Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“This is really stupid. Unbelievably stupid. Mom might not even want this, anyways, with how she’s been going on about that recent diet fad.” Izuku rolls his eyes skyward, worrying a lip between his teeth. “I should trash this disaster and bring a salad.”

He sighs with exasperation, staring back down at the mixing bowl with a grimace. He doesn’t want to waste the ingredients he’s already combined. How could he have gotten this far into the process without making sure he had enough of everything?

All he needs is another third of a cup of sugar. Just a third.

Maybe the recipe could survive the loss? He rummages through his cabinets again, hoping he’s overlooked a spare bag somewhere. He’s already scavenged the last of his sugar jar by the coffee mugs. He checks online for reasonable ingredients that he could use in exchange, but none of them sound quite right. As a last-ditch effort, he skims the comment section below his chosen recipe and groans in misery as he spots no less than three users forewarning doom if the required sugar isn’t precisely measured.

(He suspects those users are being unnecessarily dramatic, but he’s not sure he’s willing to risk it.)

He (probably) isn’t going to cry over a failed dessert.

He doesn’t really relish the idea of bringing a salad to his mom’s house for dinner. The whole reason behind the fancy, delicate (terrible idea) dessert was to spoil her a little.

He sighs, wiping the remnants of flour from his fingertips on his apron. He can just hit up the bakery on the way to her house.

The waste of ingredients is fine.

(Not like the waste of his skills thanks to ridiculous job requirements.)

No big deal.

His mom won’t care what she’s missing out on, so long as he stops by with his cheerful self.

(Just like his occasional employers don’t care what they’re missing out on, so long as he keeps sending in his work.)

(It’s fine.)

The tiniest thump next door startles him from his brief moment of self-flagellation and his brain clicks in a new direction. A vaguely terrifying direction, but it just might work.

He can…ask.

He can knock on his neighbor’s door and ask for a cup of sugar. People do it all the time in the movies!

He blinks at the absurdity of his reasoning, reconsidering how idiotic it may (or may not) be. The weekend at this time of day is probably the best time to intrude on a neighbor he hasn’t met. Asking for a cup of sugar with a promise of sharing the end result might be a great way to make a new acquaintance, anyways, right?

All of the neighbors on his floor are absurdly quiet, although he’s pretty sure he’s heard a cat once or twice. Sometimes he isn’t even certain there is anyone living in the apartment next to his, but the sound a moment ago gives him reason to believe otherwise.

He might get lucky, and it’ll be some adorable old lady that dotes on her eight cats and knits scarves for a dozen grandchildren.

He picks up the measuring cup and sighs at it one final time, gathering his resolve to head next door armed with his most charming smile. Maybe she’ll at least take pity on his novice attempts at baking even if she’s not keen on making a new acquaintance with the hopeless guy next door.

(He leaves his door open a crack so he can quickly escape in case it turns out to be an angry old man with an attack dog.)

He’d really rather not impose on someone unnecessarily, but before he has a chance to psych himself out of an awkward attempt at meeting someone new, he’s already knocked three times on the neighbor’s solid wooden door. He swallows back his nerves, glancing down the hall at the two doors on the other side of the hallway.

His unusual working hours means he has never met or seen the other few (supposed) tenants on his floor. Are they all working odd schedules, avoiding neighbor interaction, hiding their own dark secrets behind thick wooden doors reinforced with extra locks?

Maybe he’s projecting a little.

The door cracks open and the jingle of the security chain draws his attention back just in time for him to plaster on a brave (super charming) smile, but he doesn’t see anything at first until he realizes that the face peering out at him is much higher up than the little old lady (or angry old man) he has been picturing for the last five minutes.

The mysterious (tall) neighbor stares down at him with one shadowy eye through the darkened gap in the door and Izuku feels himself shrink just a little bit as his smile strains along the edges. “I-I’m terribly sorry to bother you, but…”

The door shuts quietly in his face, and Izuku feels his heart sink. The smile drops off his face entirely.

That was quick, he thinks. It usually takes a glance at his ID or the inevitable ‘What’s your quirk?’ part of introductions before he experiences solid rejection like this.

He represses a sigh, because of course it would be just his luck to meet someone that could spot his kind with nothing more than a glance. He turns a glare down at his bright red shoes before turning to head back to his apartment. Few people know to look for those as a clue, but that doesn’t mean no one knows to look.

The chain rattles behind his neighbor’s door before it’s pulled open again, and he looks up in surprise at the violet-haired male standing in the open door, suddenly unsure whether he should be pleased that the neighbor is willing to hear him out, or wary that this very tall stranger is shrouded mostly in shadows and glaring down at him in clear suspicion.

Izuku swallows nervously and rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. “Hey. Um. I’m your… neighbor. Next door.” He points to the left with his thumb before lifting the partially filled measuring cup.

“This is really dumb, and I’m so sorry for bothering you, but I was hoping you might have a tiny bit of sugar, so I don’t have to toss the entire recipe that I idiotically started mixing before I…realized…”

He trails off as the neighbor lifts a lavender eyebrow with clear incredulity.

Izuku bites his lip in nervous anticipation and tries not to shrink even further as his neighbor stares him down for what feels like an entire minute, apparently sizing him up as his unblinking gaze sweeps him from head to toe. Without saying a word, he gives a sharp flick of his head for Izuku to follow him into his apartment. He turns left and disappears into the kitchen.

Izuku carefully toes off his shoes just inside the door. The apartment’s lights are off and blackout curtains hide the early afternoon sunlight, so the only light illuminating the short walk to a pantry is what spills in through the open front door. The kitchen light flicks on and Izuku blinks against the sudden glare of illumination as his neighbor drops a hefty bundle of what looks like a grey scarf across the kitchen counter, obscuring several dark items scattered across the flat surface.

It’s nearly the peak of summertime, so the sight of a scarf is an interesting detail.

Maybe he’s perpetually cold?

Izuku drags his attention away from the summertime scarf and looks toward the rustling noises as his neighbor rummages through a cabinet for sugar, but then something in his peripheral vision causes him to do a double take. He surreptitiously glances back to convince himself he had just imagined it-

Nope.

Peeking out beneath the edge of the scarf is clearly the handle of a knife (and definitely not the variety used for just cooking) right next to what looks like the matte black grip of a firearm. Izuku tears his gaze away and presses his lips together to cut off the sudden urge to drop into muttering speculation as he works out dozens of ideas that suddenly ping through his brain. He doesn’t want to reveal that he noticed, nor does he wish to spook his neighbor, but he knows he hasn’t quite gotten a handle on thinking out loud despite the years of garnering weird looks from people that have overheard him.

His neighbor could just be some kind of security professional or a collector. Maybe he’s a cop. No reason to jump to conclusions.

It’s fine.

He’s not nosy, and all he’s here for is some sugar.

(It’s fine.)

Aside from the few items he’s pointedly not gawking at, the kitchen is almost painfully sparse, with nothing more than a half-full coffee pot and a single mug sitting by the empty sink. His neighbor turns back in his direction with a neutral expression as he brandishes a bag of sugar.

Under the spill of bright kitchen light, Izuku can see dark marks under pale violet eyes that match his gravity-defying hair. He looks exhausted as though he hasn’t slept well in a very long time. Izuku idly wonders if maybe he shouldn’t be drinking coffee if he has trouble sleeping.

The neighbor blinks placidly, and Izuku belatedly realizes there’s a hand outstretched for the measuring cup. “Oh! Here. Thanks so much. I can bring some of the completed recipe by for you, later, if I don’t completely ruin it in the meantime?” He laughs, feeling a bit unnerved by the lack of response, but then his neighbor shrugs indifferently as he pours sugar into the container with a steady hand. That wasn’t a no, he thinks, and then he really hopes he doesn’t bomb the recipe.

Izuku wrings his fingers together as he looks over his neighbor with curiosity. His hair and eyes are the only visible splash of color against his monochromatic outfit. His clothes look well-worn but are in good condition, baggy enough to be comfortable for lounging while hiding his general physique. Izuku estimates the guy must work out based on the width of his shoulders and the muscle definition along one bared forearm.

“Have you lived here long?” Izuku asks, wondering if the drawn-out silence might be due to excessive shyness (doubtful), a quirk limitation (possible), or an unspoken wish to encourage Izuku to leave as soon as possible (most likely).

His neighbor doesn’t answer as he hands back the filled measuring cup.

Izuku clutches the sugar to his chest with a trembling smile. This is going so badly. “Well, it was nice meeting you. I really appreciate this.”

His neighbor shrugs again with an audible sigh like he can’t wait for this cheerful interloper to get out of his home.

Izuku hurries to the door and haphazardly stuffs his feet back into his shoes, casting a quick glance at the darkened interior that he hadn’t seen on his way into the kitchen. Pale light from a laptop screen creeps along a blank living room wall, revealing the slim silhouette of a folding chair and card table.

Either his neighbor has recently moved in, or he embraces a super-minimalistic lifestyle.

“Ehm,” he says, swallowing down his nerves as he steps into the bright hall outside the apartment and pauses to look back at the still-nameless neighbor now gripping the door handle with an inscrutable expression. “Please, if I can return the favor sometime in the future? I’m in number two, next door. Thanks so much!” He bows as the door shuts quietly between them, and Izuku cuts off a sigh at the disastrous mess of their awkward first meeting.

At least he hasn’t sneezed or tripped and spilled sugar all over the floor.

Yet.

He stares down at the precious recipe ingredient that has already caused so much trouble and hurries back to his apartment to finish baking.

(It’s fine.)

Chapter Text

A thin manila folder sails across the office to land precariously at the edge of a well-worn desk. It's a miracle that it stays put, but the scant few pages within won't be difficult to get back in order if it falls.

"You can't seriously expect me to shift focus to a new mission. I'm already neck deep in another!" Shinsou strides into the office and pushes the door closed behind him with the heel of his boot. (He wants to kick it shut, but he'll be polite. For now.) He furrows his brow, tucks clenched fists into the deep pockets of his jacket, and glares down at his boss. "Splitting my attention between two targets is a dangerous-"

"Don't think too hard about it. It's nothing more than a low-priority side-task while we wait for the Commission to get their asses moving on our intel." His boss glances up at him briefly, pushing glasses up the bridge of a crooked nose. "We're looking at a month, minimum, before we are granted the requested assets, and another to get everything set in motion."

His boss sighs and rubs his temple, turning his attention to the case outline board along one wall. He points at two separate cards and rapidly flicks his hand with barely contained irritation. "If it goes how I expect it will, we won't be able to wrap this case and get these guys for another three months, which means there won't be any major actionable items for you until then."

Fuck, Shinsou thinks, briefly tempted to march right back out of the office and leave for a patrol, where thirty minutes of effort would likely net him more results than the months ahead of them where they can do nothing more than wait on a lumbering bureaucracy.

He pauses for a moment and stares his boss down. "So you think handing out extra missions will be a good way to spend my time."

His boss shrugs. "It's not a difficult case, yet. We have one lead on a potential target of interest."

"A whole three pages on this low-priority case. I feel blessed."

"It should be easy enough. We're just looking for more leads on some falsified credentials."

Shinsou slides into the chair across from his boss and props a foot up on the edge of the desk. He cocks his head at an angle and eyes the man across from him with a slight frown. "I can't fathom what makes someone using a fake ID so special that our agency should be looking into it. This seems more like something the police should be investigating."

His boss sighs and eyes the file at the edge of the desk. "Did you even read the three pages before you barged in here to complain?"

He had not, but he isn't about to admit it. Plus, he reasons to himself, the written details normally included on an initial mission briefing rarely contain everything I might need to know.

"If this is so easy," he says, peering down at a small cut on his fingertip, "then you can give one of the agency newbies the assignment."

His boss looks at him with sharp surprise, both eyebrows lifting high to disappear underneath unkempt black bangs. "Are you really so willing to sit on your ass and twiddle your thumbs until our big case is ready to roll?"

Shinsou drops his foot to the floor with a scowl. "Of course not! I still have patrols to deal with. I won't just be sitting around."

His boss heaves a hefty sigh and leans forward to lace his fingers on his desk. "Not every job we assign is going to be difficult or worthy of headline news. Regardless of your skill set, sometimes you're going to have to deal with the easy stuff." He waves one hand dismissively and leans back in his chair. "Consider it a mini-vacation before the tough stuff starts rolling in."

"I won't actually be on vacation," Shinsou points out with a frown.

His boss continues with a shrug. "If you can't find anything worth reporting, it's probably not the end of the world. My boss is a little nervous about the potential ramifications of this case, and I'm hoping for a few extra details to set some minds at ease."

Shinsou relaxes into the chair and sends a long look of contemplation at the corkboard hanging behind his boss. A scattering of reminders and persons of interest litter the surface. Maybe a little something extra on the side will make for a decent distraction while he can't get any momentum on his primary case, but he doesn't want to give in too easily. "Alright. Read me in."

His boss plucks the file from the edge of his desk and starts filling in some of the blanks. (Three pages in a case file is a terrible starting point, and Shinsou feels like this easy side mission is going to be a little more difficult than his boss is letting on.)

"Three months ago, we requested a third-party analysis to help us with the string of arson-robberies."

Shinsou narrows his eyes. That case has been nagging the police and several agencies for over a year.

"The report that we got back was very detailed and helped make a huge break in the case. The lead investigator has already arrested one of five suspects the report brought to our attention."

The tone of his boss's voice changes slightly at this moment, and Shinsou zeroes in on his nervous shift of posture. "There was another incident two weeks after the report arrived. A bank burned to the ground overnight and three people died in an explosion that damaged half a city block."

Shinsou nods solemnly, remembering the aftermath. Most of his agency had been called in to provide support and rescue. "You should get to the point," he says, tapping a fingertip on his thigh with growing impatience.

"The investigator that received the final report from our third-party source didn't thoroughly read the document or disseminate the findings to anyone that could have made a difference." His boss grimaces and rubs a hand through his dark hair as he glances away. "The thing was fifty pages long," he adds on as a half-hearted excuse. "A detail was missed." His boss pauses and backtracks a little. "Well, not missed," he hedges, "but not exactly paid much mind."

He flips to the second page of the case briefing and points out a cropped photograph of the report in question. There's a bright red sticky tab attached to the edge of the work alongside a sentence that's been typed in all caps:

PATTERNS INDICATE ANOTHER ARSON WILL TAKE PLACE AT THE BANK ON THE CORNER OF [redacted] AND [redacted] TWO WEEKS FROM [redacted] AROUND MIDNIGHT.

"This..." Shinsou stares down at the damning words. Even with the location and date blacked out, he knows exactly what it's talking about. He flicks a sharp glare at his boss. "There was an awful lot of surprise that night for an attack we knew would be coming."

His boss pushes his glasses to his forehead and rubs at the bridge of his nose with irritation. "No one knew except the guy that stuck the tab there. He claims that a speculation based on vague patterns for an upcoming attack wasn't enough to hand off this gold mine of information to someone else for further inquiry." He pulls his glasses back into place and continues with a grim smile, "It wasn't enough, yet the contents of that report netted him a high-profile arrest and a wealth of new leads which landed him an easy promotion."

Shinsou quietly grits his teeth and takes a calming breath to ease his rising blood pressure. It does him no good right now to get pissed about an asshole mishandling information for personal glory, but people paid for that with their lives. "Tell me this guy is going down for what he did," he demands.

His boss rolls a shoulder in response. "It's still under investigation by internal affairs." He points to the next few sections. "The absolute shit part is that the oversight isn't what my boss is most interested in. It's the astounding number of details about the previous attacks, including criminal motivations and their methods of work."

Shinsou skims through highlighted portions and feels the fine hairs on the back of his neck lift with an unexpected thrill of excitement. This is either some of the best investigative reporting he's ever read or -and this is a gigantic stretch of the imagination- the author has insider knowledge. He briefly flicks his gaze up to gauge his boss's expression before turning to the final page of the information spread.

There's only an IP address and an approximate location in the city.

Shinsou is not impressed. "Consultants are usually good at what they do. I still fail to see why this report has caused anyone reason to worry."

"When the police got their hands on the full report, they wanted a sit-down chat with the author. The author refused, citing their contract guarantees follow-up reporting only if the initial documents prove to be inaccurate. A background check against the author's name returned two details of note: a profile with falsified credentials and a physical mailing address in France that forwards received correspondence to another location in Spain, which is a company that securely processes incoming messages and digitizes it to send along through some kind of bullshit dark web email system. That trail is impossible for us to track without expensive resources. It leaves us with more questions than answers."

Shinsou nods, staring down at the details they do have. "And this information," he trails off expectantly as his finger presses against the IP address.

"The Commission doesn't care about this case enough to fund the investigation, so we've been stuck since that trail went cold. Two weeks ago, another report from this author arrived at an agency across town. Because their name is flagged in the system for our case, the originating IP address was traced back to an internet router right here in the city."

Shinsou stares at his boss. "You didn't tell me this entire story for a simple pickup of this hard-to-find author."

His boss shakes his head. "The router belongs to a small café. It's an odd enough place to make us believe that it's not part of a secure routing system, so the author must have made a mistake during transmission. We've checked the cafe's connection history and interviewed the manager. It's not a popular place, and their usual patrons live in the apartments upstairs or are friends with the residents. The last month of connections in their router logs show only three new devices in that entire stretch of time, and none on the day the newest report was sent."

Shinsou tilts his head in consideration and his lips curve into a delighted grin. "It sounds like you want me to stake out a café to figure out which of the regulars might be this mysterious author."

His boss nods. "Like I said, it's a mini-vacation. A paid mini-vacation with the company funding your coffee addiction."

Shinsou narrows his eyes thoughtfully, wondering what the catch might be, but he doesn't wait long. A paper is slid across the desk. It's a rental agreement for a unit on the top floor of an apartment building.

"I have to move," he grounds out, sliding deeper into his chair. He isn't whining, he's concerned. "I have cats."

"It's temporary, a month or two if we're lucky. Take them with you or we'll hire a sitter."

Shinsou presses his lips together in irritation. Changing their home turf like this will cause them unnecessary stress, just the same as it will if he has some stranger stopping by to care for them when he can't make it home.

(He anticipates a week of retaliatory ankle-biting at the very least.)

He skims the details of the rental agreement. It's already paid for by the agency, and all he has to do is pack a bag. (And his cats. He cannot leave them behind.) The temporary digs on the top floor of an apartment building downtown don't sound too bad, though, especially the balcony with nearby rooftop access and its incredibly convenient location along one of his patrol routes.

The idea that he's expected to spend a good chunk of time on the first floor hanging out in a quiet café is decently appealing.

"There's one more thing," his boss says with an odd inflection to his voice. It almost sounds like amusement, but there isn't much that makes this guy laugh. He taps the screen of the tablet docked next to his computer a few times, then slides it across the desk for Shinsou to see the image he has pulled up.

It's a promotional photograph from the café starring two ridiculously fluffy felines dozing by a cup of steaming coffee. "There are cats."

Shinsou stares at the image and tries to keep a straight face. I've revealed too many of my secrets, he thinks morosely before pushing the tablet back across the desk. He clears his throat and nods.

"Excellent," his boss claps with a half-smile. "I wish you the best of luck. The lead is weak and it could turn out to be nothing, but we hope you can find something that will get us moving in the right direction while we wait on the other case to make any headway."

Shinsou stands and nods again at his boss, thinking about how many trips he'll need to make to get his cats settled in and sufficiently entertained. With luck, this side mission won't take too much of his time, but at least there will be free coffee.

(And cats.)

Chapter Text

The warm, buttery scent of the dessert permeates the kitchen. Izuku leans into the oven to withdraw the baking dish, blinking against the sudden rush of heat. The thrill of excitement at another kitchen success despite the troubles he’s faced is a welcome feeling, and he has no reason to hide his growing smile.

Maybe this will be a perfect gift for someone that he’s just met. (Yes, just like he’s seen in the movies, but far more realistic because all the feel-good romantic holiday flicks he’s watched with his mother cannot be that wrong about gifting food.)

(Unless the neighbor is allergic to one of the ingredients, and then it’ll be more like the opening to a true crime documentary, starring him as the sole suspect.)

The dessert needs time to cool before he can add the filling, so he opens his laptop and clicks into his inbox to skim the new messages. He skips past the normal inquiries and breathes a quiet laugh at two subject lines in German. It’s been a few months since he’s received anything from that particular source, and his comprehension is a little rusty until he opens them to read for context. They’re addressed to his newest alias, one that doesn’t boast the same level of experience that he enjoys from his primary, so the inquiries seem pretty simple.

He skims the summaries and makes a rough estimate how long they might take to complete. His schedule is a little packed with his current jobs, so he flags the more interesting one for later and archives the other. He’ll visit the request board to look at more of the details when he gets bored later on in the week.

He always gets bored.

Always has time.

None of his cover jobs have ever given a damn about what he can actually do, so he has a lot of free time on his hands once he completes the tiny tasks they deem him capable of handling. His current cover job pays him practically nothing, but he’s quirkless, so no one cares.

He often wonders how much his employers (former and current) might kick themselves in the ass once they -if they- learn what he’s actually capable of and they’d willfully ignored.

He chuckles to himself.

One day very soon, they might just find out.

Or they won’t, because they’ll be too busy dealing with the fallout.

A tiny news blurb flits across the bottom of his screen. He skims it, grimacing at the headline announcing the retirement of a local hero. He’s always surprised (and glad) when one makes it to retirement age. Such a dangerous profession… But his grimace comes from the knowledge that this particular hero is still quite young. Two clicks later reveals a scandal carefully disguised by a “career-ending” injury.

He sighs with disappointment. Another hero commission cover-up.

The most applauded career in their society is professional heroism. Heroes make the nightly news, have humongous merchandising deals, and are plastered across billboards like the celebrities they are.

At one point in his past, he’d fantasized about being one of them. He had so many dreams and made grand plans with his (best) friend about how many people they’d save while shining in the spotlight and earning the respect of their peers.

He shakes free from the old memories, turning his attention back to his screen and the tiny folder icon containing his most recent work files. He nods with determination. His projects are important to him, and a lot of his work could be considered (sort of) heroic. He figured out his own way to save the day, and he wouldn’t dream of trading that away to stand in a spotlight with a fake smile.

The TV might not flash his face across the evening news, and he will never see promotional deals or have his name creep up popularity rankings, but he makes a difference.

