Chapter Text
The Californian wind feels refreshing on Izuku’s face as he hangs high in the air, his back pressed against the cold steel of a cell tower, eyes raking over the city in front of him.
“Preparing to breach,” a tinny American voice emanates from the communicator in his ear, “Sound off when ready.”
“Backstrap, ready,” another hero responds, the rest of the team following quickly behind.
“Sureshot, ready.”
“Lunker, ready.”
“Eraserhead, ready.”
Aizawa’s voice prompts Midoriya to pull his suit’s hood up and respond in English, “Yamikumo, ready.”
“Volatile, ready,” the original voice rounds out the roll call, “That’s everyone. Preparing to breach in three, two, one.”
An explosion echoes through the empty streets, blowing the door off of a warehouse and kicking off shouts and screams.
Midoriya sighs up upon his high perch, he’d rather be down in the fight with the rest, but as he is the team member with the best mobility, he had been assigned to an overwatch position. His job was to make sure that none of the criminals escape.
Izuku had argued with Aizawa when his teacher had told him his role, but the older hero had explained his reasoning.
This was the third raid in a week they had aided in, an operation to shut down a ring of Bolt dealers, the American strain of Trigger.
The American hero association had requested Eraserhead’s aid when they learned he was on I-Island, and his teacher had brought Midroiya, in the guise of Akatani Mikumo, or Yamikumo.
Eraserhead and Midoriya had joined an American task force who was tracking down the gang, and through a series of raids that Izuku and Aizawa helped with, they had whittled down the gang to only five remaining members, including the leader, holed up in a warehouse in an abandoned section of town.
Midoroya had been on the front lines of the previous two raids, capturing six villains by himself and helping with several others, but they could not afford to let anyone get away from this final encounter.
Hence, his position high in the sky, watching, waiting.
Chatter from his teammates occupies his earpiece, but Midoriya’s attention is on the alleys around the warehouse.
Bullets ricochet off of cracked pavement as the fight spills out into the streets, and Midoriya suppresses a grimace. He would never understand the American obsession with guns, they are loud, dangerous, and entirely too easy for criminals to get even in this post-quirk world.
Still, Izuku has to admit, heroes like his current teammate Sureshot, and the Japanese hero Snipe, both make good use of firearms for heroism, so they’re not all that bad.
“Yamikumo,” Eraserhead’s voice crackles through his earpiece, “You’re up. The leader is making a break for it.”
Midoriya spots a figure sprinting down an alleyway to his right, and radios back, “Heading west?”
“Yes.”
Midoriya activates Float, feeds a trickle of One for All into his legs, and kicks off the cell tower, rocketing through the air towards the villain.
Wind rushes past his ears and Izuku can’t hide the exhilaration in his voice that comes from flying as he radios back, “I’m on it.”
Midoriya’s feet pound the pavement as he chases after the villain.
There’s just enough of One for All humming beneath his skin to give him the edge on speed but not enough to arouse suspicion.
Blackwhip crackles around his arms and wraps around trees and light posts as he uses it to gain ground, swinging like the old hero Spider-Man.
The villain, a heavyset man in a black trench coat, “and isn’t that a cliche,” dives off of the Main Street and into an alleyway.
Midoriya curses as he loses sight of the man and bounds off the walls like Gran Torino to turn the corner quickly.
He grinds to a stop as he registers a dead end made of a wall of dumpsters and his target standing there, waiting.
“Samuel Reynolds,” Izuku calls, dropping into a wary stance as he watches the man, “you are under arrest for murder, assault, and the trafficking of Bolt.”
Blackwhip springs to life around him and crackles menacingly as he orders, “Surrender now.”
“Actually,” Reynolds drawls, slightly out of breath, “I don’t think I will.”
His hand plunges into his jacket and comes out with a pistol, and before Midoriya can react his world goes black.
Midoriya freezes.
Reynolds quirk was known, his information had been in the national database so he had come in prepared.
Shadow is a quirk that allows the villain to form a sphere of darkness around him at a radius of 15 feet. A shroud only he can see out of and navigate through.
Midoriya has thought that he was out of range, but apparently, Reynolds has been training his quirk.
Midoriya feeds One for All into his senses, and unknown to him his disguised eyes shine electric silver as time slows down.
Midoriya hears rubber on pavement, the harsh breathing of the out of breath villain, and his heartbeat hammering like a drum.
Ahead of him, Midoriya hears a metallic snap and dives forward as the gun fires. The bullet whizzing past his shoulder.
He darts forward. Dodging and weaving around the following shots. His feet slam into the pavement and launch him into the air.
Midoriya instantly realizes that this is a mistake.
With less traction in the air, only Blackwhip to maneuver himself, he can’t dodge the shots as effectively.
