaco sighs, “We will have to get help from the pros. . . like how we got All Might to show up at the USJ. There’s no question about that. But we just can’t tell them what we know. The time traveler thing— and the Initiative— will stay our secret. No one can find that out. It’ll get too messy otherwise.”
“Let’s swear.” Toga rises to her feet. “Let’s make a blood pact right here, right now. We’re in this together, like it or not. No going back. No snitching.”
Hastily, Ochaco adds, “I’ll accept a verbal promise instead.”
Todoroki nods. “I promise.” He even holds out his forearm for the blood pact, but Ochaco waves for him to put it back down.
Iida shifts his stance from foot to foot. “I reserve the right to say no if you ask me to do something,” he says gravely.
“But?” prods Toga.
“. . . But I do promise not to tell anyone about the— the Initiative.”
“Works for me,” Ochaco says with a shrug.
“I have an idea!” Midoriya explodes suddenly. “Sorry— I just thought of something— we should go over everything we’ve got written down! Iida, are you done with the notebook?”
Iida hands it back to Midoriya. “It’s unintelligible.”
“Fine, we’ll go over it as a group. We’ll go over what we know from the top to get everyone on the same page, and then I have an idea for what we can do next. The next incident coming up is the training camp—“
“Training camp?” Iida interrupts.
“Well,” says Midoriya hotly, “if you would have just read the notebook. . .“
The Shakedown of the UA Traitor
. . . is postponed.
“I want a guy on the inside!” says Midoriya. “A double-agent!”
Toga cheers, readily supportive— but it’s not like she has to be at the training camp with the League of Villains.
Iida frowns and mutters into his palm, “A double-crossing tactic. . .” but does not disagree.
Todoroki’s face goes carefully blank in a way that expresses his most judgmental disbelief. “Can Aoyama do that? Work for us? He is. . . not someone who likes to be in the line of fire. Or under pressure.”
Ochaco isn’t too keen on Aoyama’s reliability herself, still used to thinking of him as a ditsy and flighty, if ultimately well-meaning, boy. But. . . She groans and scratches her neck. “He did fool all of us in the original timeline. Aoyama is way better under pressure than you might think, and he’s also a way better actor.”
“But I don’t think he’ll help us,” says Todoroki. “He’s got too much to lose.”
Midoriya says, “We have to convince him. We have to let him know we want to help him and that we can.”
Toga says, “Are you sure we can’t just kill him? It’d stop you guys from having to do the training camp.”
Todoroki gives a considering hum, but Midoriya flails as he shakes his head in an explosion of green hair.
“No, Toga, our whole deal is saving innocent people! And besides, according to the timeline, he’s probably sold out the location of the training camp already, so it’s too late, anyway. We’ll. . . get to him after it, I guess.”
Ochaco has exhaustively written everything she can remember in charts, lists, essays and diagrams, but the creeping fear of what she does not know is like a weight on her back. And what will happen when the timeline begins to change, too drastically for her memory to be of any use at all?
“A double agent,” she says. “I like that— if we can make it work.”
“It’s only our lives and our classmates’ lives on the line,” says Iida bitterly. “I’m the worst class rep ever.”
“You are the best class rep ever,” says Toga. “It’s not fair I don’t get to go, too! I have to stay back and learn about stupid laws and ethics!”
The Training Camp Incident
Before the chaos of the attack begins, Ochaco places Ragdoll under protection by refusing to leave her side or participate in the haunted forest exercise. “Can’t I just stay here with you?” Ochaco pleads, making her eyes as big and sad as possible. “I’m too scared to go into the forest!”
She argues with a bewildered Ragdoll for as long as she possibly can. Ochaco’s partner for the maze, ‘Call-me-Tsyu’ Asui, awkwardly lingers over Ochaco’s shoulder as Ochaco holds up the proceedings. Asui blinks her froggy eyes and clasps her froggy hands, looking on in bafflement.
Eventually Asui puts a crooked finger to her chin. “Ochaco, do you think something’s wrong? It’s not like you to be so. . . scared.”
Asui is a tough one to fool (Ochaco knows, suddenly, how Iida must have felt). Ochaco puts on a look of watery-eyed trepidation. “I have a really bad feeling about this. What if there are. . . villains?” You can’t be paranoid if they’re really out to get you.
Ragdoll manages a little sympathy, even if Ochaco can tell that she is testing the absolute limits of the pro hero’s patience. Ragdoll waves a paw. “We have a secure location for that very reason! Don’t worry. You are heroes in training and one day you might face danger alone, but for now, the Wild, Wild Pussycats are here to make sure everyone is safe.”
It does not take any force of will to make the light visibly die in Ochaco’s eyes. Ragdoll pauses, something in her cheerful demeanor turned calculating. She says, “Uraraka, is there something I don’t know?”