Probably.

He eyes the folder again.

No, definitely.

He definitely makes a difference.

His cover job is meant to be obvious (pathetic/useless/unimportant) to anyone that cares enough to look, but his real work is what matters and it’s discreet for a reason. He closes the lid of his laptop with a short sigh and turns his attention back to the kitchen.

The flaky dessert is cool enough for the filling, and he leans over the counter with a thick piping bag. His tongue pokes from the side of his mouth as he concentrates on the repetitive process: stab, squeeze, twist. The sweet scent of vanilla envelops his senses, and he zones out in aromatic bliss.

The results are only a little bit messy, and he cannot wait to eat at least three servings.

(He may or may not lick the edge of the piping bag before he hastily cleans up the kitchen.)

He tears careful squares of parchment paper and foil to protect the delicate goods. He’s been baking and sharing with his mother for as long as he can remember, but it’s been…

He pauses-

…thinks with a thumb pressed to his lip.

He’s never shared one of his kitchen experiments with anyone aside from his mother. He hadn’t started baking until midway through his online classes, and he hasn’t had an in-person friendship since his…

He swallows down a sour taste at the back of his throat.

He used to share toys, blankets, dreams with his last friend.

His best friend.

The friend that had abandoned him,

kicked him when he’d been down,

laughed with the others at his unlucky draw from the genetic lottery,

watched

as

he’d

fallen.

Take a swan dive...

...It’s fine.

He had leaned too far out of the classroom window to stare down at his burnt notebook floating in the tiny koi pond.

All it took was a little push by one of the other students.

He didn’t even know which one had done it.

“An accident,” the classmate claimed.

“How unfortunate,” the school administration said.

(Someone dropped his notebook off at their apartment while Izuku was in the hospital. His mother took one look at the burnt cover and never questioned why Izuku didn’t want to speak with his childhood best friend again.)

His mother believed his story about what really happened that day and didn’t make him go back.

Few local schools would accept a quirkless transfer student, and those that did had too many red flags that promised terrible experiences.

Online education from international schools turned out to be a hidden treasure. Izuku was surprised to discover the wide variety of educational tracks he could pursue once he no longer had to deal with the local discrimination.

His broken bones from that horrible day may have healed, but he still has the scars.

Nearly a decade has muddled the lingering pain. The memories are tiny footnotes of his past. He glances at the warm afternoon light pouring in through the sparkling windowpanes and shakes free of his melancholy. It’s high time he steps out on a limb of fragile trust and make an attempt at friendship.

Or acquaintanceship.

Or … neighborly politeness, at the very least.

He carefully packages a serving of his neighbor’s promised dessert and leaves it in front of the door where he’d probably made a fool of himself.

He hopes it is spotted before it can be accidentally squashed underfoot.

(He hopes. He’s seen enough food items intentionally squashed underfoot, and he doesn’t want to come home and find that kind of mess in front of his door.)

The elevator ride to the first floor is quiet and a bit lonely, and he emerges in the lobby just outside the cafe. The scent of freshly brewed coffee brings a smile to his lips and the tension in his shoulders release at the sight of a fluffy grey cat peering imperiously through the archway at his arrival. His mom is expecting him for dinner so he can’t stay long, but he steps inside the cafe for a moment to give the tiny royalty a few scritches along her chin.

He stands and waves at the barista behind the counter as the cat flicks her tail with clear resentment that he dares to leave so soon.

He grins to himself and steps out into a beam of sunshine that briefly squeezes between a gap in the surrounding architecture at this time of day. He glances back at the aging facade of the building behind him and feels a rush of gratitude toward the unimaginable luck he’d had to stumble upon this place.

He’d stayed with his mom during most of his online education, but he knew he couldn’t continue living there forever. His studies meandered into some dark corners of the web, and between the things he’d discovered and the people he’d helped catch as his work had taken off, he knew the potential for making enemies might end with his mother becoming a target.

He doesn’t think what he does is very unique or special, but one of his mentors shared a harrowing story every year about a former student that publicly posted a relatively simple exposé on an obscure villain group, only to end up murdered in broad daylight less than a week later.

The message is simple and effective: don’t make yourself an easy target.

Izuku is already an easy target, thanks to a humongous indicator on his identification card that reads quirkless. May as well avoid anything else, so once he started earning enough income to purchase his own privacy, he’d made serious efforts to find somewhere he could call his own.

The apartment search turned out to be an absolute nightmare.

Every available apartment seemed perfect until credit checks uncovered his quirkless status, which resulted in sky-high liability charges that made cost of living there too expensive to consider, or leases were withdrawn from listings as ‘suddenly purchased by other interested parties’.

The worst were the offers with clear discrimination clauses that Izuku would have loved to drag into court, but the effort of fighting for his rights to freely live in a building still clinging to idiotic ideals didn’t seem worth his time.

He’d complained, once, on a forum his former online classmates still frequent. The consensus was overwhelmingly in favor of him moving overseas where he’d be able to more easily find lodging and real work without having to resort to an alias.

But his mother loves her work, and he can’t stomach the idea of moving so far away from her just to make his life simpler. He couldn’t be certain how often he’d be able to come back to visit, and she had been the only point of solid support in his life.

He couldn’t leave her behind for selfish reasons, so he stayed.

It was an exhausting nightmare to navigate denial after denial.

He’d arrived at this location expecting another dismal unit showing to end in some horrible event he’d have to later play off to his mom as nothing bad this time, I promise!

The cafe alongside the lobby on the first floor of this building was almost too good to be true. He’d gawked at the glittering floor-to-ceiling windows lined with barstool seating where he could potentially sit and people-watch to his heart’s content.

His notebooks may have changed over time as his youthful goals of public heroism were shelved amidst the heavy discrimination, but nothing brought him quite as much joy as jotting observations, sketches, and ideas across crisp white pages.

(Well, aside from the people-watching, which is always a total delight even if he doesn’t have a notebook in hand.)

The six-story building might be a little dated, but they claim the elevator is usually functional.

The offered unit on the top floor might have a riveting view of the plain brick building across a narrow alley, but the door leading out onto the sturdy balcony slides open without a sound and the breeze is nice and fresh this high up.

The street is narrow and a bit busy during daylight hours and only allows traffic in one direction, but it’s within walking distance to several amenities, including his (then) cover job.

The whole package feels like a stack of great compromises.

After so many doors closed in his face, it’s like a window has finally been opened.

(His newest cover job is no longer a quick walk away, but if he gives himself enough time, it’s a good distance to run. With his weird job hours, he feels like he spends more time walking to and from the train station and sitting in mostly empty cars at odd hours of the day and night than he does actually working.)

(It’s fine.)

The leasing agents are a sweet old couple that prefer to do everything in writing. The wife catches him off-guard by taking his hand to shake it vigorously in greeting, then waves him into the closest chair to go over the details of their available listing. They are happy to let him pay in cash without a credit check, so long as he can fork out three months in advance alongside his security deposit.

He finds them to be just a little weird with their heavy anti-technology stance, but he chooses to not examine this too closely. (Documentation that’s kept offline means he’ll be much harder to track.)

He’s pretty much sold on the idea, but his final hesitation while he quickly reads over the rental agreement is wiped away at the first inquisitive mrrow that cuts through the silence that has permeated the office.

He glances over his shoulder and meets the gaze of one of three cats that slink freely in and out of the cafe through a custom kitty door leading into the management suite.

Another mrrp as it winds around his ankle seals the deal.

(With cats in charge around here, he can’t lose.)

Without the usually required digital credit check, he’s free to pull out his French passport for their documentation. They don’t even blink at his foreign credentials. Their ancient photocopy machine scans a black and white image of his face beside the alias Akatani Mikumo and they file it alongside his scrawled signature on the rental agreement before handing him his first set of keys.

The key is now marred with thousands of scratches from four years of use, and it jingles happily against a cat keychain as he stuffs it into his pocket. After one final adjustment to the dessert held carefully in his left arm, he heads toward the train to see his mom.

He hopes she likes the dessert.

Chapter Text

Moving again, Hitoshi thinks with a frown. He supposes it isn’t too bad.

He’s lived in his little studio apartment since graduation. It was so affordable that he’d signed the lease even before he’d known how much his agency contract might end up paying. Within walking distance of one of the better train stations, it has enough space for the things that he needs to be happy (namely, enough space for his cats’ belongings).

Maybe one day he’d appreciate living in a house again, maybe with a little bit of a yard. No tiny elevators, shared hallways, or rumbling music echoing through walls that could probably use some extra soundproofing. No obnoxious thumps from rowdy inhabitants or amorous late-night visitors.

He glances at his front entryway and withholds a shudder of discomfort at cobwebbed memories of his mama’s tired voice worrying about where he thinks he’s going, and the irritating voice of her older brother cutting in that he’d better bring home something expensive if he comes back at all.

His first home had been in an old suburb with his mama. Their little house may have been in serious need of repairs more often than not, but it was theirs. They even had family -mama’s older brother- living next door, which quickly shifted from a blessing into a curse.

He could barely remember his dad, who’d vanished sometime around the year his quirk had manifested. His mama’s quirk makes her too lethargic to function as an adult if she doesn’t use it frequently, so she’d desperately needed any support. His uncle had been thrilled to step in and provide for them, but it took far too long for his mama to realize that having him around wasn’t the best idea.

He and his mama left in a hurry after a particularly bad night and spent a frightening week huddled in a shelter. He wonders, sometimes, how she’d managed to find a job and a new (safe) place for them to live, but he’d been young and overwhelmed by his terrible school life to think much on how adults made things happen.

He’d vowed to be a better person than his uncle and had fought tooth and nail to be accepted to a school that could help him nurture his quirk into a tool fit for heroism.

The circumstances later that led to the dorms being offered weren’t ideal, but they’d been an unexpected boon in his attempts to sever the lingering familial ties.

Mama is a good person.

She understands his need for distance, his desire to grow into his own person, the need for a fresh start. He still visits her, but he no longer feels like he lives in the shadow of something horrible that lingers at the edges of his thoughts, waiting for their guard to fall so he can walk back into their lives.

At least with the dorms, if someone needed to know where he was off to, he could be (mostly) certain it was for his personal safety.

If his classmates followed him out of the building, it was because they wanted to hang out and have fun. (the reckless fools)

If someone demanded him to bring something back, it was snacks or a drink from a local convenience store, and cash easily exchanged hands to ensure no one ended up short-changed.

As he stuffs his feet into his shoes, ready to leave his apartment with the last of the stuff he’ll need for this impromptu stay away from home, he casts his gaze around the darkened interior. This place isn’t too bad, all things considered.

It has privacy and general silence, if one ignores the cats, and they certainly don’t demand much out of him.

His lips twitch in a smile.

His boss has given him the rest of the week and the weekend to get settled into his new place, so as soon as he left the agency that morning, he’d mentally checked out for anything work-related and settled firmly in Hitoshi-mode.

No patrols.

No paperwork.

No calls. (Unless an emergency comes up. Emergencies always seem to strike midway through personal plans, so he tries to avoid any personal plans bars and therefore the emergencies.

His cats are not pleased by this turn of events and evade his many attempts to get them into a carrier. Offers of treats and cornering techniques fail miserably for they are skilled in the arts of evasion and misdirection, so he begrudgingly resigns himself to the long wait for their dinnertime. Midway through feeding, he springs his ambush and tucks them safely into their carriers.

(The glittering glares and angry yowls indicate they will never forgive him for this slight.)

Hitoshi ends up needing six trips to fully accommodate his pets and only one for himself. Each time he returns with more of their stuff, he opens the front door to the sounds of angry-cat, and he hopes they aren't audible through the walls of the units that neighbor his own.

His futon is set out in the smaller (darker) of the two bedrooms. He doesn't bother unpacking his duffel bag of clothing. Most of it is comfy lounge-wear in such dark colors that wrinkles have become part of the style.

(He's not here to impress anyone.)

His only kitchen appliance is a coffee pot. He hangs blackout curtains and sets his weapons along the kitchen counter. He plans to clean them sometime on Sunday before he resumes his patrols Monday evening, but it can wait for now.

(The cats, thankfully, do not know how to use his knives.)

He assembles a cat tree and scatters cat bedding and toys in their room. The sunshine pouring in through the bare window on this side of the building becomes the new favorite lounging spot. It takes all of Saturday for them to settle in, and eventually he feels like his murder is no longer on their agenda.

He might eventually request more actual furniture if his stay ends up lasting longer than a week, but a folding table works well enough for a spot to review the files stored on his laptop.

His groceries consist solely of coffee, sugar, and cat supplies. He's never liked cooking, and he sweetens his coffee on the days he isn't working as a little extra treat for himself; hard work rewarded with hard carbs.

He picks up some takeout on Saturday and settles in with a near-overflowing box of cooling noodles to eat while he parses through the documents and case files related to this easy side task.

There's a lot.

He opens the oldest of the consultant's known reports and gets three paragraphs in before his eyes trail back up to the heading with a vague sense of recognition. The title is merely a reference to some case number he hasn't read through yet, but there's something about the author's alias, Twain Mirko.

Hitoshi chews on his noodles and stares at the name for a full ten minutes before he understands the reference and facepalms so hard it startles the closest cat out of its nap. He clicks through the file the agency has started for tracking this consultant down and stares in disbelief at the credentials attached to the alias.

Country of Origin: America.

Quirk: Writer.

The black and white photograph from the low-res reproduction of the consultant's passport is of an older gentleman with fluffy white hair.

Are you fucking serious?

Hitoshi looks away from his laptop screen for two whole minutes and works on his noodles, wondering how long their investigative team had to dig into this particular alias to figure out it's faker than whatever this restaurant calls chicken in his meal.

He sets aside his container and taps back into the report, now fully invested in getting a handle on the writer's style and what they might actually know firsthand versus the proclaimed educated guesses.

It doesn't take long for Hitoshi to realize the reason the reports have so many damned pages is because the writer cites all of their sources and clearly lines out the progression of clues that lead to the eventual findings. He's hard pressed to imagine that this writer is anything but exceptionally thorough, but there are a few leaps in thought between the sources and the potential outcomes that Hitoshi can't follow.

It's very possible that someone who already knows all of the answers can backtrack their work to make it look like it's the natural results of their investigation.

Hitoshi picks up his chopsticks and pokes into the noodles with a thoughtful frown. The highly intelligent principal of UA might have some helpful input here, but it seems a little premature and far-fetched to bother such a well-regarded (feared) hero and public figure for something like this so early in the investigation. He adds a comment to his personal notes about looking into that if the simpler solutions fail.

He loads up an early version of the arson-robbery case file to compare the known details before and after the consultant's report, then examines the Hero Network resources granted as part of system allowances for third-party work.

The difference is night and day. He knows the consultant's report revealed a lot of new leads, but now Hitoshi can easily see how this much headway into a longstanding and troublesome case would be a shining beacon of promotable good work.

He feels his eyes start to blur as he skims some of the video evidence, computer logs, criminal dossiers, linked news articles, and research studies about behavioral patterns. There is no chance he'll ever determine whether the reports were backtracked or actually built from the ground up.

The writer knows their stuff one way or another, and he doesn't have the patience to follow this trail to its end.

He worries either way. If the writer is behind falsifying the truth of this work or knows the criminals involved, they could be dangerous. If the writer isn't involved and just really knows their stuff, they've made a mistake and potentially compromised their safety or the security of the resources they utilize.

His mind keeps circling around to the bank that burned down. Three people had lost their lives: an overworked janitor with two now-orphaned kids, a sleepy guard that had been attending school to become a paramedic, and a rookie firefighter that had a whopping two weeks of experience.

The agency had warning ahead of time that appeared to have been overlooked and ignored.

So much of what he's read in this consultant's work seems to push toward societal reform to help fix the underlying issues that lead to these criminal behaviors in the first place. He can't imagine that the writer would actually want to see the deaths of innocent civilians.

If the consultant thinks the investigator (and his agency by proxy) intentionally ignored the work so clearly laid out for them, they might feel slighted.

Hitoshi eyes the most recently sent report that mistakenly revealed the cafe's location. Perhaps this 'oversight' of the consultant's formerly careful maneuvering is just the first step in a long plan of horrible retribution against the ignorant authorities?

Fuck.

He closes his laptop and buries his face in his arms.

He doesn't sleep well that night.

Sunday morning greets him with eight needle-like claws digging firmly between his shoulder blades. He immediately regrets dozing off at his makeshift desk and sits up to dislodge whichever cat had decided to place their order for breakfast.

(He is thankful they are currently sparing his ankles from the abuse he fully deserves.)

He feeds his two terrors before putting on a pot of coffee. He forgoes the sugar this morning because he doesn't quite feel like he deserves any just yet.

When he had picked up his keys from the sweet elderly couple that manage the apartments, he also collected a copy of their current tenant records.

So far, the two of them had been nothing but helpful and accommodating toward the agency’s investigation, but they didn’t even own a computer. He’d spotted an honest-to-god manual typewriter on a corner desk, looking like an ancient relic that he’d once seen in a museum. The fanciest piece of equipment they have in their office isn’t even the phone, it’s the copy machine. It only prints in black and white, but it has some kind of touch-screen interface, and Hitoshi is mildly impressed they know how it functions.

(And speaking of their phone, they’re using a landline. How the fuck do they get any business done?)

As the husband bundled up the stack of twenty-two tenant profiles, the wife unexpectedly takes his hand and gives it a firm shake as she gushes with excitement about having an actual licensed hero living in their building, "What an honor!"

He rolls his eyes at the memory. He's nothing special, and he doubts they'd have recognized him or his hero name even if he'd handed them a printout of his full (classified) profile.

Hitoshi leans against the kitchen counter and takes a sip of his coffee as he thumbs through the handwritten names on the edges of each folder. He doesn't bother biting back a laugh of disbelief when he spots the civilian name for one of the hero teachers at UA.

He curiously pulls open the folder to skim the contents and sees she's living on the third floor, but a rental note states that she's mostly away due to her job requirements. There is no comment on what she does for a living.

(He's pretty certain that's intentional. Long term hero tenants value privacy and low profiles.)

The teachers mostly still live on the campus, and her schedule is likely so packed with her classes and patrols that she wouldn't have time to surveil her occasional home-away-from-home. He glances away from the file, wondering if their mysterious author knows of the mostly-absent hero on the third floor.

She's obviously not the person they're looking for. (oh hell-he hopes she isn't.)

He shakes his head and drops her folder at the back of the stack.

There are several families of three, some with teens. A law student and his wife. A few single parents with kids ranging in age between toddler and old-enough-to-move-out. A few retired elderly couples. A middle-aged guy on the fourth floor shares café shifts with his younger sister that lives on three. The only other person on the top floor is his age and hails from France. A couple on the floor below have identification from a country he's never heard of, with a note in their file that they're traveling abroad.

All of the tenant files in his possession are pretty dull. The only person that might have the education to put together their mystery author's reports is the law student, but he hates to jump to such an early conclusion. He's hoping some time spent in the café will reveal a frequent acquaintance that fits the bill more closely.

He stacks the files back together and sets them on the table below his laptop before settling into his super-comfortable folding chair to read through more of the reports and case files.

(He definitely needs a couch.)

This is the most boring Sunday he's had in a while.

At least the coffee is good.

Lunchtime passes by without notice, and it's nearly two in the afternoon when his stomach growls in protest of missed meals. He startles briefly and rubs at an eye before he stretches in his chair.

He's contemplating the merits of popping down to the café to pick up a quick bite to eat when someone knocks unexpectedly.

He silently slips over to the entrance of his apartment and presses an ear to the door. He's irritated at the lack of peephole, and wonders how much trouble it'll be to install a hidden camera to monitor the hallway outside. He hasn't been staying here long enough to attract the attention of anyone interested in his untimely death, so the level of threat waiting in the hall is probably pretty low.

He pulls open the door, the security chain stopping it with only an inch to peek out at his unexpected visitor. It takes him a moment to place where he's seen that face, and then he recognizes the French guy living in the unit next to his.

(He can't remember the name on the file, but that's fine. They haven't actually met yet, anyways.)

He closes the door, hurries back to the cats' room to shut them away in their sunny slice of napping paradise, then stalks back to the entryway with his capture scarf tucked under an arm.

(Just because his neighbor seems mild-mannered doesn't mean he is.)

In the few days since he's moved in, he's only had the slightest impression that there could be even a slim chance that one of the residents of this building is directly involved with a dangerous group of criminals, but as he stares down at this short green-haired guy stammering out a request for a cup of sugar, he almost hopes that this is some kind of ruse to get him to drop his defenses long enough to spring a surprise attack.

He eyes the earnest (nervous) expression, the near-trembling cup held firmly in one hand, the smudge of flour on a polka-dot apron and has to fight back a laugh. The short guy gives off the least threatening vibes he's ever seen aside from the little kids that used to stop by his mom's old house to sell cookies every spring, and is probably the last person he could possibly imagine being some kind of mastermind behind any kind of criminal activity.

Cute.

He invites him in and flicks on the kitchen lights, haphazardly tossing his capture weapon over the several other weapons he has lined up along the counter to hide them from immediate view. He leans into his cabinet for the bag of sugar he'd just put away the day before, fully aware that his teachers would probably (absolutely) ream him for turning his back on a stranger within arm's reach of that many knives and firearms.

Something about this guy makes him think that he couldn't hurt a fly. He seems so uncertain and uneasy, like he's frequently in danger and needs a full-time bodyguard.

He turns back with the sugar and looks him over in the bright light of his kitchen. He's been wrong before. This guy could just be an incredible actor.

The neighbor mumbles awkward thanks as he hands over the measuring cup like Hitoshi's just saved his ass from some great disaster in the making.

All this trouble for some sugar, the only ingredient he happens to have on hand.

The coincidence is almost hilariously bad, and he fully expects this snippet to make it into his memoir. (If he lives to that kind of age.)

His neighbor attempts to pry small talk out of him as he fills the cup and sends him on his way, but he's not feeling much like chatting with his neighbors, just yet.

Maybe in the light of day in the café downstairs it'll be easier, where his secrets aren't (poorly) tucked away a mere three feet from where they're standing. The shadows in his apartment seem a little intimidating for a friendly sit-down, and he doesn't even have a couch to offer the guy a seat.

Hitoshi eyes the smear of flour across his neighbor's freckled cheek just before he bows with a final set of thanks, then shuts the door to cut off further rambling. He's not there to make friends (yet), especially with the cute guy next door.