Pain sears across his face as a strong force tears his hood from his head, exposing his blue hair.
Growling in pain, Midoriya shoots his whips as far out as he can, wrapping around the dumpsters behind the villain and pulling.
The dumpster dislodges and crashes into Reynolds, slamming him into the ground and disorienting him, breaking the man’s control of his quirk.
Midoriya hears a metallic clattering and a gasp of pain as Reynolds falls.
Midoriya’s vision clears and he sees the dazed villain pinned beneath a dumpster.
Jogging towards him, Midoriya pulls the man out and cuffs him, making sure he’s still breathing as he frisks the man for weapons.
After finding another gun, several knives, and a worrying syringe, Midoriya jerks the man to his feet and radios back to the team.
“This is Yamikumo,” he says, hoisting the villain up onto his shoulder and trudging back towards the raid site, “I’ve got Reynolds.”
“Good job Yamikumo,” Volatile acknowledges, “we just finished here, regroup with the rest of the team.”
“Got it.”
Midoriya rejoins the raid team just as the police van pulls up.
Handing off Reynolds to Volatile, he turns to Aizawa, who smirks mockingly.
“Looks like I got more captures this time,” his teacher teases, gesturing towards the two villains he had wrapped up in his capture weapon.
“Yeah,” Midoriya acknowledges, “but I got the more important one.”
He and Aizawa, much to the amusement of their American teammates, have been having a friendly competition where they attempt to capture more villains than each other.
Before today Midoriya had been winning, but Aizawa’s captures broke that streak.
“Did we get them all,” Izuku asks before Aizawa can say anything.
“We did,” Aizawa nods, “and I didn’t say it before, but good job.”
“Damn right,” Sureshot interjects into their conversation, the cowboy-themed hero sidling up to them and clapping Midoriya on the shoulder, “Reynolds is a slippery bastard, you did well kid.”
“Thanks.”
“Akatani are you bleeding?”
Aizawa is looking at him, eyebrows scrunched together in worry.
“Ah,” Midoriya swipes a finger across his cheek where Reynolds’ shot had grazed him. It comes away with blood coating it.
“It would appear so.”
Flipping his hood up and wriggling his shoulders, the pair of heroes watch in bemusement as a bullet slips out of his jacket and clatters to the ground.
“Whoops?”
“You’re going to be the death of me, kid,” Aizawa groans.
“Don’t be that way,” Midoriya wheedles.
“You are a blight on society,” Aizawa deadpans.
“Aww,” Izuku coos jokingly, “I knew you loved me.”
“You guys are a riot,” Sureshot guffaws, clapping a hand on Midoriya’s broad back, “I’m gonna go do one last sweep of the warehouse, you should get that cut checked out.”
Midoriya is getting antiseptic wiped onto his graze when, out of the corner of his eyes, movement catches his attention.
One of the villains another hero had caught is bent over as a policeman tries to load him into the van.
As the wiry villain straightens up, Midoriya catches sight of steel and his hand and cries out, “Gun!”
The tiny pistol discharges in the officer’s direction, sending the man to the ground, and the villain turns towards the next closest hero, Eraserhead, who has his back turned.
Lunging forward, One for All sparking at his legs too quickly for anyone to see, Midoriya slams his shoulder into Aizawa just as the bullet reaches.
The bullet that would have dug into his teacher’s neck buries itself into Midoriya’s arm.
Fury on his face, Midoriya wraps Blackwhip around the villain’s gun hand and slams him into the concrete, breaking the gun and his wrist.
As the police wrangle the man into the van and tend to their comrade, the lead detective, Detective Malcolm, shouts at the hero team, “Who the hell didn’t search their villain!?”
Lunker raises his hand with shame, and the team watches as he gets chewed out by their leader.
“Poor kid,” Sureshot mutters, “but still, I know he’s new but that was a major error that could have gotten someone killed.”
“Yeah,” Midoriya grunts in pain, “and it got me shot.”
“I thought your suit was supposed to be bulletproof,” Eraserhead says.
“Bullet resistant,” Midoriya retorts, sticking his finger through the hole in the durable fabric, “and apparently not.”
“Ah,” Aizawa says, “you know Melissa is going to kill you for damaging two of her suits, right?”
“Oh shit,” Midoriya pales. He had accidentally ripped the seams of his spare suit, his muscles literally bulging out of the too-tight garment earlier in the week. Something that provided great amusement to the American heroes. “I’m a dead man.”
“Who’s Melissa,” the gunslinging hero asks, “a girlfriend?”
Midoriya’s cheeks tint red, but he shakes his head in response, “No, my Support Specialist.”
“I see,” Sureshot nods solemnly, “you are a dead man then, my condolences.”