When a strange fog starts to set in, swarming from between dark gaps in the trees around them, Ochaco does not have to pretend anymore. She is scared out of her mind, true, but Midoriya, Iida, and Todoroki were forewarned of the attack to the best of Ochaco’s recollection. For now, Ochaco must worry about herself, Asui, and Ragdoll.
“Cover your face!” Ochaco says, pulling the collar of her t-shirt up over her nose. She grabs Asui’s arm and crowds close to Ragdoll, squinting into the dense fog mistrustfully. “We have to stick together. This isn’t natural fog.”
Asui starts in surprise, but follows Ochaco’s directions after a powerful sneeze.
Ragdoll blinks hard, gazing strangely down at Ochaco. “Well, then! Are you sure there isn’t something I should know?”
Ochaco refuses to look guilty. “We could be in danger. Class 1-A has a target on its back from the sports festival and the USJ. I’m just trying to be careful, okay? Come on, this fog isn’t suspicious to you?”
Asui stiffens, eyes wide beneath the mask of her fingers over her nose and mouth. “What about the others?”
A scream echoes in the near distance, ominous now.
Ragdoll brings a paw up to cover her face, listening, activating her quirk and feeling out into the murky surroundings. Her suspicion must settle itself away from Ochaco because she says, “You’re right. Girls, stick close to me. I don’t want to scare you, but I can tell where everyone is and there are some faces close by that do not belong. I need to make a call.”
Mandalay does not answer. Tiger does— and warning rings out for trespassers in the forest. Danger from all sides, largely invisible.
Ragdoll does not know it, but at her side she has the most dedicated backup possible. Ochaco does not let Ragdoll or Asui out of her sight once, not even when a masked villain comes out of the trees and makes a grab at Ragdoll. Ochaco beats him back like a possessed creature, all feral desperation until the villain is a bloody pulp under her fists and Asui is using her tongue to pull Ochaco back by the shoulders.
“Ochaco!” Asui shouts in her ear. “Ochaco! We’re safe!”
Ochaco’s trance is broken. She looks at Asui, and then back at Ragdoll, both of them whole and unharmed.
“Okay,” Ochaco says wobbily, fists aching. “Okay.”
Asui nods so over-zealously her thin neck must hurt, her straight green hair going wild. The memory of the USJ hangs heavily, but Asui swallows and tries her best to rally. “Yes! Now come on. Let’s get up and follow Ragdoll.”
If Todoroki is in the wrong place at the wrong time, he goes out of his way to put himself there by chasing after a word with Dabi. He is no better than Bakugo, who refuses to listen to any word of warning and ducks Midoriya’s attempts at protection as if Midoriya is not desperately trying his hardest to save his best frenemy’s idiot life. Both Todoroki and Bakugo are snatched by Mr. Compress.
The Camino Ward Incident
Katsuki Bakugo is always the suspect and never the victim. The same could be said about Toga— but she is not kidnapped by the League of Villains and then asked to join up.
“The Future Initiative should have had more steps,” Midoriya groans. “I never should have let Toga talk me down!”
Miserably, Ochaco has to say, “We were the ones who wanted to go through with the training camp incident. ‘Oh, it’ll be fine! We need the extra training!’”
“All this work,” Toga says, “but we can still cut it in half. Let’s just break in, pick Shoto up, and go.”
“No. We can’t leave Bakugo. Give me the crowbar,” Ochaco sighs.
Bakugo did not slip through their fingers during the training camp so much as shove everyone away, spit on them, and go sprinting headlong into danger by himself. The adaptability aspect of the Future Fix-it Initiative comes into play once more. As Bakugo and Todoroki struggle up above, tied to chairs in the League of Villains bar hideout, Ochaco, Midoriya, and Toga slither beneath street level like eels, sloshing through a dirty storm drain.
Ochaco hefts the crowbar. She curses herself, Bakugo, Todoroki, and every possible event leading up to this moment. Toga is close behind her, eyes gleaming in the filthy dark. Midoriya is at the back of the pack, brimming with energy. Iida and Kirishima were either too noisy or broad-shouldered to fit in the drain, so they went off to find a bush or a dumpster to hide out in until they were needed, between them fast legs and the only outstretched hand in the world that Bakugo would take.
This is the rescue effort— though Ochaco assures Midoriya that Todoroki and Bakugo aren’t really in trouble. “Bakugo is Bakugo, Midoriya.”
“Okay.” Midoriya swallows. “And maybe Todoroki is using this opportunity to ask Dabi the questions he wants?” The last part does not come out as confident as anyone would prefer.
“I wish I got to ask questions,” Toga says loudly, and the other two hush her at once.
“We should be close,” Ochaco hisses. Up the tunnel, thin bars of light shine through a rusty grate. Even as the confines of the space force her to double over, the crowbar is ready in Ochaco’s grip.