He rolls his eyes, imagining the irritation of random interruptions he might be inviting upon himself if the guy starts thinking he's friendly.

Chapter Text

Izuku's mother greets him at the door with a tearful smile and exclamations about how long it's been since he last visited.

(It's only been two weeks, mom. It's fine.)

The evening passes with second helpings of dinner and enough dessert to make up for the time spent apart before they find themselves lounging side-by-side on the squashy couch with cups of tea. The only thing that matters in their lives right now (besides one another) is the work work work, but they both enjoy what they do (albeit for very different reasons) so catching up on their jobs is a must.

Her stories are a little bland, but her daily life is exactly how she likes it, so Izuku smiles and nods and periodically refreshes her cup of tea.

(His mother is the most vibrant when everything goes according to plan.)

He tells her about how well his actual job has been going, and her eyes light up in surprise and delight at some of the obscure details he can slip into his narrative.

(Izuku is the most vibrant when he has injustices to fix with the power of the written word.)

Then his joy fades at the edges as he tells her about the progress he's made while working his cover job. Her lips thin a little, too, with clear worry and outrage at what he's uncovered.

Izuku's current cover job is with one of the shadiest businesses he's had the (dis)pleasure of working for, and the only reason he's stuck around as long as he has is to collect sufficient evidence to absolutely destroy turn in the management for fraud, employee discrimination, and horrendous safety violations. (There's more, but he doesn't tell his mother.)

He's given odd hours so he rarely sees others in the company's employ, but he knows that his fellow employees are worked to the bone in questionable conditions and paid a pittance. His paychecks (and at least a few others) are paid in cash under the table, and based on what he's seen while he (rather mindlessly) handles their document processing, he's pretty sure they don't report his hours (or existence) to the employment board.

Their disaster recovery clean-up crews are forced to cut so many corners he's surprised their little headquarters building on the outskirts of the harbor district hasn't yet turned into a sphere.

The management is rolling in funds from city grants, but they haven't been very clever at disguising where the money is actually being spent.

(They won't ever know how big they've messed up by hiring a quirkless nobody to clean up the mess of their filing system.)

He may be mad at their audacity, but he's enjoying the process of plotting their downfall.

He knows his mom is worried about the job and its location in a rough part of town, but he doesn't expect to be there much longer than another two weeks. The last piece of evidence he's hoping to come home with involves a visit from the company owner that's scheduled at the end of the month.

His report of the management's activities is lengthy and will be impossible to sweep under a rug, and he cannot wait to throw their entire operation to the media vultures before handing the accumulated evidence over to the police.

When he shoots a vicious little smile into his mug with the thoughts of his imminent victory, his mother bursts into laughter and ruffles his hair.

His visit runs longer than he expects, so she offers him the guest room for the night and he curls up in well-worn sheets and revels in the familiar scents of home.

She kisses him goodbye on Monday morning before the sun comes up and he makes his way to the station to catch an early morning train back to his side of town. He could have stayed later, but she goes to work early and he has a consultation he hopes to finish by midday.

He tucks his hands into the pocket of his hoodie against the unexpected chill of morning. The city breeze keeps knocking the hood off his head, sending eddies of the dew-dampened air down the back of his neck. In a few hours, the summertime heat will burn off most of the damp chill and the breeze will be much more welcome, but that's then, and this is now (and he's really regretting the shorts that made so much more sense late yesterday afternoon).

(It's fine.)

He crosses an intersection with a lone morning cyclist, his attention briefly flicking between the handful of people that are heading toward the station for work. He wants to look a little longer and really get a feel for what makes each of them special, but staring while walking down the street is a fast way to get someone angry enough to pick a fight.

(He'll wait until he's hidden behind tinted and reflective windows at the café before he risks indulging in his hobby.)

A flash of pale purple snags his attention as he crosses another street, and he looks up to stare a little more openly at the sight of his next-door neighbor leaving the building in the opposite direction. He's wearing a different set of loose, dark clothes, and Izuku gets the impression that he's perpetually dressed to sleep anywhere.

He tilts his head in consideration as he watches the taller male saunter down the street. Did he just roll out of bed like that? His gravity-defying violet hair would probably never suffer from bed-head. He finds himself wondering what his face looks like so early in the day.

Did he get enough sleep to banish the dark marks under his eyes?

Did he see the dessert he'd left?

He shakes free from his thoughts, recognizing the dark grey around his shoulders to be that odd summertime scarf from the night before. The moment odd crosses his mind, the morning chill bites a little deeper down the back of his hoodie, and he instantly regrets judging his neighbor's wardrobe.

He seems confident and comfortable, and isn't that a nice package deal?

He glances down at the pavement in time to spot and step over the crack he's tripped over three times in the last month.

Good luck today, he thinks.

He sighs and catches his lower lip between his teeth while he seriously considers the merits of getting his own summertime scarf.

The elevator takes at least five minutes to reach the first floor, but the reason behind the delay is that it has picked up three of his fellow tenants. He is somewhat acquainted with most of the people that live in the building, but he regrets not being more sociable in the years that he's lived here. By now they might find it incredibly odd if he were to ask for their names.

(He could always dig into his resources for missing details without needing to rely on social interaction, but it feels wrong to abuse his access just to feel less awkward at the elevator.)

Each returns his nod of greeting with a smile as they step out and he steps in to press the button for 6.

He leans against the elevator wall and stares at the blurry reflection as gentle dings indicate each floor he passes. A lot of the tenants spend time in the café. It's like a communal meeting spot for the residents and some of their friends, and anyone that visits more than once probably knows he's almost always to be found there, tucked away in a corner as he taps at his keyboard or plastered to the glass storefront to peer out at passersby like it's a television drama.

He does a lot of eavesdropping on the conversations that flow around him, and he can't help but notice the accidental quirk usage that sometimes occurs in plain sight.

It's both impressive and sad that he figured out the regulars' quirks forever ago (they'll never know he knows) but isn't sure about any of their names. A few have nicknames for each other, and sometimes he wonders if he's not the only one clueless to the tenants' true identities.

(Maybe he lives in a building filled with more aliases and mysteries than his own.)

They're all decently polite, but he guesses that he must look perpetually busy in the café when they manage to cross paths. Few of them have bothered to introduce themselves let alone stick around to chat. Maybe they're feeling the same awkward gap of years as he is and that's why no one bothers to ask names anymore.

(It's fine.)

When he steps out on the sixth floor, he is immensely relieved to find no crushed desserts left in front of his door as a thinly veiled warning against further attempts at friendship. (He feels a little hopeful that his strangely quiet neighbor appreciated his efforts instead of dropping it directly into the trash, but he doesn't dwell on that long.)

He changes into something a little more appropriate for spending the next few hours focusing on his work in an air-conditioned café, then collects his computer bag and heads back down to the first floor.

The barista glances up at his arrival with a wide grin and sets about putting together his usual morning fare.

He drapes himself across the cushioned bench in the far booth and leans his head back, staring up at the shimmer of reflected morning light sprinkled across the ceiling tiles. One of the cafe's tiny royalty deigns to grace his lap with her presence, and he runs his fingers through the soft grey fur as she purrs in contentment.

A mug of piping hot coffee and a plate of warm pastry appears on the table as the barista slides into the bench across from him and props her head on her hand.

"Did you see the new guy?" She murmurs with quiet delight.

"I was too busy embarrassing myself in his presence last night to really get a good look, but yeah," he sighs in response, sitting up straight to take a bracing sip of the hot drink.

His face burns as he thinks of their awkward introduction, and then he has to fight back a grimace as he recalls he hadn't even mentioned his name.

(In his defense, neither had his neighbor.)

But those hastily hidden weapons?

The deeply dark, weirdly empty interior with nothing but a computer for light?

What is his neighbor up to?

He's still leaning toward the idea that he must have recently moved in, but if he's really someone navigating their way through a bad patch in life, Izuku has a lot of practice finding helpful solutions to fix all sorts of troubles.

And if it turns out he's really a bad guy?

Well, Izuku will cross that bridge when he gets to it.

He flinches in surprise when the barista tsks at his obvious suffering. She's still sitting across from him and his coffee mug is almost empty. She notices he's finally paying attention again and gives him a really excessive wink.

He has no idea whether she's flirting or just being friendly. He smiles awkwardly in response.

(He's bad at this. It's fine.)

A timer for one of the ovens buzzes loudly next to the register and she moves to get up. "Let me know if you catch his name?" She begs halfheartedly as she heads back to the counter.

He hums his agreement, wondering if he's even caught her name. He'll have to take a look at her nametag the next time she refills his mug.

(He forgets to check.)

The report he's working on this morning has been a quick and dirty review of the security measures protecting a company in some Eastern European country. Their chief of security wanted a run-down on potential weaknesses and upcoming competitors.

He found much of what they'd needed to know with minimal poking, but a week of social engineering had revealed a horrifying lack of employee caution, and fixing those issues will take more effort than the rest of his recommendations combined.

He completed much of the work last week, so this morning he's finishing up a secondary copy translated into English as per their contract.

Translations are oftentimes the trickiest part of the job, where a single slip could mean the difference between "You might be robbed, so get insurance and a guard dog," and "You were robbed, so call insurance and get a new guard dog."

He finds his gaze frequently flicking down to the corner of his screen where the tiny green icon indicates his secure routing service is still running.

A few weeks back, he'd been so damned tunnel-visioned on his work that he'd idiotically missed the tiny red notice that something had gone wrong, which had promptly disappeared as his secure routing service quietly and completely crashed in the background.

He has no idea when the service actually stopped working, but he knows it was sometime after sitting down that morning to finish and send off his last agency report, but before the end of the second episode of a delightful documentary series he's recently started watching.

His gaze flicks down to the tiny green icon again to ensure it's still there.

(It is. It's fine.)

A teenager rushes into the café and blurts out a quick request for plain black coffee and the closest edible thing and then impatiently dances from foot to foot until the items are handed over. They race out the front door as their dad calmly walks into the space, already pulling out a wallet with fond exasperation.

"Running late for class again?" The barista teases. The dad nods and pays for them both before turning a brief wave of greeting in Izuku's direction.

On some evenings, Izuku finds the teen sitting next to a friend as they both play online computer games, their grumblings of disappointment or whoops of glee filling the otherwise calm space with the tangible atmosphere of excitement. It's a nice slice of something different as he shamelessly eavesdrops on their relaxed teenaged interactions.

He's only 22, but it's the moments like those that make him realize he grew up too fast and missed out on a lot of regular kid stuff. He kind of wants that joking familiarity with someone his age. He wants the freedom to poke fun without worrying he's overstepped a boundary, or to lean into someone's side with a smile as they celebrate a small victory together.

He wants. He sighs.

(It's fine.)

He doesn't linger on the knowledge that both the teen and his friend are quietly quirkless. He doesn't linger on the painful understanding that somehow they'd both lucked into finding each other, like twin pillars of support against a world that wants nothing to do with any of their kind. He wants to ask, to know if it was happenstance or an intentional outreach from one family to the other. The chances that they could both exist in the same city at the same age are astronomically small.

One day, he might say something. But he's afraid of revealing his secret, of dropping his defenses to let in a couple of kids that don't flinch at every sound, haven't had to learn to hide everything about themselves. They just exist. He watches, though, for limps or hidden injuries. For the peek of a bandage or the dead-eyed look of despair that took him years to overcome.

He doesn't despair anymore.

One day, he might say something.

He drinks his way through another two cups of coffee before he's done with his translations. He stretches his fingers out and checks one final time that the icon is present before he sends the encrypted message to the forwarding service, then closes down his apps and puts the sleeping computer back in his bag.

The old lady from two (who is also the biggest gossip he's ever met) waves brightly from the door of the café as she leads her husband out onto the street, and Izuku threads his fingers through a different cat's fur to pet and scratch for a moment. The royal trio usually takes turns soaking up the warmth from his thighs as he works through his mornings in the back of the café, but his work is complete and the window seats are calling his name.

(The cat isn't ready for him to stop scratching yet, so he'll have to wait a little bit longer before he has permission to move.)

When he has the time, he sits, watches, and speculates on the quirks of everyone that walks down the street. They usually can't spot him shamelessly staring through the reflective glass, and he indulges in this favorite hobby without a soul to complain (or give him weird looks for mumbling his ideas out loud).

He's about thirty minutes into his mutterstorm before he realizes he's been speculating in English and the barista is standing next to him with a grin of amusement (he thinks) while holding out the sandwich he likes to eat for lunch.

Izuku knows that he's being silly for thinking she's weird to not think he's weird, but he doesn't know what to do about the friendly jab of an elbow as she walks back to the kitchen.

His lips twist into a half smile as he picks at his sandwich. She usually swaps shifts with her brother around this time of day, which means any minute-

"Eyyy, greenbean!" The older male calls with far too much excitement. Izuku ducks his head with mild embarrassment and waves as he takes a big bite of the sandwich so he can avoid immediately responding.

The brother laughs and heads into the kitchen to greet his sister, and soon she walks out with a call of farewell and a reminder for her brother to bring breakfast to their mother the next morning.

If it's already lunchtime, then that means he'll have to head back upstairs soon to sleep if he wants to have half a chance of staying awake for his cover job that night. With the sandwich to occupy his mouth and prevent further muttering, he allows his attention to drift back to the people walking outside. So many people, most of them gifted with random abilities that might never see the light of day, yet ensure them all the freedoms and allowances their (somewhat broken) society has to offer. He knows it's not fair, but then, what really is?

He shakes his head and chews on another bite, glancing to the left at a bright splash of red coming down the street. His gaze flicks up and down the figure as they creep along the sidewalk, their posture hunched as they try to curl inwards.

The short, messy red hair is Izuku's first clue, but as they pass by he catches sight of a shimmering iridescence along the butt of their pants. He'd bet a week's paycheck that he's looking at the application of a cheap flameproofing spray. They're clearly wearing a normal shirt fabric without signs of similar fire repellent.

Fire quirk, but thin with a hunched posture.

Seems nervous.

Probably an embarrassing manifestation they can't control.

Izuku barely swallows his bite in time to muffle a laugh at his guess.

Flammable gas quirk?

That would be horrible (horribly funny), and he's glad he doesn't have to deal with anything like that.

(It's fine.)

Chapter Text

Some hours after his odd and unexpected meeting with the green-haired guy next door, Hitoshi hears a quiet click and the jingle of keys before footsteps disappear down the hall.

He has the vague feeling that his neighbor meant it when he said he’d share, so he peeks through his cracked-open door and is somewhat surprised to find a small paper-wrapped package.

He checks the hallway for an ambush (he hopes there will be an ambush, and his disappointment at zero ambushes is a tangible thing) before scooping up the gift and retreating into the kitchen. It looks somewhat like a french pastry he’s only heard about in passing.

As he leans over his kitchen counter with a fresh mug of coffee and samples the dessert with slow bites, he nods thoughtfully. With his limited expertise, he feels confident that the dessert is fully edible. He wonders if there might be another to try in the future.

In order for that to happen, though, he might have to play nice with the guy next door. He’s not sure if the guy’s anxiety stems more from a potential baking disaster combined with unexpected introductions, or if that’s his natural state. (He’s honestly not sure which might be more interesting.) If he’s normally a bit more calm, then he might be able to get some decent intel about the other residents. If not… well.

He wipes a crumb from the side of his mouth and drops that line of thought before it gets much further.

His Sunday night passes with more takeout and the continued skimming of case files, but nothing really stands out to his wavering attention. He takes some half-hearted notes about the tenant files and stares balefully at his schedule for the next week. He has a briefing at the agency the next morning with a final update about the asset emplacement status for their big case, but he’s not hopeful there will be good news.

If it’s not immediately life threatening or worth a whole bunch of money, the Commission is notoriously slow.

He spends a few minutes to neaten his work space, then feeds the cats one last time before he slumps bonelessly onto his futon and puts his phone in his face to drown his irritation with videos of cats doing funny things.

Monday morning is chilly and dull as he rolls out of bed, brushes his teeth, runs three fingers through his hair as an afterthought, then throws on his capture scarf like a safety blanket.

If anyone notices how often Shinsou strides into work still wearing his pajamas, they never say anything. He keeps his uniforms in a locker there, but he’s thinking it’ll be a good idea to keep a set at his new (temporary) apartment so he doesn’t have to stop at the agency before he heads out on his weeknight patrols.

He glances at his phone to check the time as he slips out the front door of the building. He has twenty minutes to get to the agency before the briefing is scheduled to start. He’s tempted to jog the whole way there so he can show up obnoxiously sweaty and gross, but he doesn’t have another change of civilian clothes on hand so he immediately discards the idea.

Next time, he thinks.

The briefing goes about as well as he expects it will: everything is horribly stalled, and they now have written confirmation from the Commission that their requested assets are currently under review by the funding board, who will not be meeting for another twenty days.

(Shinsou does not throw his briefing packet, but it’s a near thing.)

He stops by a pet shop on the way back to his side-mission and buys more cat stuff. (He does not have a problem.)

It’s late afternoon before he makes it home again. He squeezes in through the building’s front door with boxes piled a bit too high in his arms, glancing to the side to note the cafe is currently empty of patrons. (He’ll come back the next morning to get started on his coffee-fueled surveillance.) Somehow he manages to hit the call button for the elevator and make it back to his apartment with everything still in one piece.

Hitoshi’s cats express their forgiveness for his recent misdeeds by playing with all of the emptied boxes and packaging (while ignoring the new toys and furniture entirely, as cats do).

He’s forgotten his uniform in his (angry) haste to leave the agency earlier that day, so once evening is upon him, he trudges back toward the partially-lit building to change in the empty locker rooms.

His first patrol that week is quiet and uneventful. The sound and feel of streets and rooftops beneath his feet as he runs and leaps lends a welcome thrum to the blood rushing through his veins. It feels good to get out and look for trouble that night, despite never managing to find any.

He spots a runner headed toward the harbor district, which seems a little strange for the time of night and the area they’re in, but they aren’t chasing anyone and no one is following (aside from a curious underground pro-hero), so he lets the runner continue their probably-not-suspicious activity.

He provides backup for a police request that comes over the network at around one in the morning, but it’s just to help push a stalled vehicle out of the street.

It’s boring but familiar. It’s a good stretch of his legs and clears his brain of all the static that’s been running his nerves ragged with the potential what-ifs.

When he gets home at three, he showers and falls into his bedding, asleep in minutes.

The next morning is an unfortunately bright Tuesday. He has no briefings and a full day of freedom ahead, so he idles in the kitchen with the can opener. His two cats twine around his ankles with loud complaints about his (lack of) breakfast dispensing efficiency.

Hitoshi stares down at the ginger digging her claws into his thigh. “I bring you gifts and clean up your messes and feed you the best stuff I can find and this how you repay my kindness?”

With his attention diverted, the other cat bites his ankle. He’s expecting the physical show of adoration, so he doesn’t flinch. The bowls are set on the floor and he is ignored entirely in favor of food.

“Ungrateful,” he mutters.

He loves them anyways.

He packs his laptop into a carrying case and snags his key. He stops at the open door for a moment and glances back at his capture weapon. It looks close enough to a scarf to get away with wearing it in public with passing glances, but if he keeps it with him every time he heads down to the café, his neighbors might eventually realize it’s not quite what it seems. He’s hoping to look like a mostly average guy long enough to figure out some leads and then get back to his regular life. No weird explanations or shady suspicions if he can avoid it.

He leaves it behind.

He punches the call button for the elevator and eyes the lights indicating its approach. He thinks briefly of the stairwell. He should give it a peek sometime soon in case there’s an emergency, so he’s prepared for either a swift escape down a perfect straight-shot gap between the spiraling staircase, or jumping down twenty steps at a time while he turns four corners between each landing. He hopes it’s the former, or he’s going to end up with a dozen new bruises.

The elevator dings. He steps forward without looking and nearly barrels into the short neighbor that’s stepping out.

Hitoshi stares.

He looks like hell.

The guy gasps in surprise at his unexpected appearance, and Hitoshi skims the visible injuries with mounting concern. The cut on his lip is the most obvious of them all, and he wonders if it might actually need stitches.

“I’m hoping that isn’t as bad as it looks,” he finally says, and the guy flushes scarlet as he stares up at him. Oh for fucks’ sake, if this guy has a concussion… he thinks, peering carefully into his green eyes at his dilated pupils for any difference in size.

“Blink twice if you’ve hit your head,” he demands.

The stammering starts in as he waves off Hitoshi’s concern, threading a bruised hand through the wavy green hair at the back of his neck.

He wonders how the guy managed to get into a fight over groceries before breakfast as he lifts the bulging paper bag in his hasty explanation.

His aborted attempt at a smile ends up spilling more blood down his chin, and Hitoshi mentally scrambles before realizing he has absolutely nothing on hand to press to the guy’s wound. He has only two seconds to consider taking off his mostly clean shirt to use as an emergency bandage before the guy cuts off his rambling mid-thought and squeezes past to flee into his apartment.

Okay, that just happened. The elevator door slides shut behind him as he stares at the empty hallway.

He’s honestly seen a hell of a lot worse, but that doesn’t mean he can really tell at a glance if the guy needs medical attention.

(He might stop by this afternoon and check that he’s still alive.)

The absurdity of his short neighbor getting into a physical altercation with someone and then playing it off as no big deal eats at him the whole way down to the first floor.

His first thought is that this guy has been a pushover his whole life and he just doesn’t know when to ask for help.

His second thought is that maybe he doesn’t just look like he needs a full-time bodyguard, and whoever ends up tailing him is going to have their hands full.

It’s a little preposterous for eight o’clock in the morning, so he drops that thought for another time.

The barista greets him with far too much cheer as he slinks into the back corner to park himself with his back against a wall. He plugs in his laptop and settles his hands around a cup of plain black coffee, and the barista wheedles him into trying some baked good that he’s never seen before.

It crumbles between his fingertips as he takes a bite and buttery warmth melts across his tongue.

The moment one of those personable cats makes a home in his lap, he decides this is easily the best mission he’s ever accepted, and he makes a mental note to write something heartfelt instead of rudely sarcastic on the card his agency gets for the boss each year.

He opens his encrypted mail and checks for any new messages. (There are none, because the people worth talking to know better than to chat at him for no good reason.)