“Let’s get this dead man off to a medic,” Aizawa chuckles, “he still has a bullet in his arm.”
“Alrighty,” Sureshot waves off, “I’ll see y’all back at the station.”
“You got lucky,” the medic says as she drops the bloody bullet onto a tray, “if it had been a larger caliber or a few inches to the left, you might have bled out or severed the muscle.”
Midoriya hisses in pain as she wipes the blood off of his arm with an alcohol wipe, and strips off her gloves, replacing them with a new pair.
“It was a .22 round from an ankle gun, so it was low powered and small, but still enough to cause serious damage,” she tells him as she wraps a bandage around his arm. The medic had to cut his sleeve off to get to the wound, and Midoriya tucks the blue fabric into one of the pouches on his belt.
“What’s the prognosis, doc,” Aizawa asks as he walks to the ambulance.
“Don’t call me doc,” she replies, “he should be fine, drink a lot of water, take some painkillers, and take it easy for a couple of days and it’ll be better before you know it.”
“Good,” Aizawa says, patting Midoriya on his uninjured shoulder and grinning evilly, “then he’ll be ready for the most unpleasant part of hero work.”
“What’s that,” Midoriya asks, slightly terrified. That look on his teacher’s face is never a good thing.
Aizawa’s eyes light up maliciously, sending shivers down Izuku’s spine, “Paperwork.”
Midoriya resists the urge to slam his forehead onto the table at the police precinct, instead tossing down the final file as he finishes his report at 4 am.
“I’m done.”
“Hmm,” Aizawa grumbles awake in the chair next to him and picks up the report, reading through it and checking it for accuracy and thoroughness.
After about twenty minutes, his teacher puts down the file and turns to Midoriya, “Well done.”
“Oh thank fuck,” Izuku can’t hold back his sigh of relief as tension drains out of his body, “are we done then?”
“There’s just one more thing,” Aizawa says, ignoring Midoriya’s groan and pokes his head out of the door and speaking to someone Midoriya can’t see “we’re ready.”
To Midoriya’s surprise, three heroes he doesn’t recognize and Detective Malcolm file into the room.
“What’s going on?”
“You don’t know us,” a grizzled pro with pitch-black eyes starts, “but we've been watching you all week, evaluating your performance.”
“My… performance?”
“This week was your official licensing exam,”
Midoriya jerks to attention as he processes the hero’s words.
“Your conduct and performance during the raids were exemplary,” the hero continues, “your control over your quirk is fantastic and your superiors have nothing but good things to say about you.”
“You interacted with civilians appropriately and empathetically during patrols,” another hero, a woman with shockingly silver hair adds, “I could find nothing wrong with your actions.”
The detective, a man with an impressively bushy mustache grunts and tacks on, “You cooperated with law enforcement and completed all paperwork adequately.”
The third and final hero, a short and skinny old man with no distinguishing features, regards Midoriya calmly.
“Your actions over the past week, as well as your teacher’s observations, have been good enough for us to grant you a full hero license per the apprenticeship clause.”
The man draws a card out of his pocket and hands it to Midoriya who is vibrating with excitement.
“Congratulations Akatani Mikumo,” he smiles warmly, “or should I say, Yamikumo.”
Midoriya takes in the license his hand, with his disguised blue hair and grey eyes shining out from the ID, his hero name in bold, and with his operating regions marked on it and promptly bursts into tears.
He faintly hears one of the heroes ask, “Is he… okay?”
“Yeah,” Aizawa sighs, patting him lightly on the back, “He does this sometimes.”
“To Yakimkumo!”
“To Yamikumo,” the rest of the team choruses in the bar, slamming their drinks down as they finish the toast.
“To getting the bad guy and getting the license,” Sureshot finishes, slinging back a shot of whiskey, “Good on you kid.”
The assembled heroes slap him on his shoulders and send playful punches his way that Midoriya shrugs off, taking a sip of his coke. The team from the week’s raids had gathered at a bar after Midoriya’s license was presented to celebrate, and even though Midoriya was under the American age for alcohol, he was having a lot of fun.
“Thanks, guys,” he smiles easily, “I couldn’t have done it without you all.”
“Cheers to that,” Volatile agrees, stuffing a piece of pizza into his mouth.
“You Japanese heroes did pull some crazy maneuvers, though,” Sureshot adds, “Damn insane.”
“Like you, Americans are much better,” Midoriya retorts playfully, “What’s the American obsession with guns anyway?”
“Buddy, I’ve worked with your hero Snipe,” Sureshot fires back, nudging Aizawa, “You can’t talk about gun-happy until that fella gets under control.”
The crew banters back and forth for a while before Midoriya catches Aizawa slipping out of the booth.