He’s spent much of the weekend reading through this mystery author’s work, but he’s been staring at words hoping to find personality only to find a pile of professionalism.

No obvious opinions, just facts. No impressions or feelings. No catchy phrases that often come up in works that help lend a unique voice to the writer’s style.

There is a strong case to be made that this writer has some background in social support systems and restructuring programs meant to fix underlying issues. Some of the writer’s suggestions seem to encourage change that would classically result in reduced crime rates, happier citizens, less need for active response hero and law enforcement agencies (aside from accidents and natural disasters), and overall positive community growth.

(To read it is both enlightening and exhausting, because he easily forgets how shit their systems can be for the fringes of society.)

The author clearly points out where community and social limitations may have inadvertently caused the suspect(s) descent into crime followed by potential methods to prevent similar cases from happening in the future. Programs are outlined that can be put into place which could help lead the criminal(s) toward a path of redemption if immediate arrests cannot be made.

He’s a little impressed (and unnerved) by the length this writer has gone to suggest applicable local team-ups and strategies for initial capture with expanded notes on longer detainment for persons that can bypass classic containment measures.

He brings his coffee to his lips and hums thoughtfully. This person, whoever they are, seems to be on a path to help the worst of us find a better life. It’s either incredibly noble, or veering toward setting up a manifesto for drastic change with drastic measures.

“You must be the new resident on the top floor!”

Shinsou, still firmly in work-mode, looks up with a barely hidden grimace of dismay as a plump old lady slides into a seat catty-corner from his, close enough to be annoying but not close enough to intrude on his personal space. He recognizes her from the resident files he had spent the weekend skimming.

She holds out her hand in greeting as she introduces herself with a kind smile, but it borders on what he might consider a sly grin. He’ll have to get to know her better before he can be sure which fits her best.

As soon as their hands part, she immediately delves into building gossip and Shinsou realizes at once that her smile is indeed about as sly as a one can get before it edges into evil.

Her first story is about the married couple that fled the country earlier that month while regurgitating some hoo-haw about their distant cousin having a difficult pregnancy. (He has trouble following for a moment until he gets enough context to understand that ‘hoo-haw' means ‘incredibly transparent lies’.)

As she goes on into the details of a sordid love affair with an assistant at the husband’s accounting firm, he quietly opens a note file to tap in some comments about the various levels of baloney he’s being fed from a lady that might be legally blind (based on how thick her glasses are) but apparently sees and knows everything that happens between the café and the rooftop.

** Couple on five has potentially fled the country, but left a week before our target timeframe.

Another couple on her floor is expecting a baby at the end of summer, and, “Isn’t that exciting for the building as a whole, to welcome new life amongst our number?” She exclaims this a bit too loudly as she’s apparently overwhelmed by a bright light in her suddenly damp eyes.

Shinsou is (quietly) incredibly thankful that he’ll likely be done and out of the building before the expected birth. Inconsolable newborn is a hurdle he hopes he won’t have to deal with for at least another decade. (If ever, thanks to his current zero interest in females.)

He makes a note, though.

** New baby on the way, potential money problems due to schooling and new family. Father-to-be is a law student and might have enough legal background and education to develop reporting on this level, though proclaimed career path in estate planning conflicts with this much expertise.

The gossiping lady gets her own note.

** Can’t stop talking to save her life. If her husband has the skills to keep a consulting hobby quietly contained, then we’re dealing with a mastermind of epic proportions and we’ll need extensive funding and technical backup. My computer is probably already compromised, and his ‘mistake’ by accidentally sending that doc from the café must actually have been a lure to catch us trying to catch them. If I die, please spend my insurance money on the cats. They deserve a cat-mansion in the countryside.

Shinsou can’t quite hide his expression of stark relief when her husband appears in the doorway of the elevator, waving with a feeble hand to catch her attention.

“Oh, that’s my love. We’re off to play cards with some friends. Honestly this is the only thing his mind is good for anymore,” she murmurs, now a bit more quietly as she stands to brush off her flowery dress. She gives him a rueful smile and adjusts her thick glasses over the bridge of her nose. “I’ll be back to chat more with you later, sonny,” she threatens with a wave of her hand, then turns to join her husband at the front door of the building.

The barista emerges from wherever they were hiding for the last hour and takes the moment of renewed silence to head over to his table with a fresh pot of coffee.

He sighs as his mug is refilled. He curls his fingers around the warming ceramic before casting a vague glance of trepidation out the window. The still-chatting woman escorts her nodding husband out of sight down the street, and he both dreads and gleefully anticipates the next time they meet.

“Sometimes I think that old baba knows everything,” the barista idly comments, plucking the old lady’s discarded napkin and half-finished tea from the table behind Shinsou’s laptop. “And then she says something completely insane and I wonder how much she’s just making up for the drama.”

Shinsou sighs again and adds a fresh note.

** Possibly crazy.

Chapter Text

His evening run to work is normally an uneventful half-hour to stretch his legs and mentally unwind, but a mere dozen blocks away from his destination, Izuku starts to feel a little uneasy. He has been running from his problems (and bullies) long enough to be able to outstrip most assailants that don’t have a speed quirk (or a gun), but he also carries a little EDD (electroshock defense device) to deter anyone that can manage to catch him.

These details don’t help him shake that creeping feeling of being watched.

Letting someone know you know they’re there is a quick way to draw more attention, so he pushes aside the trepidation and keeps going. If his pumping arms happen to brush the EDD secured to his backpack strap a few times in reassurance, no one knows but him.

The weird feeling vanishes a few blocks before he gets to work. The dozing security guard couldn’t care less about the danger he may have just dodged, so Izuku takes a quick shower and gets to paper-pushing.

When his shift ends, he’s still a little unnerved about the weird occurrence on the way in, but he doesn’t want to wait for two hours for the earliest trains. Another run does more good than harm, so he packs up his stuff and heads back toward his building.

He has plans to pick up groceries for a curry he hasn’t had in a while, and then further plans to nap until it’s time to cook. He might even make a trip to the nearby city park to lounge beneath a tree once the shadows of late-afternoon are long enough to keep him cool.

He burns a few hours on work while he’s still wired from the run back home, but until he gets his last piece of evidence from the business owner, there isn’t much else other than skimming the Hero Network request boards for something that might pique his interest.

(They all do, but he tries to be picky and select only the ones that might cause others trouble to solve. If he takes all the easy cases, then his fellow consultants will have less to choose from, and having his aliases attached to a hundred cases each year seems like a terrible idea. Maybe he needs to invest in a few more to thin the attention. Later.)

The grocery run does not go as planned.

The location he usually visits is closed for emergency renovations, thanks to a messy villain takedown by one of the top-tier heroes that also happens to have a top-tier insurance premium thanks to the amount of property damage he leaves behind.

His phone helpfully informs him that the next closest shop carrying what he needs is in a neighboring city he’s not terribly familiar with. They don’t take cash, and when he reluctantly whips out his region-assigned payment card, the salesperson flips their shit at the quirkless mark on the corner. (He regrets leaving his backpack with the EDD at the apartment.)

He knows he shouldn’t have looked away, but he’d never have guessed a clipboard could be used as a weapon.

(His face proves otherwise.)

He still manages to get out of there in one piece with his groceries, despite the trouble.

And the police.

And the witness statement.

And dodging the paramedic that tries to lure him into the ambulance. No thanks, he’s not dying.

He’s almost home when he finally notices the throbbing ache in his face and the blood that has drenched the front collar of his shirt.

(It’s fine.)

Izuku leans against the elevator door with his eyes shut, pressing his forehead to the cool metal to stave off the beginnings of a headache. The quiet ding of his arrival to the top floor rouses his attention just long enough to steady his balance and not fall through as the metal doors slide open. He releases a sigh and steps onto his floor, barely opening his eyes in time to stop a scant few inches from his ridiculously tall (not cute, not cute!) neighbor.

When he doesn’t immediately move to make room for his exit, Izuku glances up and catches his breath at those surreal violet eyes. Not fair, he briefly laments. What fascinating aspect of his biology results in white pupils? He’s quite sure they don’t glow, but he wouldn’t mind a minute or two in the dark with this guy to confirm his speculation.

His heart absolutely does not flip upside-down when the other male’s attention flicks to his mouth.

“I’m hoping that isn’t as bad as it looks,” he drawls.

Izuku stares, feeling a very real flush creep up his cheeks. This is unexpected. His voice, too?

His neighbor narrows his eyes and leans closer into his space. Izuku feels like he might burst into flames.

“Blink twice if you’ve hit your head,” the neighbor says, and Izuku thinks he could listen to this guy talk all day.

Then suddenly it clicks.

That’s concern. About me. “Oh! N-no,” he replies, cursing the slip of stammering. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck and glances away with a nervous chuckle. “Just a bit of a disagreement with someone.”

His neighbor frowns. “Disagreements don’t often end with that severe of a split lip.”

Izuku’s answering smirk turns into a grimace as the injury pulls. “Well, you should see the other guy,” he mutters, lifting the grocery bag as he devolves into the quick summarization of what had happened. “The usual store is closed for repair after getting sideswiped by some hero fight…” he trails off with a shrug, “…and the closest place that sells the ingredients I need doesn’t really adhere to anti-discrimination—”

He snaps his mouth shut before squeezing past his neighbor.

He pushes the door closed with his shoulder and leans against it, gritting his teeth in irritation about his tendency to overshare.

He’d been too easily distracted by a cute face and a concerned look. He sighs and twists the deadbolts into place.

What’s next, he starts waxing poetic about the color of his eyes? Singing praises about the way that voice made his insides melt?

Shit.

Okay, okay okay.

It’s fine to have a little swoon-moment over the cute guy next door.

It’s fine.

He’s fine.

...So fine.

Izuku blushes again and scurries away from the door to get the first aid kit.

It’s been a while since the last injury bad enough to need bandages, but he’s had enough practice that he doesn’t have to think about it too much while he disinfects and blots and tapes. He takes a mild painkiller and downs a glass of water. The shower is short, but relaxing and warm. He doesn’t think much on his cute neighbor before he manages to make it into bed. As he’s curling into his blankets to get some restful sleep, he squeezes a pillow to his chest and wishes (just a bit) for a hug.

He doesn’t sleep nearly as long as he needs to. He’d been up all night, had a (literally) rough morning, and his face is this entire thing of discomfort.

He huffs out a long sigh and drags himself out of bed, thirsty and in pain.

There is a decent enough distraction nudging at his thoughts, though.

The tall, dark, and handsome stranger next door was worried about him.

He closes his eyes and groans in mild annoyance. He’s probably not the only single in his building to be crushing on the new resident, but...

Those mysterious eyes?

That magnificent voice?

And that warm and fuzzy feeling he’d gotten when he’d merely looked at Izuku’s mouth?

Swoon.

This is troublesome. Yes, he’s cute. It’s fine. Cute people exist. And he’s his neighbor, which means…

His brain doesn’t trail off into helpful scenarios about living right next door to a cute guy.

What if he just … stops by for a chat?

What if he just … stops by to ask for some sugar?

Izuku will be happy to spare some sugar.

Well, if by sugar he means a kiss.

Izuku sticks the edge of his thumbnail to the uninjured part of his lip as he wanders into the kitchen. Do people even use that term anymore? He probably shouldn’t drop it in casual conversation unless he wants to alienate more people.

Like his neighbor.

Izuku presses his hands to his cheeks and whines in despair. He barely knows the guy and is already contemplating how many times someone should meet before it’s acceptable to expect a kiss.

They should at least exchange names, first.

Maybe phone numbers so they can text. Texting is less awkward by far, and he can self-edit as much as he wants before hitting send.

He takes a deep breath.

It’s fine.

He stops in front of his pantry and pokes through it absentmindedly. He still needs to visit a (better) grocery store to restock his baking supplies if he ever hopes to have actual sugar to repay his neighbor’s kindness.

(Maybe he should go ask to borrow more.)

(Nope.)

A container of seasoning catches his attention and suddenly he remembers the groceries he’d put away. His face twinges in discomfort as he picks up an onion. He’s having serious second-thoughts about that curry he’d been planning.

He isn’t sure he’ll want to stand over a stove to flip, fry, stir, and combine ingredients into something fancy, but he still wants that curry, so he compromises and pulls out everything he’ll need for a lazy recipe in the slow cooker, instead.

He roughly chops some veggies, douses it with some broth, measures in some seasoning, and plops a lid on the whole thing. He can finish the last steps in a few hours, so he twists the dial on his kitchen timer and then drapes himself over a chair at the table.

His laptop bag is conveniently close, so he leans over to pull out his device.

He hisses in discomfort as his head and face throb painfully as a reminder of his carelessness. He should probably take some more medicine, or at least use an ice pack, but he doesn’t want to get up just yet.

He opens one of his documents and stares at it for ten minutes, understanding nothing, his brain feeling like a buzz of static.

An unexpected sound startles him awake. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he’s drooled in front of the keyboard, and his hand is a bit numb after being curled beneath his cheek for so long.

He blinks in confusion. Why is he at the table? The smell of cooking food catches his attention and he stares into the kitchen, wondering what woke him up.

He hears a knock, and that seems familiar. Was that what had woken him? He can hear the vague sound of his new neighbor saying something.

He shuffles toward the door, still feeling quite a bit out of sorts, then unlocks it without really thinking through what he’s about to do.

Wouldn’t it suck to be ambushed by an unexpected assailant after he’d been so careful?

He’s in luck, this time.

His neighbor is a welcome sight for sore eyes.

(It’s fine.)

Chapter Text

It’s nearly three in the afternoon before Hitoshi’s looming guilt about leaving his neighbor in such a state pushes him to grab his stuff and head back up the elevator.

(He isn’t afraid that the old baba might come back with more crazy stories before he’s had a chance to fully parse how much truth is embedded in her dramatization. He can admit, however, that waiting for another day to collect more gossip just might be better for his mental health.)

He takes a deep breath by the door marked ‘2’ and thinks long and hard about what he’s about to do. He’s not here to make friends , but he’s also not here to ignore someone who might need a smidgen of help. This kind of help he has some experience with.

After the crazy in the café, though, he’s really hoping that a little outreach might snag him some usable intel on the other tenants. If he’s lucky. And hopefully with less embellishment.

He knocks.

A minute passes in silence. He shifts his weight and looks down the empty hallway toward the elevator and stairwell. He hadn’t seen his neighbor leave, so unless he’s used the fire escape, he should still be inside.

He knocks again, and then, feeling like an idiot, clears his throat to call out, “Neighbor.”

This is ridiculous. He knows the guy’s name from the owners’ rental documents, but he doesn’t like to reveal his hand before absolutely necessary.

There’s a heavy sigh from somewhere beyond the door accompanied by shuffling footsteps. No less than three locks click —and Hitoshi has a moment of confusion at that detail— before the door swings open to reveal his neighbor, half-awake and rubbing at his eye with sleep-mussed hair. There’s a clear impression of knuckles across his cheek, like he fell asleep using the back of his hand as a pillow.

Hitoshi blinks down at the (adorable) sight and forces back his amusement with a firm reminder to himself: He’s injured. Don’t laugh. He somehow retains a straight face long enough to say, “I was just stopping by to make sure you hadn’t died.”

His neighbor blinks up at him with a bleary gaze, wincing when something pulls in his face.

Hitoshi looks him over, his worry easing that he’d done some self-treatment. There’s a suture strip across the worst of the split in his lip and it’s no longer oozing blood. An oddly-straight line of bruising has bloomed beneath his eye in the hours since he’d seen him last.

“Hmm,” he rumbles in reply, heaving a deep sigh. “Thoughtful,” he adds, hanging onto the doorframe to stretch in a full-body arch, an arm thrown out to one side.

Hitoshi thinks he looks ridiculous and has to bite back a smirk. “Occasionally.”

There’s a long, peaceful moment between them as his neighbor leans against the door frame and sleepily blinks up at him. Hitoshi isn’t sure what else to say, but then the silence is suddenly broken by a crash from the down the hall and the unmistakable sound of a cat yowling.

Hitoshi grimaces and glances in the direction of their madness. He’s not looking forward to seeing whatever they’ve destroyed. (He hopes they haven’t scattered the paper copies he’d stacked so nicely on the folding table.)

His neighbor shifts, and Hitoshi looks back in time to see the bruised cheek twitch like he wants to smile but knows that’s a terrible idea. “You have a cat?”

Hitoshi nods. “Two. I’d invite you over to meet them, but it’s almost dinnertime.”

His neighbor is not sure what he’s getting at there and tilts his head in confusion.

Hitoshi bites his cheek to cut off his grin of delight. Cute . He slouches a little and rolls his gaze back toward his apartment, trying to appear nonchalant. “They get a little creative with their dinner requests,” he clarifies (like that helps at all), “and I’m not sure you have the appropriate protective gear.”

His neighbor scoffs and jokingly replies, “I can take a little violence.” A buzzer sounds from the kitchen, and his neighbor turns to glance back over his shoulder at the noise, just barely missing the sight of Hitoshi choking on his spit.

Accidentally inappropriate. How kind of him to hand me ammunition.

His neighbor leaves him standing in the doorway as he retreats into his kitchen. “If you wanna keep chatting,” he calls, “You should step inside so I don’t have to shout. I need to take care of this before something burns.”

Hitoshi’s eyebrows rise in astonishment. Just two days prior he’d invited his little neighbor in his house, but he’d been near-trembling at his doorstep to beg a cup of sugar.

He’d have thought the guy should be skittish and overcautious with the practical stranger next door, especially after the morning he’d had. He wonders once more whether this guy is just acting anxious or his sleepy countenance is more like what his natural state would be once he’s not overthinking anything.

Maybe he hit his head harder than Hitoshi had thought.

He steps through the doorway as the other male disappears from sight. “It’s not really safe to invite strangers into your home, neighbor. I could be a serial killer.”

The reply is a little muffled amidst the sounds of him rummaging in the kitchen. “You didn’t serial-kill me over the sugar, neighbor.”

Hitoshi breaths out a near-silent laugh and slides off his shoes before stepping into the cozy apartment. The guy has decorated in shades of brown with a few touches of blue. The mid-afternoon sunlight streams through gauzy curtains, and it’s a wild contrast against the deep darkness he’s used to seeing in his apartment next door.

“Well, serial killers bide their time,” Hitoshi counters, leaning sideways in the kitchen entrance with crossed arms. His neighbor pulls the lid from a cooking device on the counter, and a savory scent fills the air. “Maybe today’s the day,” he murmurs, wondering what level of nonsense he’ll need to spout to get a good reaction.

He watches as the guy stirs, then lifts a small amount to his mouth to take a taste. He sprinkles some kind of seasoning as the spoon sweeps back and forth. He hasn’t actively paid attention to someone cooking since he was a kid. It’s a little more interesting than he thinks it should be.

The edge of a fragrant spoon is suddenly an inch from his face. “Serial killers don’t announce their intentions,” his neighbor says as he waggles the utensil and squints up at him with bright green eyes. The spoon is withdrawn before Hitoshi makes up his mind to take a taste. “Are we just going to call each other neighbor until the police come to have me identify your body?”

Hitoshi eyes the cut on the guy’s face with a grimace. “If anyone’s gonna need to be identified, it’ll be you, Mister Fight-Club.” He watches him replace the lid before pulling out a rice cooker. Hitoshi tilts his head and eyes him for a moment.

He can’t use his real name, but something about this guy makes him feel a little casual and silly. A handful of nicknames flash through his thoughts, and all of them seem horribly suggestive or disgustingly cute for a new acquaintance. His gaze flicks between the bright green hair and eyes, and he gets an idea.

“Call me…” he pauses for dramatic effect, “…Murasaki.”

His neighbor snorts and turns to stare up at him with incredulity. “Purple? Fitting.” Hitoshi can see the guy fighting back a smile. He knows that split lip must hurt like hell. “If we’re being colorfully mysterious,” he replies with a careful half-smirk, “then you can call me Midori.”

Hitoshi leans back against the wall feeling a little bit like the cat that got the cream. “Fair trade.”

Midori turns back to his cooking with a warm look that Hitoshi can’t quite figure out.

“Want some coffee?” Midori is looking at him over a shoulder as he pulls a blue mug from a shelf.

Hitoshi stares at him with a blank look just long enough for Midori to shift in discomfort before he replies, “I don’t normally get invited in for coffee before a first date.”

Midori laughs aloud, then winces with a hand pressed to his face. “Oh, that’s really awful. Why must you hurt me so?”

Hitoshi shrugs. “You said you could take a little violence.”

Midori turns pink and fiddles with the coffee pot nearby. “I was talking about the cats being mean,” he mumbles.

Hitoshi points at him accusingly. “This,” he waves, “This is why I couldn’t understand your explanation earlier today. All I got was hero and discrimination before you booked it.”

Midori busies himself with pouring water into the coffeemaker. “So is that a yes or no for the coffee?” He’s clearly trying to change the subject.

“Yes. Please. My veins will shrivel and I will perish in unrelenting agony without a steady supply of caffeine.” He’s enjoying the barely-suppressed expressions of amusement rippling across this guy’s face. He knows it hurts, but the temptation to coax out a giggle is strong.

He can’t let that previous subject drop just yet. “But discrimination is no joke. I can’t imagine what problem anyone would have with you.” Midori’s trying to appear nonchalant as he measures out some coffee grounds, but Hitoshi can see his movements stutter. He gently fishes for more. “Unless it has something to do with your freckles. They are offensively cute.”

Midori’s lip trembles against his amusement as more pink floods his cheeks.

It’s too easy, Hitoshi thinks. “I can understand if you were sticking up for someone else, too.” Midori flicks him a brief glance at the suggestion, and Hitoshi feels like he’s hit the jackpot. He doesn’t really think about the can of worms he’s about to open when he adds, “There isn’t always going to be a hero around to save us from ourselves.”

An unintentional scowl creeps across Hitoshi’s face before he can stifle it and he looks away, vaguely annoyed with himself for digging this much. Hitoshi feels the lingering disappointment he’d revealed with that statement down to the soles of his feet.

So many times he’d been picked on, pushed around, and beaten up because people thought of him as nothing more than a villain. Because his quirk could make people do things.

There are a few more seconds of somber silence as they look at anything but each other. Midori turns on the coffee machine and stares at his hands as the device sputters to life. “Doesn’t matter,” he murmurs. “The police took care of the guy and I got my groceries.”

“Fight club,” Hitoshi mutters, pulling the laptop bag off his shoulder so he can sit on one of the stools along the counter. If he’s staying for coffee, he may as well get comfortable.

“There wasn’t a fight club,” Midori corrects as he pulls out a stool to perch next to him. “It was a clipboard.”

He turns to peer at the marks on Midori’s face with fresh understanding. A clipboard, sadly, fits. He props his chin on his hand and stares at Midori with unabashed curiosity. “Clipboards weigh practically nothing.”

Midori snorts and glances away. “This one had the full weight of an angry storekeeper’s ar—” Whatever he means to say next is cut off by a tremendous yawn. “Oh, sorry,” he mumbles, carefully hiding his face on his palms.

“Seems like you need more sleep to recover,” he observes.

Midori shrugs and peeks out from between his fingers. “I work night shifts. I’m usually sleeping during part of the day.”

“I can’t think of many late-night jobs,” he hedges. Truthfully, he can picture a few, but Midori is too bright to be stuck working any kind of job in the dead of night.

Midori yawns again, then reaches out for a second mug to push in front of Hitoshi. “I’m just a paper pusher for some terrible little company.” The rich aroma of fragrant coffee curls through the air as he pours the two cups. “Sugar…?” he offers, then trails off with a furious blush. “Sorry. Forgot I’m out.”

Hitoshi rolls a shoulder with indifference. “Black is fine.” He takes a sip and watches the shorter male blow puffs of air over his own. “A terrible company doesn’t sound like very satisfying work.”

Midori nods once. “It’s bad enough that I don’t expect they’ll be in business for too much longer.” A little gleam of delight crinkles the corners of his eyes, and Hitoshi wonders at its significance.

“Being between jobs can suck. I hope you have something else lined up just in case things go south.”

Midori shrugs. “They will, and I do. I have a bit in savings, so a gap in work won’t be too rough.” He absently twists his mug between his hands. “What do you do?”

Hitoshi looks up and meets his gaze. He seems to be very interested in his eyes. It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s been curious about his pale pupils, but having him stare doesn’t feel as judgmental or obtrusive.

“I’m in a bit of a gap myself. My last job has been put on hold for a month or two, so the company is just paying me to kick around and wait for the next thing to come up.”

“Well, if you get too bored, the café is nice. The cats run a tight ship around here.” Midori pauses and looks away, his fingertip swiping slowly along the edge of the suture tape over his lip. “And you know where to find me.”

That sounds like an invitation.

The dinner items Midori’s had simmering while they drink their coffee in relative (and surprisingly comfortable) silence finishes before Hitoshi thinks of leaving.

Midori doesn’t ask him to stay and eat, but he does pack a little to-go container with food and shoves it into his hands before he can turn down the offer. The heat seeps through his fingers as he stares down at the box with a tiny smile.

When he looks back up, Midori is washing the two mugs with a pleased expression.

This slice of domesticity makes Hitoshi feel warm, and he almost wants to stay a little while longer.

He releases a little sigh and picks up his laptop bag. He has new case details to review, a patrol tonight, and two needy cats that might be chewing their way through the walls at this very moment.

“Thanks for the food and coffee, Midori,” he says, and is rewarded with a half-smile that lights up his neighbor’s eyes. He hopes that injury goes away soon so he can experience the full version.

“Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow?” he offers.

Hitoshi smirks and shrugs a shoulder in reply. As he’s sliding his feet back into his shoes, he notices the locks lining the edge of the door. Three deadbolts, a security chain, and floor latch.

“Paranoia isn’t a good look for a new resident of the building,” he teases over a shoulder (despite the sudden thought that this much protection on a single point of entry is very concerning). “Might make me think this place isn’t so safe.”

“Maybe I’m a national treasure,” his neighbor throws back as he drapes himself over the closest couch.

Hitoshi turns and gives him an appraising look, his gaze sliding along the bare calf propped over the couch armrest.

Shorts are a good look on him. He wonders if he runs.

Midori flushes pink again and glances away to mumble, “They were like that when I moved in.”

Hitoshi almost lets him get away with that excuse, but he’d heard how many needed to be unlocked to let him in. “You use them all,” he points out. He’s not sure it’s all, but Midori’s response will confirm his suspicion well enough.

Midori pulls his legs up onto the couch and plasters one of the pillows to his chest. “The extra clicks kinda make me feel safe,” he mutters, just barely loud enough for Hitoshi to hear.

He frowns at the sound of unease in the shorter guy’s voice and gives him an earnest look. “If you need some kind of help, let me know. Even if it’s like a bodyguard. I know some people.”

Midori stares up at him from his spot on the couch, looking a bit small (and probably in need of a guard dog, or a guard…friend). His luminous green eyes seem a little damp, and there’s a small smile on his lips. Hitoshi’s not quite sure what to do about that, so he gives him an awkward wave and closes the door between them.

Hitoshi’s really not quite sure what to do about that.

After he leaves Midori’s apartment, the rest of the night is a blur of annoyance and dead ends. He has his notes about which regulars showed up in the café that day, and he has a log of router connections that he can compare between. He feels like this is a tremendous waste of his time when he could just request a camera be stuck in some unobtrusive corner. Fast-forwarding through footage to check who comes and goes would make this task a thousand times faster. His only consolation is that the human interaction with the tenants that showed up might give him an unintended bit of actionable information.

He’s still going to push for that camera installation.

His patrol is a little rougher than usual, with two suspects nearly escaping before he finally manages to snag one with his quirk and the other with his capture scarf. The paperwork at the station, afterwards, is always a bitch (but only because the coffee is awful).

The patrol is made marginally better only when he arrives on the rooftop of his apartment. As he slips down to the balcony between his and Midori’s apartment, he spots his neighbor through his bedroom window, sprawled out on his bed and dozing in front of a laptop screen. Some documentary is panning close-up images of technology, casting pale blue light over the green waves of his hair and the planes of his face.

He blinks in sudden recognition of the weird feeling nudging through his chest and firmly puts a lid on it.

Nope, no affection allowed.

This is not the time. Not the place.

Mission first.

...

Maybe after the mission.

His cats have a two-hour case of the zoomies ten minutes after he takes off his boots.

He doesn’t sleep well that night.

Chapter Text

His neighbor is ridiculously pretty.

He’s not sure what it is, exactly. His pale coloring seems even paler in comparison to the dark marks beneath his eyes, and combined with the loose, casual clothing, he seems so fragile, like he’s one bad day from falling to pieces.

Izuku wonders again if he sleeps well. Then he kind of wants to cuddle him until he can relax and get a good night’s rest.

He’s still blinking sleepily up into those surreal violet eyes when the kitchen timer goes off.

He shuffles back into the kitchen feeling a bit dazed before he mentally screams in realization that he’s just invited his cute neighbor into his home.

(He is now very much awake.)

He turns off the buzzer and then grabs the closest dish towel he can find to hurriedly wipe the drying puddle of drool from the table where he’d fallen asleep.

The towel is tossed into the sink with only half a glance as he panic-checks the rest of the visible apartment for random trash, dishes, or laundry he’s neglected.

He leans just past the edge of the kitchen to peek down the short hallway leading to the other rooms, then hops once (twice) to peek over the edge of the couch.

Everything looks mostly in order. His laptop went to sleep sometime after he did, so he takes a bracing breath and tries to resume the task he’d come in here to take care of in the first place.

It’s fine.

Tuesday afternoon flies by in a terrible haze of pain and embarrassed delight. His neighbor spends hours (minutes? He can’t be sure because time feels a little broken) at his kitchen counter drinking coffee.

They exchange stupid nicknames, and Izuku almost laughs (almost, because laughing hurts) at how close his selected nickname is to his last name. The sound of it coming from Murasaki’s mouth makes him want to close his eyes and bite his lower lip.

Swoon.

(Izuku grimaces at the shooting pain that results from the absent-minded nibbling.)

Izuku learns that one of the best (worst) remedies for constantly thinking about kissing someone is a mouth injury.

It hurts when he smiles.

It hurts when he frowns.

It hurts when he opens his mouth to say anything.

He barely avoids getting any spicy sauce in the cut when he takes a taste of what he’s cooking. He hadn’t really thought that out too well. The spices he added earlier will be agonizing if he makes a single mistake while eating.

(Maybe he’ll slather on some protective balm and hope for the best. It smells a little too good to not eat.)

The warmth from the coffee threatens to sear against his injury like fire. (It takes forever to cool down.)

And his neighbor, bless his beautiful face, seems hell-bent on making him laugh. He’s damned lucky that blushing doesn’t hurt, too, or he might spend his evening crying and make the poor man feel bad.

Every word that Izuku wants to say must be carefully plotted in advance. There is thankfully no chance that he can slip into an unintentional mutterstorm that night, because the instant his lips twitch to speak his thoughts aloud: pain.

Everything he does hurts while his neighbor is visiting.

He’s a little thankful the pain distracts from his nerves.

He doesn’t stammer once.

He has time to look. (Discreetly? Maybe not so discreetly. But he tries.)

Murasaki is in another set of dark, comfy clothes, with loose pants hanging from his hips, and a slouchy t-shirt thrown over a long-sleeved undershirt that clings to his arms like they’ve been painted on.

The well-defined muscles in his forearm as he handles the coffee mug are like little works of art. His long fingers are lean and dexterous, tapering at the ends with trimmed nails, and Izuku can spot little scratches on two of his left knuckles.

He wants to take that hand between his own and seek out the callouses, test its strength, and hold on tight.

His gaze eventually meanders up to his eyes. It seems a little too personal, especially while sitting two feet away. Murasaki doesn’t seem to mind when he catches him staring.

Is this his quirk?

To ensnare someone that dares to look into his eyes?

He feels pretty ensnared.

That voice isn’t helping matters. Maybe it’s a package deal, he thinks. The eyes ensnare while that sweet voice sings instructions. Izuku feels a thrill of excitement race down his spine and rips his gaze away to stare into his nearly-empty mug, instead.

The gravity-defying violet locks indicate some kind of mental quirk. The studies he’s read on the subject (what few there are) suggest that quirks using aspects of the brain can cause-

The pain from the cut pulling may as well be a slap to the face.

Ouch.

Sometimes, when he’s really into a topic and doesn’t have something to write with, he’ll tap or pinch his lower lip while the words spill free.

Today is not a day to be absentmindedly doing anything.

Oh, he hates his mouth right now.

He peeks over and sees Murasaki is looking elsewhere.

He risks a glance at his mouth, the lush expanse of his lower lip. The soft-looking curve of his cupid’s bow. The perfect way they part when he lifts his mug to take a sip.

(Izuku thinks about biting his lower lip.)

(Murasaki’s lower lip.)

He exhales a long sigh and looks away to pour another cup of coffee. It takes forever to cool, so he just holds it next to his face as close as he dares and breathes in the aroma while blowing on the surface.

It gives him something else to think about other than the male sitting two feet away. Their knees could brush if he turns a little bit. They’ve even bumped elbows twice. This closeness with someone other than his mother is nice.

And Murasaki doesn’t seem to mind.

He can’t quite dredge up the courage to ask him to stay for dinner. Maybe when they know each other better, staying for the sake of staying won’t be such a big deal.

He doesn’t let him escape without handing him a reason he’ll have to come back.

(The box in which he’s packed Murasaki’s serving is a pretty blue ceramic thing with a matching lid. If he doesn’t bring it back on his own, Izuku will have a perfectly good reason to knock.)

Murasaki has captured his attention so thoroughly that he’s not sure what to do with himself as the door closes between them. His parting offer of help nearly brings tears to his eyes, and he brushes his hand through his hair in mild exasperation at himself. 

Then he does it again, tugging lightly on the wavy locks. It would be nice to have someone else running their hands through his hair.

Izuku has a problem, and that problem is his lonely and overactive imagination getting way out of hand.

(It’s fine.)

The giddy high from having his cute neighbor over for coffee clings for hours after he’s left.

He tries to work, he really does, but the words just won’t come. He highlights some passages that need revision and drops pins in his source files to come back to later when he’s feeling a little more focused.

He’s tired, but his thoughts keep drifting back to every interaction between them.

It’s well past midnight when he finally tries to get some rest, but it doesn’t come easy. He tosses and turns for an hour, then gives in and opens his laptop. He puts on one of the documentaries he’s already watched and turns the volume down low. The quiet murmur of a familiar accent fills his brain with a pleasant static, and he eventually dozes off.

In the wee hours of early morning, the quiet clunk of boots on metal startles Izuku awake.

He freezes in place, knowing his curtain is still open.

Panic swells and he concentrates on steady breathing as he waits to see what will happen next.

Quiet footsteps move away. The cats next door give muffled greetings, and the sweet murmur of his neighbor’s voice in reply eases the tightness in his chest.

Izuku calms, realizing he’s probably not the only one that likes to sit up on the roof when there’s a sleepless night.

He sleeps in until nearly lunchtime, feeling well rested and in marginally less pain. He rolls over and stares at the ceiling. Everything seems so much clearer, now that the haze of joy has faded enough for him to consider how yesterday went with a more analytical mind.

Murasaki hides it well, but he’s cautious. He masks it behind a casual slouch, giving the perfect appearance of relaxation. He carries himself with a practiced ease, each motion controlled to appear lazy and aloof.

That was the weirdest introduction he’s ever had.

Murasaki didn’t even try to imply that’s his actual name, and it was strange that he didn’t press Izuku for his, either.

Murasaki has something to hide, and he doesn’t want to encourage Izuku to seek out more information than he’s willing to freely give.

(He hopes he’ll get a real introduction some day soon.)

It was strange to hear someone mention disappointment about the failures of heroes. It feels like he knows what it’s like to be left behind.

To vanish from the sight of those that care.

Marginalized, downtrodden, hopeless.

And then his offer of help?

He knows people that could play bodyguard?

What kind of jobs could he be between that would fit those details? (He didn’t miss the fact that he’d avoided mentioning what kind of work he does.)

Mercenary? He wears a lot of loose-fitting clothes, but Izuku gets the impression that he might be built for that kind of work. And it would certainly explain the weapons he’d seen.

Security is another possibility. He’s completed several consultations to bolster security contracts to account for skill sets and quirks. If Murasaki has the kind of quirk Izuku suspects he has, he’d make an excellent asset for a security team.

Izuku rubs a hand down his face and suppresses a short laugh. Citizens aren’t supposed to use their quirks in public without a license, but Izuku has seen more than his fair share of blanket clauses. The teams hired for security contracts have special permissions to use their quirks on properties they patrol, and hired mercenaries are given extreme leeway to accomplish mission objectives.

Izuku hates feeling like the quirk-based laws only exist to limit regular people. If you have the right contacts or a lot of money to throw around, rules cease to exist.

Those sorts of people tend to work outside of the law or bend it in morally-and-legally-grey ways. And if they can’t, they’ll hire someone that can do it for them.

Izuku presses his fingers to his temple before sitting up in bed to wake his laptop.

Is Murasaki working on the right side of the law?

Maybe he just has some shady contacts?

...

(Technically, Izuku has some shady contacts. They just don’t know who he is. Or that he exists.)

(It’s fine.)

Izuku feels a little guilty when he does a search on the Hero Network for any matches to the name Murasaki with his neighbor’s general features.

There are no hits.

It’s probably nothing.

He’s not sure if that makes him feel any better or worse.

Without anything else to go on besides an odd feeling, he lets it go.

(For now.)

Izuku doesn’t bake when he’s stressed. (Maybe he does.)

Regardless of the reason, he wants to bake but he’s out of sugar.

He stands in the kitchen and taps his fingers on the counter for nearly ten minutes, weighing the pros and cons of going next door to ask for another cup.

(Murasaki would probably not mind at all, but it feels like he’s setting a bad precedence.)

He makes up his mind and decides he’ll be responsible this time. But in order to do that, he has to go to the store.

He dresses in something casual and then stops to stare at his bruised cheek and cut lip in the mirror. He doesn’t want to go out looking like some ruffian (or an easy target).

He eyes his first-aid box, wishing (not for the first time) that he had invested in some concealer. He knows, though, that buying makeup to hide injuries when he’s doing his damnedest to avoid getting them in the first place is a little like admitting an early defeat.

It’s a dumb mindset, but it won’t do him any good to whine about poor past decisions. His gaze slides to the side of the first aid box, and it takes him a second to realize he has paper face masks right there. He doesn’t have a cold, but that doesn’t mean he can’t wear one anyways. He slips a mask over his face and tilts his head to look for any peek of bruise.

Good enough.

His favorite place will be out of commission for the next two weeks, but there’s a small shop three blocks away from the apartment that sells the most basic kitchen staples alongside the snacks and drinks.

The cashier accepts his cash and he heaves a sigh of relief.

It’s fine.

He pulls up a recipe on his phone as he drifts back into the lobby of the apartment building, a bag of groceries tucked under his arm. He’s going to make something amazing . (Or he’ll fail and learn an important lesson about measurements, timing, and following instructions.)

When he pulls the pan from the oven an hour later, he’s tempted to immediately run next door to drag his neighbor over to see this new masterpiece.

(He doesn’t.)

It has to cool for two hours before he can separate a portion to leave for his neighbor to find, later.

He sets it in front of the door and drops a note on top that says, ‘Come by if you’d like more.’

As he stares down at that horribly tiny package, he changes his mind and runs back to his apartment. He packs a new container with a dozen servings.

The bigger box takes the place of his tiny original offering.

He still leaves the note.

Izuku steps back inside his apartment and locks the door with a satisfied smile spreading across his lips. It doesn’t hurt so much this time.

It’s fine.

Chapter Text

On Wednesday morning, Hitoshi stomps into the agency and frowns at his boss until they can have a private meeting.

He has plenty of reasons for the camera system in the café, but his boss shoots down the request like he’s asking for something insane.

Not in the budget, his ass. It’s almost like they want him to waste his day drinking coffee on the agency’s dime.

“The amount of time you’re paying me to sit around can easily be offset by buying a camera and not paying me to sit around.” He purses his lips and backtracks a tiny bit. “Not that I mind sitting around and drinking coffee, but, there has to be a point at which the costs aren’t justifiable.”

His boss listens politely, but the incessant tapping of his pencil against the paperwork he’s been marking steadily increases in speed.

Something’s making him nervous, and Shinsou wants to know what it is.

He leans back, confident that his request is perfectly reasonable and his points are clearly supported. He stares at his boss and waits to see how long it takes for him to crack.

Five minutes pass in silence. Shinsou enjoys the gentle tick-tock of the clock that’s hanging in the room. It lends a bit of gravity to the waiting game.

His boss shifts his weight uncomfortably to the side and adjusts his glasses with a grimace. “This doesn’t leave this room,” he says.

Shinsou was expecting something interesting, but it’s rare he hears those words.

“I don’t want you to add the notes from your personal investigation to the case file. Keep everything offline and away from the agency, and if you need to report something, come in person.”

The only reason he can think this might be needed is if his boss suspects there is some kind of leak (or that there will be). The flag on the author’s alias and the basic setup of the case file is accessible to every police station in the city as well as agencies affiliated with the Commission. The case isn’t under any kind of clearance requirements (yet), so anyone with Hero Network access can see that this is a person of interest.

It’s pretty obvious now why the case files haven’t been updated aside from the original three pages he’d been shown at his briefing. There is no mention of active surveillance.

“I’m assuming there’s nothing I should be concerned about, or you’d tell me,” he states, giving his boss a stony glare.

He nods in reply. “There’s nothing yet, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this. I don’t want whatever’s going on to blow up in our faces. If the writer is bad news, I don’t want to risk them knowing we’re actively searching. If this writer is on our side but hiding to stay safe, I don’t want to compromise that.”

Shinsou nods and stands up. He’s a little pissed he won’t be able to just skim through simple camera footage to make his job a little easier, but the reasoning behind a low-tech approach is solid enough.

And he’s still getting free coffee out of it for the foreseeable future.

He tilts his head in farewell, but before he steps out of the office, he calls back, “I’ll bring you something from the place next time. It’s pretty good.”

“Heh, you're the best,” his boss laughs, waving him away.

There’s only so many times he can read the analyst’s work before he’s bored out of his mind, so he indulges in a hobby he doesn’t often have time for and loads a digital book on his laptop. The barista knows he’ll be there for a few hours and gets him started with a plain black coffee. She promises that she’ll find something to convert him into a crafted coffee connoisseur by the end of the week.

His notes are open in the lower corner of his screen just in case he meets more of the tenants or the old-

“Well! Look who’s come back to hear more of my stories!” The plump old woman seems overly excited to see him and waves. Shinsou drains half of his mug, briefly curious if the café is permitted to serve alcohol. A shot of something strong might help him weather the nonsense this lady has in store for him.

He smiles politely in greeting as she shouts her order to the barista not-so-subtly grimacing behind the counter. She hurries over to slide into a seat near his and bounces her knees in delighted anticipation.

Shinsou is struck by the sudden curiosity about this woman’s quirk. He makes a note to add comments to his personal files about all of the tenants’ listed quirks from their rental agreements. It is lucky for him (but unfortunate for personal privacy) that this information is vital for liability reasons.

“Oooh,” she gushes, lacing her fingers together beneath her chin. “Where were we?” Shinsou opens his mouth to give her a recap of the stories she’s already told, but she speaks again before he can. “Oh, I just saw the heiress yesterday!”

Shinsou sits back in his seat, intrigued where this one might be going.

The barista drops off her order, and as soon as she’s out of earshot she leans forward and murmurs, “She’s very good at pretending to be one of us common folk, but you can spot her from a mile away with all the jewelry she insists on wearing.”

He arches a brow. “An heiress…” He’s read their names, but none of them had stood out as anything particularly familiar.

The old lady nods with a self-satisfied smile. “She lives up on three. Her family name is a dead giveaway, the same as that frozen food company in the news last week!” She leans forward again with a sly grin, her gaze lingering on the lack of ring on Shinsou’s left hand. “Single, eh? Good, good. That mess in the news must have really upset her, but she’s done a valiant job at hiding how she feels about it and never talks to anyone. She spends so much time scrolling her phone to stay distracted. Maybe you could cheer her up a bit with a smile, hm?”

She briefly reaches out as though to touch him, but stops short and redirects her hand to tuck a lock of her curled grey hair behind an ear. Shinsou gets the horrifying impression that the old lady had been thinking about pinching his cheek.