Excusing himself after a minute, the blue-haired man trails after his teacher, following him outside to a deserted balcony.
“Are you okay,” he asks, leaning his elbows on the railing and observing the stars instead of his teacher, “You left pretty suddenly.”
“I’m fine,” Aizawa sighs, “Just a little too much peopling for me.”
“Understandable,” Midoriya nods, Aizawa was a pretty solitary man, preferring the company of close friends instead of strangers at parties, “They can be a bit… much.”
The pair cranes their necks backward, looking back through the window to see Volatile pinning Sureshot into a headlock, the rest of the heroes egging them on.
“A bit of an understatement there,” Aizawa snorts.
They bask in each other’s easy company, the twinkling stars their only companions for a moment before Aizawa speaks up.
“How about you kid, how are you doing?”
“It's a lot,” Midoriya shrugs, “So much has changed in such a short amount of time. Some days it feels like my head is still spinning from the whiplash.”
Shouta hums understandingly, and Midoriya continues.
“Even though I have you, Gran, David, and Melissa I still feel lonely, I still miss being who I was.”
“Secret identities can suck,” Aizawa agrees.
“Yeah,” Midoriya sighs, “Yeah they do.”
He takes a sip of his coke and considers something he’d been thinking the entire time they’ve been in San Francisco.
“Hey, Aizawa?”
“Yeah, kid?”
“If I were to, hypothetically, take a short detour to Silicon Valley,” he hedges, “Would you be cool with that?”
Midoriya braces for rejection and is shocked when Aizawa says, “Sure.”
“I really just- wait, what,” he stutters, “Did you just agree?”
“I did,” Aizawa drawls, “You’re an adult, and you have a hero license, so I can’t stop you.”
“Oh, that’s… unexpected?”
“Plus I trust you,” Aizawa adds with a shrug, and Midoriya would be lying if he said that tears didn’t pool in the corner of his eyes.
“Thank you Shouta,” he says warmly, “for everything.”
“Yeah yeah,” Aizawa waves off, a slight smile hidden in his capture weapon as he jerks a thumb towards their team in the bar, “I’ll cover for you if you leave now.”
“Gotcha,” Misoriya hops up on the railing and kicks off lightly with float, hovering and preparing to fly.
“Kid, here,” Izuku turns and catches a small gadget that his teacher tosses his way, “It's a bug sweeper, use it before you tell them anything.”
Midoriya turns it over in his hands and looks at Aizawa shrewdly, “How did you know?”
“You’re not as subtle as you think,” Aizawa shrugs, “Tell them hi for me.”
“I will,” Midoriya promises, One for All and Blackwhip sending him hurtling into the air at incredible speed, quickly putting him out of view of the bar.
Midoriya sets down in the middle of a suburban neighborhood an hour or so later.
His feet alight nimbly on the pavement as he puts his hood up, forcing his windswept hair beneath the fabric.
Trudging through the streets, passing parked cars, and cookie-cutter homes, Midoriya walks past semi-familiar landmarks.
A block from his destination, he notices a surveillance van and pauses, checking out the occupants and realizing it is unmanned, only operating by recording the bugs output.
Steeling himself, Midoriya walks up the driveway of a pastel blue house with a nice garden out front and rings the doorbell.
There's clattering inside, a chain rattles against the wood before the door swings open, and a short motherly figure with green hair stands in the entrance.
Her jaw drops and she stutters out, “Izu-”
“Hey Auntie Inko,” Midoriya cuts off, pressing a finger to his lips and putting down his hood.
Inko has always been quick on the uptake, and he sees his mother’s eyes widen with recognition as he continues talking, “Do you mind if I come inside?”
“Of course, dear,” she stutters, stepping aside and letting him in, “It's been so long.”
She leads him to the living room and opens her mouth to say something before Midoriya shushes her again.
Taking out the bug sweeper Aizawa gave him, Midoriya slowly and methodically sweeps the room, coming upon several bugs and switching them off.
Straightening up after the last one, Midoriya turns to Inko and says, “We can talk now, no one can hear us.”
“We were bugged,” his mom asks, lips trembling.
“Yes,” Midoriya nods, “is Hisashi here?”
As if on cue, his father walks into the living room and instantly is on guard, smoke puffing at his lips as he stands in between Inko and Izuku.
“Who are you,” he growls, “What are you doing in our house?”
“Come on dad,” Midoriya smiles sadly, letting his coloration fade back to normal, “Don't you recognize your son?”
“Izuku?”
His dad’s eyes widen and his jaw drops as Inko starts sobbing, “Izuku my boy,” and draws him into a hug, Hisashi quickly following behind.
“Hey mom, hey dad,” Izuku chokes out, long arms wrapped around his parents, tears dripping down his cheeks, “I’ve missed you.”