(He’s thankful that he won’t have to arrest her for assaulting a pro hero.)

** Single on three, the doubtful “heiress”. Likely owns a collection of costume jewelry. Heavy phone usage and no known acquaintances. Seems unlikely.

They sit in blessed silence for a few minutes while she sips her tea. Shinsou attempts to read another paragraph of his book, but she’s not going to give him enough time for that. “So, what are you spending your time on that computer? Writing the next great mystery?” She leans forward as though she intends to peer at his monitor, but Shinsou doesn’t react. She’d have to have an extending neck quirk to stretch far enough to read anything currently on the screen.

He shrugs and gives her a coy smile. “Perhaps,” he murmurs.

She giggles.

Shinsou suppresses a sigh.

“Speaking of computers,” she begins, tapping her pink manicured fingertips on the rim of her teacup. She looks away and purses her lips as though contemplating the best way to say what’s on her mind. She gives him an appraising look and leans close again. “There’s this sweet family on three, but I think their son is into something he shouldn’t be.”

Shinsou chuckles ruefully. “Kids often are,” he replies.

She nods sagely in agreement but squints at him as she leans even closer. Through the thick lenses of her glasses, it looks almost comical. “He spends a lot of time down here, actually. Always on his laptop, typing a million words a minute.”

She shifts in her seat, looking like she’s about to get caught revealing national secrets. “But it’s not usual typing, you know? A bunch of special keys and numbers.” She glances around to make sure they’re still the only ones in the café before she whispers, “I think he’s a hacker.”

Shinsou is sufficiently surprised by her claim. (He’s also pretty certain that she’s completely wrong.)

She swallows nervously and cups a hand around her mouth to make absolutely sure it can’t be overheard. “Both him and that friend that always comes ‘round.”

She sniffs and mutters half to herself, “What’s this world coming to?”

He’s a little concerned to see her dabbing at the corner of her eyes with a rumpled napkin. “Young hackers could be pretty worrisome,” he admits. “But they might just be students in the support course at one of the hero schools,” he gently reminds her.

She blinks up at him with her mouth open in surprise. With as many crazy stories as she’s managed to come up with, it seems as though this possibility hasn’t even occurred to her. “One day they might be saving lives,” she whispers reverently.

He nods assuredly and watches as she relaxes in relief. The conspiracy theories are going to end up giving this lady a heart attack. (He may have just bought her another year of gossiping.)

** Kid on three spends a lot of time on their computer with a friend. Excessive keypresses sounds like game controls rather than anything nefarious. Friend is acquaintance with café access. Further info needed.

She gasps a little and stifles the sound behind her hand as she pointedly looks away from the café entrance and lobby. “That one,” she says, her strangled whisper sounding harsh, “is too old to be a support student.”

Shinsou looks over in time to see Midori waiting for the elevator, peering down at his phone with a little bag of groceries tucked under an arm. A mask covers the injuries on his face, and he bounces on his toes in excitement at what he’s reading.

He turns back to the old lady with a vague sense of dread. He really doesn’t want to hear whatever theory she’s cooked up about his neighbor, but it’s only fair. He doesn’t want to skew his investigation with bias (even when most of what she’s saying is Grade-A Fantasy).

She waits for him to disappear behind the elevator doors before daring to continue. “It’s always the quiet ones,” she begins. “They hide the most. But he can’t hide everything,” she says, shaking a finger with a stern look.

“He always has bruises. He must get into so many fights, but it’s never very serious, so he must be good at it.” Her gaze is noticeably nervous, flicking to the corners as though someone might be listening.

Surely there’s something else to her theory… he thinks, wondering if her lengthy pause is merely to build suspense.

“And he runs everywhere, at night!” She seems scandalized. “No one runs that much unless they’re a hero,” she pauses before whispering so quietly that he can barely hear her next words, “or a secret agent.”

He wants to laugh.

He wants to ask for more details.

He wonders how the hell she came to such a conclusion, because this story might be the most absurd one, yet.

“I’ve seen a lot of movies,” she proclaims, aiming both of her hands in his direction as she chops through the air. (This is the most flimsy supporting evidence he’s ever heard.) “I know what a secret agent is supposed to look like, and that is exactly it,” she waves in the general direction of the elevator. “The best spies look harmless, right? That’s how they can sneak about and learn all your secrets!”

He picks up his mug to hide his amusement behind the colorful ceramic. (The mug is empty.)

“And I heard him, one day.” She sounds so nervous that he thinks she might need a cup of hot cocoa and a fluffy blanket to recover. “He was muttering into one of those fancy spy devices,” she touches the side of her head to indicate an earpiece, “in some weird language!”

He’s French, Shinsou thinks, but he does his best to shift his expression into one of vague concern. Tapping a finger against his lip, he murmurs, “This would make excellent material for what I’m writing,” he admits with a half smile. (She doesn’t need to know that it’s not a book, but an investigative report.)

She gives a delighted gasp at having gleaned some key detail to his mysterious life. (He understands he’ll be the next topic of gossip to the first person that’ll listen to her.)

Her hand flutters in front of her face as she realizes that he’s not as concerned as she thinks he should be. “Aren’t you worried he might be working for another country to bring down our infrastructure? Maybe even assassinate key political figures?”

“I was under the impression that he’s been living here for a couple of years,” he says, tilting his head. This lady knows enough random information that him knowing such a detail shouldn't be too much of a red flag.

She nods thoughtfully. “That’s true,” she says. “Maybe he is working for us, then. It makes sense that he’d want to live with friends and not with enemies.” She releases a short sigh and sips at her tea. She grimaces in dismay at what she finds, and Shinsou can guess that it has been cold for a while.

She sighs again and stands, clutching her napkin between twisting fingers. “Thanks for listening, again, sonny.” She glances away and seems misty-eyed for a moment. “Not many care to, anymore.”

And suddenly Shinsou feels like a dirtbag for not considering that she just wanted someone to talk to. “It’s been a pleasure. I look forward to the next stories you’ll have for me.”

The old lady beams with the widest smile he’s seen all year, the wrinkles around her eyes crinkling as her cheeks turn pink with delight. “Don’t forget to talk to our heiress if you see her. A nice young man like you would make her so happy, I just know it.”

He gives her a tight smile and nods in reply. He might talk to her, but no, he doesn’t think he’d make her very happy in the way the old lady intends.

She leaves with a happy wave.

The barista stares at him like he’s signed his own death warrant. Shinsou shrugs and turns back to his notes.

** Injuries confirmed to happen regularly, but nothing too serious(?)

He finds this Very Concerning. An adult just living their day-to-day life shouldn’t be injured on any kind of frequent basis, with the exception of those in a physically demanding field. Midori (AKA Akatani Mikumo) is a paper-pusher. Yes, he’s short, but he doesn’t look like an easy target, so unless he just has terrible luck, he’s not sure what could be going on there. (Unless he’s actually in a fight club.)

** Confirmed runner.

He guessed right, then. Those calves were pretty defined.

** Confirmed speaks more than one language.

This is also not surprising with his passport’s country of origin. But his neighbor is an interesting mix of innocent cute and unexpected sturdiness. He’s been both honestly anxious yet upfront and bold, and he can tell there’s curiosity burning behind that observant gaze. A few times while they were enjoying their coffee the day before, Shinsou got the distinct impression that Midori had a dozen questions he wanted to ask, but he never did.

He might have just been imagining things.

The heiress actually comes down to the café a few hours after lunchtime. He’s already finished half of his book and made notes on two of the residents that popped in for a quick snack at lunch. (They didn’t bother him. They have better sense than the old lady. They also complained at each other about how unfair it is that the university’s library has been booked solid, because how else are they going to finish their computer assignments? Neither are a good match.)

The young lady walks into the café and perches next to the counter, her wrists laden with sparkling bangles and an ornate necklace draped around her neck. She turns slightly and Shinsou spots a damned tiara in her hair.

He snorts into his mug. She likes her sparkly stuff, and he understands now why the old lady thinks she’s some kind of heiress. But as soon as she has tea and a small plate of macaroons placed in front of her, she whips out her phone to scroll through some kind of app with countless video clips in rapid succession.

Her shoulders shake with silent laughter every time she scrolls. She does this for an hour, straight, sipping through another cup of tea.

He gets the feeling that if this is what she does with her free time, then chances are slim that she’s their mysterious writer. It’s possible, though. He’s been wrong before.

He packs up at four and thanks the barista for being so patient with his lingering presence. This one (resident of the fourth floor and the other barista's brother, if their pet names for each other are to be believed) waves him off with a bit of a laugh. When he returns to his apartment, he finds a large dish of baked goods. He opens the lid and discovers it’s a lot of baked goods. It will take him at least a week to eat all of it.

He grins at the note. If he wants to justify coming over for more, he’ll have to somehow run out. If he eats these himself, that won’t be for a while. But he has an idea…

He sits down to work a little more on his investigative notes and adds the known quirks of each tenant. When he gets to the old lady, hers is listed as Misdirection.

He laughs briefly. If her quirk works like he thinks it does, he wonders how well it might have suited a career in underground heroics.

When he heads out for patrol later that night, he brings along a package containing some of Midori's baked goods that he leaves on his boss’s desk with a scrawled note:

** Mini-vacation is going well. The contents of this package are for your eyes only, TOP SECRET. DO NOT SHARE unless you trust them with your life.

After that, his patrol goes just about like it usually does, with a lot of running around and not much to find. It has been a very slow month.

That is, it is slow until he gets a request for backup. A suspect is wanted for their possible connection with a robbery that took place an hour prior. A brief but very unique description is given, and Shinsou realizes he just passed someone that looked like that a few blocks back.

He backtracks and spots them below, crossing a very wide intersection that he cannot hope to cross from the rooftops. He'll have to stick to the streets and sidewalks until he can get to a better vantage (and ambush) point. He sighs and drops into an alley, then ducks out to follow at a distance. There are couples still out at this time of night, and the suspect he’s following is a pretty big guy with some kind of thick shield-like skin. He doesn't want to engage where anyone else can be caught in the scuffle. (He also really doesn't want to pick a fight where anyone can see him.)

Hero Network has a brief criminal description for him that states he’s unable to speak, which means interrogators can’t get much out of him when he’s caught. It also means that Shinsou won’t be able to snag him with his quirk for an easy win.

That’s no problem, he thinks as he slinks along the sidewalk. It won’t be the first or last time he has to fight like he’s quirkless.

There are fewer civilians as the suspect turns down another street off the main thoroughfare. Shinsou is glancing up at neighboring buildings for a good spot to get quietly back up to the roof, when a very familiar voice shouts somewhere behind him.

“Hey, Murasaki!”

He freezes, then whips around to stare in horror at his neighbor a few blocks back.

Ah, fuck.

Chapter Text

The stress baking helps Izuku find his inner peace. He slouches comfortably on his couch with a plate of buttery heaven and a cup of coffee to do a bit of work. He taps into his inbox and skims the new messages for anything interesting.

He sees a few of the usual notifications from job boards he’s subscribed to, as well as a few notices about cases that have third-party consultation requests attached. There’s one outlier, though: a message from someone’s work address instead of the automated mailers that he normally gets.

He’s seen a few like this recently, requests to meet in-person for a debrief on a consultation he’d done three months ago, now. He’s not sure what they want, but his reporting is solid, and until they prove otherwise, he can’t and won’t discuss further.

He likes helping the police and hero agencies, but his setup sometimes feels like it’s on a razor-thin edge, at risk to fall apart if he reveals too much. So he doesn’t, and turns down every request to meet in-person.

(There are too many quirks both known and unknown that could ruin everything.)

This newest email doesn’t have the same message he’s expecting to see.

It doesn’t request a meeting. It simply states that if he has any new leads on cases, something interesting or off the wall that doesn’t necessarily have a report or case number attached, to send it their way. They’d be happy to provide in-person legwork in exchange for his intuition.

The tone is a little strange. It’s hard to be certain from just words on a screen, but it reads just a little bit desperate.

He’s probably imagining things, though, and the offer makes him smile. He enjoys feeling appreciated and useful. He flags the investigator for potential follow-up.

Maybe he’ll find something worth looking into.

By the time night falls, Izuku’s feeling a little stir-crazy. He puts on some running gear and loads a route randomizer on his phone. He straps the phone and his EDD to his left arm before leaving the apartment.

He stretches outside under a flickering city light and breathes in the cool air of evening. It feels good to get out like this.

His phone directs him down a variety of streets he hasn’t seen in a while. The pleasure of new mixes with forgotten familiarity as he jogs at a nice pace. Colorfully illuminated storefronts and blinking traffic lights break up the plain monotony of the pale yellow lamp posts, brightening the shadows of his route.

He slows at a wide intersection that’s several lanes across with enough space for a row of trees.

It’s been a long time since he’s been to this intersection, and he jogs in place while he takes a quick look around. The businesses have brightly lit displays even this late at night, and he’s a little surprised to spot several couples walking side-by-side, coming or going with bags of takeout or shopping from an evening of browsing the local stores. The somewhat busy street makes more sense when he remembers that there are a few bars still open in the area.

Just as he’s about to take off running down the next street on his route, he notices a flash of very familiar purple under a painfully bright store sign a few blocks away.

He blinks in surprise, then brightens with enthusiasm. What luck to run into him, of all people!

He jogs quickly to catch up. As the few couples on the main road vanish from sight, he calls out a cheerful, “Hey, Murasaki!”

The violet-haired male freezes and turns back to stare at Izuku, a look of shocked surprise flicking over his expression before he whips back around to scan the street ahead of them.

A dark shadow disappears around a corner two blocks away, and Izuku hears his neighbor bite off a curse before he takes off running after the shadow.

He thinks his neighbor distractedly waved at him as he left, but he’s not sure. Where’s he going…?

Izuku’s jog slows to a complete stop, a frown pulling at his lips as Murasaki disappears down another street.

He was clearly in a hurry, and not in a hurry to meet with him.

He shrugs a bit and glances back down at his app to pick up the route he’d forgotten about. He backtracks to the corner and starts up an easy pace.

The encounter was a little weird, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’s interrupted someone else’s plans.

He frowns a little as he thinks about it some more. It also wouldn’t be the first time someone’s taken off to pretend like they didn’t know each other. He runs a bit faster, weaving his way through the streets back toward the apartment building.

That line of thought doesn’t make too much sense, though, because they barely know each other, and Murasaki (probably) hasn’t figured out why he should want to avoid him, yet.

It still hurts a little.

He sprints the rest of the way home.

(It’s fine.)

Izuku accepts a translation request so that he has something a little mindless to work on. It’s dumb that he feels bad by his neighbor’s quick dismissal, but he tries to assure himself it’s probably nothing to worry about. He ends up working until two and falls asleep on the couch, curled around his laptop.

He wakes with a crick in his neck (and more than a few regrets). Grumbling irritably, he showers and dresses for the day, then decides he wants to work in the glittering cafe and drink someone else’s coffee. He slips a mask over his face again, happy to note his injury is looking better each day.

He has to work that night, but only one person will be around to see the consequences of his inattentiveness (and they don’t give a damn anyways), so he probably won’t bother hiding it, then.

The barista greets him with a cheerful grin when he steps through the door and starts putting together his usual. He slides into the booth at the far end of the cafe where he likes to normally sit, but this time he puts his back to the entrance. He wants to take his mask off to eat his breakfast and sip his coffee, but he doesn’t want to attract attention (or worried looks) (or unnecessary suspicion) by showing his face off to everyone that walks through the door.

He pulls off the mask as the barista slides the coffee and food in front of him. She winces in sympathy. “Damn, greenie, that looks like it hurts.”

“It was worse on Tuesday,” he mutters, clutching the coffee like a lifeline. He’s not feeling too sociable.

“Well, you know where to find me if you want some more,” she offers.

He thanks her with a sigh and hunches over his keyboard, pecking at the letters to type out the next section. He’s so stupid for thinking that-

Murasaki slides into the booth across from him with a slight smirk.

Izuku almost doesn’t notice his expression.

He looks kind of awful.

“Wow, we kind of match, now,” Murasaki drawls. His jaw is bruised and a little swollen.

Izuku wonders, briefly, if it hurts to smile like that. His gaze travels down the arms propped on the table and finds the right hand has cuts all over the knuckles, one of which is actively oozing blood.

“Murasaki?” He asks with an arched eyebrow, staring at his hand with disbelief. He looks up to meet violet eyes. “Did you even clean that? When did— Who were— Why didn’t you-”

What the hell had he been doing last night to get this kind of injury? Did this happen afterwards? On his way home?

He snaps his mouth shut and takes a deep breath. He tries again. “What happened?”

Murasaki shrugs, nonchalant. The barista brings over some frothy concoction and he nods his thanks. She gives Izuku a look and he feels like he’s going to be interrogated at her earliest convenience.

“Just a bit of a disagreement with someone,” he says, echoing the lame excuse Izuku had given only two mornings earlier. “Wouldn’t take no for an answer,” he adds, taking a sip of his coffee.

The incomplete statement could mean any number of things, and Izuku stares down into his mug as his brain helpfully (unhelpfully) fills in the blanks.

He almost wants him to clarify what he means, but he’s worried he won’t like the answer.

He wouldn’t take no for an answer, or someone else?

Murasaki probably wasn’t the only one that had gotten hurt. Izuku hopes it isn’t another minor disagreement like his had been, which left an asshole curled on the ground, clutching at a (possibly) dislocated arm.

(The police hadn’t liked how much ‘self-defense’ Izuku had used against his assailant.)

He’s not sure what to do with this sliver of information, anyways. It could be something harmless, just a scuffle with a rude drunk or an overly amorous admirer.

Izuku’s sure Murasaki can take care of himself, but…

He bites his lip and glances at the counter where the barista has just vanished into the cafe’s kitchen. “Do you need help?” Izuku asks quietly, kindly, like he’s a wounded animal that’s going to flee (or bite), unsure whether he needs someone to back him up or hide evidence.

His violet-haired neighbor quirks his lips and huffs out a short breath in mild amusement. “Maybe,” he responds, brushing the edge of his thumb across his lower lip in brief contemplation as Izuku sits up a little straighter. He looks into those violet eyes expectantly, wondering if now is the time his mysterious quirk will be revealed. Visual hypnosis to make him forget he saw anything? Singing him into a blind trust?

Half of Izuku completely understands the trouble that comes with discrimination, whether from lack of quirk or one that scares people. If Murasaki’s quirk is something like he thinks it is, there will no doubt be people out there that would rather treat him like someone (or something) dangerous.

(The other half worries that he’s completely, irrevocably wrong, and he’s been trapped from the first time they met.)

Murasaki blinks, slow and relaxed like a cat. “You can help by convincing one of those cats to come over here.”

“Uh,” Izuku replies intelligently.

“And then give me a bite of whatever that is you’re eating.”

Izuku narrows his eyes. What kind of help is that? He just wants a distraction? He flicks a glance at the injured knuckles. He’s still bleeding.

Murasaki pulls the wounded hand from the table and tucks it out of sight with a sheepish grin.

Undeterred, Izuku holds out an open palm and gestures for him to show it.

Murasaki scowls and taps the fingers of his left hand on the table, keeping the other out of sight. “I somehow doubt you keep a first aid kit in your laptop bag.”

Izuku gives him an exasperated look and pulls open the bag beside him on the seat. He rummages around for a moment before withdrawing a small kit and sets it firmly between them, then sticks his hand out again and flicks his fingers impatiently to demand Murasaki’s.

He barks a laugh and gives in, placing his warm fingers on Izuku’s palm. “There’s gotta be a great story behind you keeping one of those on hand.”

“Really bad papercut last year,” Izuku responds, holding Murasaki’s fingers with a careful grip. He uses an antiseptic wipe to clean the worst of the cuts, then applies a small bandage to the wound on his middle knuckle.

Fistfight with something (or someone) that has sharp edges . He gently squeezes the rest of the hand in brief intervals, his attention on Murasaki’s face looking for any signs of discomfort. Nothing seems to be broken or strained.

Murasaki pulls his hand away and tugs the edge of his sleeve down to cover his wrist.

“Are there more I need to know about?” Izuku demands.

Murasaki ducks his head and fights a grimace. “None you need to know about,” he mutters. “So, bring on the cat.”

Izuku sticks a hand out past the edge of the table and wiggles four of his fingers without taking his attention away from the other male at the table. He wonders where else he might be hurt that he won’t share, but short of dragging him up to his apartment to strip him -

One of the cats heeds his silent offer for scratches and leaps onto the table to butt their head against his open hand.

Murasaki seems duly impressed and assumes responsibility of petting. “I still want that bite,” he reminds him.

Izuku is distracted from his worrying about additional hidden injuries. “But you don’t have anything to eat it with.”

Murasaki leans forward with an absolutely straight face and opens his mouth.

Caught completely off guard, Izuku stares at his…acquaintance? Friend? Surely one must reach some level of friendship to share food like this.

Or is this flirting?

Izuku has seen flirting in movies. Usually there’s more of a facial expression, like a soft smile or fluttering eyelashes. That’s not what Izuku sees, and he’s not sure how to interpret. “But-”

Murasaki tilts his head to the side, his eyes sliding half shut as he pouts. “I’m wounded. I might undo the bandage. Take pity on me.” He doesn’t open his mouth again, but he doesn’t lean back, either. Despite the table between them, it feels like Murasaki is very much in his space, and anything analytic about this situation dissolves into a pile of mush.

Izuku tries to hold on to his train of thought and scrambles for anything other than thinking about the sound of Murasaki’s voice trailing feather-soft fingers up his back. “Wh-what happened, though?” He swallows, unable to look away. “At least I told you about the clipboard.”

“Elbow,” he whispers, leaning closer, expectant.

Izuku can’t think of anything else to say. It takes him a few seconds to tear his gaze away long enough to pick up a bite of his breakfast. His hand trembles a little bit as he brings it toward Murasaki’s lips.

He opens his mouth.

Izuku is very aware of his chopsticks brushing Murasaki’s lip as he does his best to avoid making a mess.

His mouth closes around the bite of food, and Izuku tries to withdraw his hand, but his chopsticks seem to be stuck, trapped between Murasaki’s teeth.

Oh my gosh, Izuku thinks as his face flushes red, at a complete loss for what he should do, but really not thinking anything more than his chopsticks are in Murasaki’s mouth and he’s going to burn forever until he’s nothing more than a tiny pile of ash.

There’s a crash nearby and he blinks in surprise, and suddenly his chopsticks are free. He turns to look at whatever happened in the kitchen and meets the shocked eyes of the heavily blushing barista. She’s dropped a pan of baked goods and they’re scattered across the countertop.

Murasaki says, “I’d like one of whatever he’s having,” like nothing strange just happened. The sound of his voice, rumbling and raised in volume to reach across the café seems to vibrate down his spine.

Izuku isn’t sure how he can be this appealing, this persuasive, this… is impossible. His mind races as he tries to separate his actual thoughts from the repeating mantra of ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh. He pokes at his food to pick up another bite, and his chopsticks are already in his mouth before he remembers they had just been in Murasaki’s.

He falls still, his eyes widening at the thought that this is like an indirect kiss. He dares to glance at the male sitting across from him, but he’s looking down at the cat as it rubs its furry face against his chin.

The angry-looking bruise on his face draws his attention. Elbow? An elbow to the face, like his clipboard injury? This sounds more like a drunken brawl in an alleyway, but he worries at what else he’s not saying.

His blush cools slightly as he wonders if Murasaki is teasing him intentionally as a distraction. Has he noticed his interest? Is this (perhaps obvious) weakness in his paranoid defenses being used against him?

The barista drops off the new plate of food. “It’s a good selection,” Murasaki comments, and the sound of his unnaturally beautiful voice reminds him of so many questions.

Suddenly, the curiosity is killing him, and the moment they’d just had (and the circumstances leading up to them) is a distant memory (to be agonized over later, most certainly).

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but is your quirk voice-based?”

Murasaki pauses with his chopsticks halfway to his open mouth.

Izuku gets a bad feeling he’s just stepped over an invisible boundary between them. He immediately tries to backpedal. “I-I don’t want to know your quirk!” He mentally curses the way his own voice, decidedly not sexy, lifts with his panic into a tiny squeak.

He clears his throat before he continues, trying to retain a calm and level tone. “I’m just interested if your voice is related! The, uh, vibration, pitch, and timbre have this-“ he pauses and swallows, waving his hands as he frantically searches for a description that doesn’t make him sound crazy. “…This nearly supernatural appeal, like you could spend your free time in the ocean, singing sailors overboard.”

Okay, that sounds crazy. Izuku immediately drops his face into his palms.

A moment passes, then two. He peeks up from between his fingers to see the other’s expression.

A violet eyebrow raises in mild amusement.

“It just… it sounds nice,” he finishes lamely, cutting off any further rambles as he stares down into his half-eaten breakfast. “Sorry.”

“Thanks for the compliment,” he says in response, neither confirming nor denying anything before he puts the postponed bite into his mouth.

Izuku wilts a little under a swell of embarrassed disappointment.

“Whatever you’re working on looks crazy,” Murasaki comments after another silent minute. Izuku wonders which of them he’s trying to help by changing the subject.

Then he’s surprised that he’d had time to see that much of his laptop screen before sitting down.

Izuku shrugs and pokes at his cooling food. “It’s just a translation for some extra cash. It’s French.”

“In case that job goes south,” he says with a nod.

Izuku hums in reply as Murasaki pulls out his own laptop. “We may as well both be productive if we’re gonna be sitting around,” he says in explanation. He looks up and meets Izuku’s gaze with a little grin. “Work buddies,” he proclaims.

Izuku is immediately annoyed at how quick he is to blush at something completely normal. He needs to make more (any) friends. This is ridiculous.

The next few hours pass mostly in silence as they both click and type.

Izuku refuses to think about the male sitting across from him for fear of further embarrassment, but each time the barista brings coffee, Izuku catches himself muttering over strange phrases in French as he tries to puzzle out how to phrase intended meaning.

He spends a lot of time sighing in exasperation at himself.

He spends more time trying in vain to hide behind his monitor so he can’t see Murasaki’s stupidly distracting face as he makes cute noises at the cats. (It doesn’t help, much.)

Murasaki occasionally demands the French word for some random object. He never asks. Izuku’s not sure if the behavior is annoying or appealing. (It’s both.)

After the sixth or seventh time, it crosses Izuku’s mind that he can’t recall hearing him ask a single question, but the thought is buried under sudden interest in a job that has pinged his inbox.

He clicks into the details, the male across from him completely forgotten for the moment.

…Until Murasaki packs his bag and gets up to stretch.

From the corner of his eye, he catches a brief flash of pale abdomen beneath the edge of his shirt. (Izuku laments not noticing it early enough to get a good look.)

“Hey, gimme your number,” Murasaki says.

Another not-question. Hmm. “Okay? Why?”

He smirks. “So the next time I run away from you like I’ve seen a ghost, I can at least text you an explanation. I promise, your legs aren’t that horrifying.”

Izuku laughs at the weird compliment (?) and rubs the back of his neck with a fresh feeling of awkward delight, then hands his phone over.

Murasaki types in his contact details and returns it with a small (hopefully genuine) smile. “It’s been fun, Midori. We should meet down here more often.”

Izuku nods in agreement, his cheeks turning pink again as he stares up at Murasaki. He feels like there’s something else he’s supposed to say or ask, but he can’t really think of anything besides how nice he looks with that gentle smile.

Murasaki picks up his laptop bag and saunters out with a wave over his shoulder, and Izuku forgets to be sad that he’s leaving so soon (forgets anything else for that matter) as he realizes he’s wearing well-fitted jeans instead of the usual casual-baggy fare.

They cling to his muscular legs, molded to his perfect derrière. He reaches the elevator and punches the button before Izuku realizes his mouth is hanging open.

He very much enjoys the view.

Murasaki turns once he’s in the elevator and spots him staring.

He winks.

Izuku is going to die on the spot.

As soon as the elevator door closes, the barista whistles lowly in appreciation, and they exchange a knowing glance.

That one is trouble on very fine legs.

(It's fine.)

Omake bonus lol:

Chapter Text

There can’t possibly be worse timing than this, Shinsou thinks, staring in horror at the joy in those pretty green eyes. He’s decked out in running gear. Who the fuck runs this late at night?

Midori is so fucking happy to see him, like they’re good friends meeting by surprise in the street.

They hardly know each other.

Shinsou barely has time to send a wave over his shoulder as he turns to chase the fleeing suspect down the block, hoping with every fiber of his being that Midori doesn’t notice the guy he’s tailing and isn’t curious enough about where he’s going to come after him.

Don’t follow don’t follow don’t follow

He skids around the corner in pursuit and barely ducks out of the way as a fist swings at his face. His hand flicks out and the capture weapon flies, winding around the suspect’s ankle. Another length catches a nearby fire escape to brace for leverage and he jerks both arms together to yank the suspect from his feet.

Shinsou grumbles in irritation as his target rolls with the fall and comes up in a crouch, one beefy arm wrapped around the end of the cloth that’s still attached to his ankle. The man sharply twists his broad torso and Shinsou is roughly pulled in his direction.

Shinsou curls his body and flows with the movement to dodge the incoming strike and tumbles past his attacker, his gloves and kneepads scraping against the concrete with his momentum. He pops into a defensive crouch in time to parry another swinging fist, and the impact stings harshly against his forearm.

Don’t follow don’t follow

Shinsou’s counter strike lands in a sharp blow against the suspect’s side, leaving the guy doubled over in pain. Shinsou gasps in surprise at the fire suddenly raking up his hand through his knuckle guards. He absently shakes his loosely curled fist before falling into a fresh stance.

The two continue to trade blows, the stifled grunts of exertion and muffled thuds of glancing strikes and parries the only sounds echoing through the darkness of the alley.

Don’t follow

A can scatters at the end of the alley closest to the street where he’d entered and Shinsou’s attention (please not Midori) is diverted just long enough for the suspect’s elbow to smack him right across the face. His sight explodes into stars, and the only thing he can think to do is flail his damned capture weapon until it strangles the threat where it stands. (It doesn’t.)

Shinsou rolls to the side in time to avoid a foot strike, his vision clearing enough to see his weapon is tangled artlessly around the suspect’s torso and an arm.

He blinks rapidly (it isn’t helping) as he flicks another loop over the guy, trying to catch the other arm.

Fuck, this guy is tough, Shinsou thinks as he arches backward to dodge a wide strike from the suspect.

Shinsou has a friend a former classmate like him, tough skin and hits like a truck, but early in their training he learned to lock down the arms and legs so he couldn’t break loose. It eventually stopped being very effective, but this guy clearly hasn’t had much practice in escape techniques. As the binding cloth loops and catches the legs, he pulls tight and the suspect tips over onto his side, bound and wriggling.

He struggles for a few seconds before falling still, breathing heavily and scowling.

Shinsou knows he won’t make a peep.

He calls it in and slumps against a brick wall to wait for the police to arrive.

His forearm smarts. His hand burns and feels a little damp inside his glove. His face hurts along the jaw, and he cautiously opens it to ensure nothing is broken. The back of his shoulder aches a little, but he’s not sure what he did to earn that one.

He can’t remember the last time he’d gotten so careless.

He’s absolutely not looking forward to his boss hearing about this.

All things considered, he could be in much worse shape.

(And Midori didn’t follow.)

He doesn’t limp home, but it’s a near enough thing. He is briefly tempted to come in through the lobby, but his sense of self-preservation is still in full swing, so he resigns himself to scaling the building to enter at his balcony.

(Next time he takes one of these missions, he might insist on a first-floor apartment.)

He peels off his costume and discovers more blood than he’d expected. One of the armor plates in his glove came loose during the fight and jammed into his knuckle.

There’s a cut along his deltoid that will be a bitch to reach if he ends up having to do much more than just tape some gauze over it.

He holds the costume’s undershirt up to the light in the bathroom with a long sigh, peering through the four-inch cut. He’ll have to take it in to the agency to get the blood cleaned out and repairs made.

The cats are mostly calm as he showers and haphazardly slaps some bandaging over the cut on his back, then rummages fruitlessly for something comfy (and clean) to wear. He gives up after a few minutes, dropping off to sleep in nothing more than boxers.

He’s woken by the ginger cat that is perched next to his face, staring at him while loudly chewing on his glove.

He rubs a hand down his face, feeling a little like he’s been run over by a truck. In the light of morning, he’s better able to see that his lack of casual clothes is due to the fact that he only packed a single duffel and has neglected to do laundry.

He cringes as he pulls out the last pair of pants he has on hand for the day: jeans.

He hates jeans.

He trudges into work as soon as the office opens and drops his bagged costume on the agency support technician’s desk. His boss is there early, ready to receive him in the office with two freshly poured cups of coffee and the desserts Midori had baked the day before.

“These are really good,” his boss states by way of greeting.

Shinsou nods once and takes a bite of his own.

“From the café?” he asks.

Shinsou blinks at him and takes a sip of coffee, deciding how he wants to answer. “One of the neighbors,” he finally admits.

He can see the shift in his boss’s expression: the slight lift of eyebrows, the pulled muscles of the mouth as a smile threatens to break free, and the tiny crinkling of the eyes that clearly says, ‘This is the most hilarious thing I’ve heard all week,’ despite his silent nod of easy acceptance.

“So, about your injury,” he begins.

“It’s minor and not worth mentioning,” Shinsou firmly replies, slouching in his seat. His dark shirt is loose and has long sleeves to hide the worst of them.

“It’s enough,” his boss says, “to put you on modified duty for the rest of the week.”

“You wouldn’t,” Shinsou says, sitting up straight. He nearly knocks over his coffee with the sudden lurch of his heart.

“I can and I am. Your primary duty right now is your other mission, and this kind of injury can interfere or raise suspicion. Be glad I’m only benching you through Sunday,” he says with a frown.

“This is bullshit,” Shinsou scowls. There is no way he’s going to let his boss know the next time he gets even a little bit injured if he’s going to put him on temporary leave every time it happens.

He squares his shoulders and goes for the only thing he can think of that might deter his boss from this plan. “You don’t have anyone else to run that shift.”

His boss shrugs. “We’ve got that new sidekick that started a few months back. Your route has been mostly quiet this last week, so now seems like a good time to let them try their hand at running routes on their own for a few days. We’ll keep you on call in case you’re needed while you’re out of commission.”

Shinsou glares at the wall and contemplates the pros and cons of pouring his coffee all over his boss’s carpeting.

“I hope that’s all you have for me,” Shinsou bites out as he stands.

“One more thing. No sneaking in a patrol this weekend. You can come back for duty on Monday night.”

Shinsou sucks in a sharp breath and sighs with irritated exasperation, his lips pressed into a firm line.

“Fine,” he says, noticing a familiar package at the side of the office. “But I’m taking these back. You don’t deserve them,” he drawls, scooping up the rest of Midori’s baked goods and striding from the room.

“Hey, wait!” His boss cries, but it’s too late.

Shinsou puts the box on the front desk. “Feel free to share,” he tells the receptionist, “but don’t let the boss have any more.”

She smirks up at him and nods in malicious agreement.

As he heads for the door, she calls after him, “Looking good, today!”

He flips her off over his shoulder.

He hates jeans.

Back at the apartment building, he lingers in his kitchen for a while, considering just hiding in the apartment all day while he does laundry. A cat twines around his leg, mrowing inquisitively up at him. He crouches with a sigh and rubs its little head. “You really think I should just deal with it, hm?”

It rolls over and presents the cruelest of temptations: an exposed belly. To risk petting is to experience either the softest of fluff or a mauled hand.

He politely declines and picks up his laptop bag, leaving both cats an offering of catnip treats.

He is not feeling very sociable, but maybe the old lady will have a story about a possible Dr. Frankenstein hiding out on the second floor. The thought is crazy enough to make him look forward to another day of mini-not-really-vacation.

As the elevator doors open, he has the perfect angle to see Midori take a seat at the far end of the café. He wasn’t exactly planning on seeing the guy quite so soon.

What did he see last night?

Was it enough to start asking questions?

The café is empty aside from Midori and the barista, so now might be one of the better opportunities to spin any confused sightings into believable misdirection.

Shinsou doesn’t give himself any more time to second-guess himself and strides forward, firmly in work-mode.

He can do this.

The barista raises an eyebrow expectantly once she spots him. He shrugs, which she has learned means, ‘Whatever you want to throw at me.’

He takes a careful, quick look at Midori’s screen as he steps past to slide into the booth across from him. It looked like a French document with a side panel of almost-legible notes. Not terribly concerning.

The flood of questions he barely cuts off confirms one of Shinsou’s worries that Midori is curious almost to a fault. He dreads the inquiries he might have to field.

The barista has perfect timing as she arrives with his drink. He stares down at the froth for a moment and takes an appreciative sniff as he scrambles for how best to explain what happened. Midori watches him, looking both wary and concerned.

(He’s a little relieved there are no questions about hero costumes or strangers in the night.)

It’s almost satisfying to echo Midori’s maddening answer from the morning when he’d been so insistent that nothing was wrong, just a little disagreement, there's nothing worth worrying over. He wants to give that same impression despite it not being exactly true.

It seems neither of them enjoy talking about their problems.

Shinsou watches as a myriad of expressions flicker across the shorter man’s face. Concern deepens with confusion and suspicion as he slowly frowns, the furrow in his brow deepening as he glances between his face and his hand. He can only imagine what must be going through Midori’s mind at that moment.

And then he leans forward and offers help, with the sweetest, kindest damned look he’s seen in someone’s eyes. Shinsou can’t quite refrain from smiling.

Shit.

He deflects with the first two things he sees: the flash of cat fur from the corner of his eye and the rising curl of steam from Midori’s plate of food. His immediate confusion is palpable. (Perfect.)

Midori’s insistence on treating his hand is adorable, especially when he pulls out his miniature first-aid kit. It’s amusing to watch him work, kind of like a kid playing doctor, right until he starts gently squeezing each of the bones in his hand. The careful grip of both Midori’s hands on his own shifts minutely every few seconds as he fishes for less obvious hurts, and Hitoshi swallows thickly, losing his grip on work-mode as something weird flutters in his chest.

It’s soft and warm, and he can feel the tension in his shoulders unwind from the tender contact.

He pulls his hand away before he can do something he might regret (like holding on) and tugs the edge of his dark sleeve down to his wrist. He does not want to give this guy the idea that there are more injuries he can treat.

(He seems the type to stubbornly insist you let him help or he’ll make you let him.)

(He shelves that thought for another time.)

Hitoshi can see new questions forming and takes evasive maneuvers in requesting the forgotten cat.

And then negotiations for his food, immediately afterwards, which he discovers is a whole new level of distraction he hasn’t considered before.

He almost regrets asking for the bite, but Midori’s blushing struggle to deny him while still giving in is a memory worth treasuring. He’s not sure what possesses him to catch the edge of his chopsticks so he’s stuck, but the wide-eyed look he gives him as crimson rushes over his freckled cheeks is priceless.

He finds himself staring at his companion as he thoughtfully pokes at his food, but the neglected cat soon demands his attention and he looks away until the barista drops off his requested meal.

And then

     Midori

          asks about

               his quirk.

Shinsou Hitoshi freezes in place as his memories flick back to a thousand other instances where someone learns of his quirk and immediately thinks the worst of him.

Midori’s nervous and self-deprecating chatter breaks through his spiraling thoughts just in time for him to hear how he’s like mythological sea creatures with hauntingly beautiful voices.

He thinks-

He thinks he might-

This might be okay.

Hitoshi meets those green eyes and feels the tension drain away again. They might still have their moment where everything falls to pieces, but it won’t be today.

They work on their respective projects as customers come and go from the café. Well, Hitoshi pretends to work, but he’s having a hard time focusing on his book when his neighbor keeps up a near-constant muttering commentary about his translation progress until the barista interrupts him with more coffee.

Most of it is in French, but some of it is vaguely familiar. It’s pleasant to listen to, even if he can’t focus on anything else.

It is a constant struggle at that point to remind himself what he’s supposed to be doing there.

(The café cats are not helping matters, either.)

The old lady stops by for tea and sees the two of them sitting in the far corner. She notices the bruise on his face and probably thinks the worst, but she gives a cautious little wave, clearly still distrustful (especially now) of their resident “secret agent”.

She leans against the far edge of the counter to have a silent conversation with the barista. Their eyebrows shift in mysterious ways as they nod and shrug and giggle behind cupped hands.

He quietly sighs. The rumor mill is going to have a lot of new gossip about the two of them, and he has no idea what they’re thinking.

Together? Enemies? Frenemies?

The old woman is going to have a wild tale cooked up that he’s vaguely interested in hearing about, starring the “secret agent” and the “author”: trading blows, meeting in secret, falling in love.

He rubs at his temple in mild irritation.

The two ladies giggle again.

He closes his book app. He’s been reading too much romantic drama and now his imagination is getting away from him.

The old lady leaves without stopping by his table.

He’s immensely grateful for the reprieve this time.

Eventually, he realizes he’s spent more time playing with cats and staring at Midori than doing anything productive and determines he needs to get the heck out of there.

When Hitoshi asks for Midori’s phone with a perfectly valid reason, he doesn’t miss the flash of suspicion. (He also doesn’t miss the cute embarrassment.)

He still hands it over.

This guy is going to end up kidnapped off the street because someone asks him nicely to get in the car, he thinks.

Midori’s phone has a single contact, Mom.

That’s it.

This is equally concerning as it is suspicious.

Does he not talk to anyone on the phone?

Does he not have friends?

Does he have another device he actually uses to make calls?

Or does he not save any of his contacts?

He doesn’t have time to swipe into the message or call log to glance at the history without appearing very suspicious, so he adds himself to the device and hands it back with a smile. He honestly looks forward to seeing this guy again soon.

He wonders what kind of texts he might end up receiving.

He heads back to the elevator feeling quite a bit better than he had earlier that day, despite his injuries.

When he realizes Midori has been watching him walk away and is still staring at his legs with another crimson blush, he decides he might not hate jeans so much, after all.

He throws in a final wink just to see what happens, and Midori does not disappoint.

It feels really good to tease the shorter man.

It feels really good to see his smile and hear his voice.

It feels really good to spend time together.

It feels really good.

The elevator doors close, and he thumps his head against the metal wall several times in succession. This feels both like the best thing to happen in a while and a massive mistake.

…Maybe he should ask him on a date?

Chapter Text

The more Izuku thinks about it, the more he worries.

Murasaki had been following someone the previous night, he’s sure, but whether to talk or something else, he doesn’t know. (He’s not sure he wants to know, really.) He’d ended up injured at some point overnight, which could mean that Murasaki is a victim or has victims, and they fought back.

He can’t really picture Murasaki being a victim. He has enough muscle definition in his legs to give Izuku a good idea of what his upper body might look like beneath his casualwear. If he’s not skipping leg day, then-

Izuku halts that line of thought right there.

He does not need to be imagining how ripped his neighbor-

He catches himself and sighs with exasperation.

Nope.

A victim of physical abuse might not be the only possibility. He seemed to be very defensive about his quirk, and so it could be that he’s suffering from another form of discrimination. Or—and this is one of the more awful conclusions Izuku can come to—he’s been suffering from discrimination for so long that he’s resorted to fixing the problems on his own.

Izuku does something similar, but if he never strikes first and doesn’t have a quirk, he can’t possibly be charged with vigilantism.

(Izuku would rather think of his neighbor as being a vigilante than a villain. He’s so nice. The law, however, is less nice, and tends to lump both types of people into the same category.)

Regardless of what his neighbor is, or what he may or may not be doing, he knows about enough resources and programs to help out (or reform) most people (or criminals). Without knowing more, though, it feels like he’s just throwing darts in the dark and hoping one hits the board (without hurting someone).

He’s never done this kind of underhanded aid before (he prefers to hand over a packet of possibilities to let professionals choose what will work best), but if he plays his cards right, he might be able to help without being obvious about it.

Lounging on his couch in pajamas after the whirlwind morning at the café, he sends a few emails and pings a couple of message boards before closing his laptop with a satisfied smile. He goes to bed that afternoon feeling pretty good about how things might play out.

Izuku fully expects work to feel boring and slow as heck while he waits for the culmination of his project: the takedown of his terrible employer.

Thankfully, the mystery of Murasaki is interesting enough to keep him occupied.

Izuku wades into this new experience of texting his neighbor by sending a cat meme. Murasaki responds within moments.

> cats are life. You may send more.

> speaking of more, I’m almost out of stress-baked goods.

> I hope you also bake when you’re having a good day

 

I do not stress bake. <

I merely bake when I need something else to think about. <

 

> please look up the definition of ‘stress baking’

(Izuku refuses to admit he might have a point.)

As Thursday night drifts into early Friday, Izuku learns that Murasaki keeps weird evening hours just like he does. His paper-pushing tedium is occasionally interrupted by various cat-themed messages (memes, cute pics, and tiny video clips of cats missing jumps).

He guesses Murasaki might suffer from insomnia, which would help explain the persistent dark marks under his eyes.

He still wonders what might help him get better sleep. Does he not feel safe enough? (Does he need someone to cuddle?)

Murasaki returns his little ceramic to-go dish late Friday afternoon, but is unfortunately on his way somewhere else, so Izuku cannot lure him inside for more coffee and gently probing questions.

(Next time.)

Izuku doesn’t run every evening that he’s not working at the harborside office. Sometimes it’s just a round of exercises he can do in his living room, but on Friday evening he’s feeling the itch to get out and sprint a little, to feel the wind in his hair and the excitement of just going.

His phone dings as he’s sliding on his shoes.

> you sound like you’re getting ready to go out

 

You can hear that? I thought I was being quiet. :( <

I’m getting ready to go on a run :) <

 

> it’s 11pm

 

I work nights, so this is my usual schedule? <

Izuku is again reminded that Murasaki never seems to ask any questions. It’s an odd behavioral pattern, one so strongly ingrained that it even rolls over into texting.

He wonders how much he’d have to coax to get him to slip.

He wonders what kind of conditional upbringing he could have had that might result in not questioning anything, ever.

He worries.

You want to come with? :) :) <

The lengthy delay after his question makes him think Murasaki may have actually gone to sleep or is just choosing to ignore the madness of Midori. Who actually runs around in the dead of night besides crazy people and criminals?

> sure

Izuku stares at his phone in utter surprise for a full minute.

(He also does a silent dance on his tiptoes because heaven forbid his cute neighbor hears him flail in excitement.)

Izuku is ready to go, so he anxiously paces inside his door, plucking at his shorts (Are they too short? Is that a stain?) and thumbing through his phone to refresh the route randomizer (nope, boring, still boring, goes by that really bad dumpster so gross, boring, maybe boring) until it comes up with one that seems alright and leads past the sights he enjoys seeing.

(So much for a random run.)

They’re just going for a run, he reminds himself.

(But it feels awfully like he’s about to go on a date.)

(Like he’s invited his neighbor to go on a date/run with him.)

He winds his fingers through his hair, lamenting its length.

He needs a haircut.

Maybe Monday.

He hears Murasaki leave his apartment and lock the door, so he steps out and does the same. And then he turns around to greet his (acquaintance?) (friend?) neighbor.

In hindsight, this was a Terrible Idea.

Izuku likens it to ripping off the bandaid. He’d wondered about his neighbor’s build.

He no longer wonders.

He’s wearing running shorts and a slim-fitting, long-sleeved, moisture wicking shirt that hugs every single one of the muscles in his upper chest like they’re a gift. For Izuku’s eyes. The average mortal should not have muscles like that. Defined biceps, deltoids, pectorals, trapezius—

This man is a work of art.

He realizes something very important in this moment:

either he needs to stop feeding his neighbor carby baked goods to avoid sabotaging this perfection

or he needs to feed him more to win his attention and affection forever.

“My eyes are up here,” Murasaki drawls, and it takes considerable effort for Izuku to drag his attention up to his neighbor’s face. There’s a pleased little smirk curling one edge of his lips as he rakes a hand through his violet hair.

Izuku’s face is flaming in embarrassment. “Do you-” he says, but it comes out more like a wheeze. He clears his throat and looks down the hallway, begging his brain and voice to cooperate. “Do you want to take the stairs down for a little warm-up?” His voice still pitches into a nervous squeak at the end and he coughs, rubbing the back of his neck. “We can— ehm,” he glances back at Murasaki and briefly loses his train of thought at the amusement clearly written on his stupidly pretty face.

He grumbles to himself in irritation. It helps get his brain back on track. “We can stretch in the lobby before we head out.”

Murasaki nods in agreement. “After you,” he says, gesturing for Izuku to lead the way.

Izuku has to think very hard about where his foot lands for every step down to the lobby. (He may or may not have a death grip on the railing.)

This is fine, Izuku thinks once they’re standing together. Just… do like they do in the movies.

“So, you come here often?” Izuku asks like an idiot as he arches an arm over his head. (He does not retract the question, but he feels the wince pulling across his face and tries to play it off.)

“Everyday,” Murasaki replies with a straight face as he shifts into a slow lunge. His quads flex with the movement, straining the seam of his running shorts. (Izuku does not stare.) “You don’t seem to do these things very often,” he observes.

“What, running? I go a couple times a week,” Izuku replies with a cheerful smile. (He hopes it does not come off as forced or creepy and stops ogling for his own sanity.)

Murasaki squints at him, then blinks and looks away, stepping into a hamstring stretch. “I mean talk to people,” he clarifies.

“O-oh,” Izuku replies. He’s forgotten what stretch he hasn’t done yet. He stares down at his hands as though the answer might suddenly appear.

“Don’t forget your hips.”

“R-right,” he stammers, feeling distinctly out of his element. Izuku moves into the last stretch.

“You need to relax. I’m not going to bite,” Murasaki says. He’s watching Izuku with his hands on his hips and a little frown of concern.

Izuku chuckles nervously, pointedly not thinking about whether or not he hopes his neighbor will change his mind about that.

“Come on, then,” Murasaki says with a flick of his head toward the lobby doors. “Show me what you get up to in the middle of the night.”

When Izuku is running, the distance and time floats away in a haze of rhythmic bliss. Murasaki matches his pace, his longer legs easily able to keep in tempo with his. Their feet tap quietly against the pavement, pleasantly in sync.

His phone announces upcoming turns with little dings, and soon Murasaki has caught on to which sound means going right and left. Shortly afterwards, he turns their changes in route into a little game.

The first time he tries to steer Izuku’s path into a trashcan at the next turn, he’s caught by surprise and almost eats it. Murasaki laughs and steadies him, waving off Izuku’s scowl with a rakish grin.

Izuku catches on by the third time and ducks beneath Murasaki’s shove. The taller male stumbles with a chuckle, and Izuku retaliates with a jab into Murasaki’s side.

He bats Izuku’s hand away with more laughter.

This might be the most fun Izuku’s had on a run.

Ever.

He pushes himself a little harder than usual, curious how well Murasaki can keep up. He is not surprised when his impromptu running partner doesn’t seem to have any problems with his pace.

Izuku glances to his side. Murasaki pushes a sweaty lock of hair back from his forehead with a smirk.

“So, what do you do to stay in such good shape?”

Murasaki tilts his head back and forth. “Bit of this, bit of that. Lots of time in motion.”

“Do you go to the gym?” He presses, feeling a bit of a stitch in his side. Maybe he’s pushing his pace a bit too hard to determine that yes, Murasaki is in better shape than he is.

“Sometimes, but less often than you’d think.” Murasaki nudges him in the side with his elbow as they turn the next corner. “You don’t seem to go out often if it’s not work-related.”

“Stalker,” Izuku half-heartedly accuses.

Murasaki shrugs. “Neither of us seem to go out often if it’s not work related. But if that’s the case, then you probably don’t go to the gym, either.” He arches an eyebrow at Izuku, who grins and shrugs in response.

“I’m just a paper pusher that’s doing his best to not turn into a couch potato.”

“You’re doing a pretty good job of it.”

Izuku feels a fresh swell of embarrassment, but his face is already flushed pink from the exertion.

When they get back to the apartment building, Izuku realizes that he didn’t look at any of the things he’d meant to show Murasaki over their run. He was too busy paying attention to him.

They stretch in the lobby, laughing about the bench Murasaki had to vault over when Izuku had managed to catch him off guard.

They take the stairs back up. Izuku knows he’ll be feeling the burn in the morning, but it’s been a good night.

Murasaki glances over at him on the fifth landing. “Your thighs are pretty amazing, but I’d never have guessed it’s because you take the stairs so often.”

Izuku trips on the next step, but Murasaki doesn’t let him fall. “Why do you say those sorts of things?” Izuku demands as Murasaki rights him and lets go.

He shrugs and gives him a half-smile. “Just handing out compliments where they’re due.”

“I have no idea what to think about you,” Izuku complains as they reach his door.

“It’s probably for the best,” is Murasaki’s cryptic reply as they turn to face each other. “A mystery is way more exciting.”

Izuku can feel the warmth of the other male’s body as he stares up at him in the night-dimmed hallway outside of his apartment door.

Izuku briefly wonders if he might get a kiss goodnight.

A breathless kiss where they melt into each other with roving hands sliding across sweat-slicked skin and he fumbles the doorhandle so they can tumble together into the—

His thoughts cut off when Murasaki gives him a little nod of approval and walks away toward his door.

A nod? Izuku stares at his back and seriously considers chasing him down and getting his kiss.

He firms his expression and whips around to unlock his door.

(Next time.)

(Maybe.)

(Maybe not.)

(Ugh, this is nothing like the movies.)

The door to his mother’s home opens on a bright Saturday morning.

“Mom,” he says, with a deathly serious face. He needs her advice, badly.

“Izuku, honey? I wasn’t expecting you until next weekend!”

He wrings his fingers together. “I know. But I met this guy.”

“You have-“ Her hands clap over her mouth to contain the shout threatening to disturb the neighborhood. “…you have a boyfriend?!“

“Noooo,” he wails in misery. “He’s so cute and sweet but I’m not sure if he’s boyfriend material. I don’t even know if he likes guys.”

His mother purses her lips as she tugs him inside. “What makes you think that he’s not boyfriend material?”

She guides him to the couch so they can sit together, and he spells out what he knows.

The dimples in her cheeks deepen as he talks, and he can see the smile she’s doing her best to hold back. He powers through embarrassing descriptions and interactions and his worries and fears, the blush on his cheeks darkening until she cuts him off with a hug.

“Oh, Izuku!” She laughs, squeezing him tight. “It’s perfectly fine to have a big crush on someone so mysterious. It’s part of the excitement! The unknown can pull you in as easily as a pretty face and nice legs.”

She winks as he buries his face in his hands with a whine.

“But what should I do?”

She grins and leans into him. “A better question is what should you not do?”

“Mom!” He squeaks, scandalized.

She laughs. “Izuku, I didn’t mean anything like that. I mean, if you’re thinking with your heart and your mind, what should you not do?”

He thinks about it a bit more seriously, tapping a finger against his lower lip. “Maybe I shouldn’t trust too easily.”

She hums in response. “Trust is earned. What else?”

The only other thought going through Izuku’s brain is don’t forget to wear protection, but he’s hoping his mother has something more substantial than that. He shifts uncomfortably and shrugs, feeling lost.

“Make sure you’re interested in the person, not just the idea of having a relationship,” she says, nudging him with her elbow. “You’ve lived some lonely years, honey, and the first person to smile at you might not be the best fit.”

Izuku’s warm and fuzzy feelings quickly fizzle into nothing. “I really need to get a handle on how to be a friend,” he whispers, idly twirling a lock of green around his fingertip.

“It’s going to be har-“ She pauses, biting her lip as she cuts herself off and changes direction. “Things might be tough,” she continues brightly, “with such a pretty friend, but I have faith that you’ll figure it out.”

He stretches his legs out and threads his fingers behind his neck. “Learn how to be friends,” he mutters to himself.

“And part of that, especially if you think he might have trouble in his life, is focusing on the present, not the past. Helping your new friend come to terms with how life can be now will be far less troubling for both of you than trying to tackle bad histories.”

She rummages in a small drawer by the couch and withdraws two small bobby pins to fix a section of his hair that keeps falling in his eyes.

“Oh my god, you kept those?”

“Of course! You never know when one might come in handy, like right now,” she says, adjusting one of the pins in his hair.

He laughs, fiddling with a spare still sitting on the side table. Some years ago, he’d seen a single video demonstrating how easy it could be to pick a lock with the right tools, and he’d been hooked for months on the mechanics of tumblers and pins, the simple motions of the wrist with a tiny metal rake that could jiggle elements into alignment, and the satisfying click as a lock popped open.

It didn’t help matters when his mother used his birthday as an excuse to buy him a set of lockpicks. The rakes, hooks, and tension wrenches were fun, but the best part was the bit she’d gotten as a joke on the side: a set of green bobby pins.

Bobby pin lockpicking is a pain in the ass, but his first success felt the most rewarding. His hair isn’t often neglected long enough to warrant actually using the pins for their originally intended purpose, but it seems that today is one of those days.

Mom’s advice is the best, he thinks, feeling the slow return of his floaty-happy feeling. Even if his neighbor just ends up being a friend, it’s still a friend.

Except, they haven’t had the quirk-talk, yet.

He’s horribly optimistic that someone suffering from quirk discrimination might understand. Or —and this is the biggest question of them all— what if Murasaki is actually quirkless?

He knows two kids that are quirkless, but he’s been terrified to talk to them about the shared experience. How can he possibly broach such a subject with his neighbor when he knows so little about him?

He doesn’t see Murasaki again until mid-morning on Sunday. He’s already sitting in his seat at the window, people-watching with just a latte to occupy his hands, when Murasaki sits in the stool next to him.

He turns and smiles at the taller male. “Good morning,” he greets.

Murasaki nods back, the bruise along his jaw looking much better after having a few days to heal. He seems to be a little stressed about something. “That’s a lot of people walking by,” he observes, propping his chin on his hand as he glances out at the bright street in front of the café. He casually moves his fingers as he settles in, but Izuku can see he’s using the hand placement to disguise the lower half of his face.

Izuku shrugs. “During the day, it’s hard to see through the window’s reflective tinting. I can watch everyone go by without looking like a weirdo.”

“There’s nothing wrong with paying attention to your surroundings.”

Izuku hums in agreement. “That’s usually true, but people don’t like it very much when I pay attention.”

Murasaki frowns a little, but then the barista drops off a drink he’s never seen before and they both stare down at the odd contents of the mug.

“What did you order?”

“I don’t order anything, anymore. She just brings me new things to try. Makes her happy and they taste alright, so I just go with it.”

Murasaki takes a sip and grimaces. “Okay, this one is going to take some getting used to.”

Izuku laughs.

He’s watching a crowd of middle-aged men hustle by when he suddenly blurts, “I like to guess their quirks.”

Murasaki lifts an eyebrow for him to continue.

“While I sit here, I like to guess based on what little I can see. So if I start muttering about something, that’s probably it. I just…” He trails off, his cheeks painted red. “I just needed to let you know, in case you wanted to sit somewhere else where it’ll be less chatty.”

“Sounds like an interesting game,” he says. He eyes Izuku for a second, then looks out the window at the people walking by. He points at a young woman, raising his eyebrow in Izuku’s direction.

He glances at the girl in question and has to bite back a laugh. She’s a regular on this street, so Izuku has seen her a hundred times. Her quirk is very subtle, and it took him a few weeks to finally catch what it is.

“Color changing nails,” he says, taking a sip of his own coffee.

Murasaki hums as he watches her walk by. “It’s a strange color,” he admits, peering at the tips of her nails that are currently a glossy metallic silver. “But doubtful,” he challenges, turning his attention to Izuku’s face.

He grins and points. “Watch for the next thing she touches.”

They watch as she continues on, and as luck would have it, she reaches into her purse to withdraw a bright pink phone.

Her nails have changed to match.

Murasaki sighs. “This game is less fun if you already know everyone walking by.”

He chuckles. “I don’t know everyone in the city. And sometimes I can’t guess based on how someone looks,” he says, nudging Murasaki’s knee with his own. He still hasn’t guessed his quirk, but he’s starting to get an idea.

He scoffs and places his mug down to put more of his attention on Izuku. Izuku stares back, his cheeks slowly reddening under the scrutiny, wondering what he’s looking for.

His gaze slides to the side to look for another target.

“That one,” he says, “with the red shoes.”

It takes Izuku half a second to spot the teenager’s bright red shoes weaving through the crowded sidewalk. He immediately know what his quirk is. (or in this case, isn’t.) But he doesn’t say anything for a long moment as they both watch him try to slide unnoticed through the crowd.

He’s never seen this kid before, but he has a familiar way of ducking into himself to become a smaller target, and watchful, wary eyes.

He looks at Murasaki and gauges his reaction as he says, “He’s quirkless.”

A little frown pulls at Murasaki’s lips and his brows furrow in concern.

Izuku isn’t sure what he’d have done if he’d seen anything other than a vague worry for some stranger on the street.

But the worry is there, and so he doesn’t have to think about it.

(He wouldn’t have run away; that would be as good as admission. But he’s damned tired of trying to convince people that a quirk isn’t the part that makes you worth something.)

“I think you could be right,” Murasaki murmurs. “His general demeanor looks like he’s used to being stepped on. It’s even worse than the people with bad quirks.”

“There are no bad quirks,” Izuku counters quietly. “They’re just tools. Some people have them. Some don’t.” He turns to look in Murasaki’s violet eyes. “If you have the tool, you learn how to use it. If you don’t, then you learn to use a hammer, or a scalpel, or a crowbar.”

Murasaki grins with amusement. “You know what, Midori, you’re alright.”

Izuku rolls his eyes. “I’d hope so,” he mutters. “So, it doesn’t bother you?”

Murasaki searches Izuku’s eyes for a moment. “I’m not sure what you’re asking about.”

“People who are quirkless,” he clarifies.

“Of course it bothers me,” Murasaki grumbles, his lips curling downward into a grimace.

The bottom of Izuku’s stomach drops in overwhelming discomfort.

Murasaki continues, his attention still on the kid as he stops at the nearby intersection. “It bothers me a lot. Those people need more support. I’ve never seen a sadder bunch. We all deserve a place in the world,” he says, turning to look into Izuku’s eyes again. “Tool or no tool, cool tool or shitty tool, we’re all here together trying to live our best lives.”

Izuku can’t quite swallow around the lump in his throat.

Murasaki is suddenly alarmed. “Are you-“ He almost asks, but the words cut off in his mouth with the sharp click of teeth. “Don’t cry,” he says instead, quietly, leaning in to Izuku’s space.

Murasaki almost asked him a question. Almost. And then he didn’t. How curious. Izuku takes this new hint and revels in his sliver of knowledge. Then he kind of swoons at Murasaki’s struggle to comfort him on full display.

“Murasaki,” Izuku murmurs, leaning a bit closer, hesitant, but he really needs to know. “Are we friends?”

His neighbor’s lips curl in warm delight. “I think we are, Midori.”

His answering smile is blindingly bright.

It’s late Sunday night when he decides he needs to go on another run.

You up? <

The message is left unread while Izuku gets ready to go, so he’s either asleep or doesn’t have his phone on hand, whatever he’s up to.

It’s fine.

He’s been on hundreds of runs by himself before, and another is no different. He rolls through his stretches in the lobby and takes off into the night.

His route randomizer has him going through the park this evening, which is a little bit exciting. He’s been through the park a total of three times this year, and every time he’s seen something crazy.

(The last time, it was a deer that had somehow gotten into the city limits. Or it was someone with a deer quirk just doing deer-things under the cover of darkness, but he isn’t one to judge.)

It’s late and dark by the time he reaches the park, and the night seems shrouded in a thick blanket of damp air that muffles his footsteps, though there is no sign of fog.

It seems a bit extra creepy, which is why he trips and nearly shrieks in surprise when a squirrel drops from a branch overhanging the path to land right in front of him.

He barely catches himself in time, choking on his breath as he tries to regain control of his wildly beating heart. It chitters angrily at him and scampers up the nearby trunk.

Holy crap, he thinks with irritation. I was nearly murdered by a squirrel.

His right shoelace has come undone in his moment of flailing panic, so he hobbles on unsteady legs over to the bench at the side of the path. As he props his foot up to tie the lace, he notices two men standing along another path a short distance away.

That’s not too out of the ordinary. People meet in the park all the time, or go on walks, or-

Oh, wait. That’s Murasaki.

Murasaki’s facing away from him, talking to another male with long, scraggly black hair. Izuku is mildly intrigued that they’re both wearing loose, dark clothing, like they shop at the same stores. And after a moment, he realizes they’re both wearing summer scarves.

What the heck? Izuku is mildly concerned that this is some kind of new fashion trend that he’s completely missed.

The scraggly male has an angry, world weary expression, and thick stubble like he hasn’t shaved in a few days.

Maybe a homeless guy needing—?

That angry expression glides right over Murasaki’s shoulder in his direction. Izuku is mildly alarmed by the promise of death or dismemberment in those glowing red eyes, and a weird tingle scampers briefly up the back of his skull. Izuku is rocked by a sudden full-body chill and he drops his half-tied shoelace in surprise.

Ah heck, he’s spotted me. And if looks could kill, I’d be dead.

The eyes are no longer red, but Izuku isn’t sticking around for a moment longer. He continues on his run like he hasn’t seen anything, the loose lace of his right shoe constantly threatening to trip him all the way back to the apartment.

What had he just witnessed?

Murasaki was meeting (?) some shady, scary looking guy in the middle of the park at night. Izuku’s not sure, but that guy may have actually wanted to kill him just for looking in their direction!

(It wouldn’t be the first time that a red-eyed glare might mean a promise of pain. He needs to stop associating colors like this.)

He does not bring this chance encounter up the next time he sees Murasaki.

But he’s also quite busy looking into a few new things.

Chapter Text

After an evening (and night) of texting Midori cat content, Hitoshi’s looking forward to maybe running into each other at the café on Friday morning. He doesn’t show up this time, so he’s able to get a little bit of work done and log the regulars that pop in.

The router logs from the day of the ‘mistake’ list twelve separate devices. Each night, he compares the logs to the people he’s seen coming and going, and uses process of elimination to mark off which devices have connected during his days of surveillance.

He’s also done a search for all twelve device IDs to see how often those items are connected. Two are near-daily, and he has matched them to the baristas’ phones. Several are listed as being once or twice per week, and a few are at least weekly.

One device listed on that day is odd. It for sure belongs to a regular or a friend of a regular, and has been connected to the network before with recognized credentials. But it has connected only once in the last twelve months. (The logs don’t go back any further.)

He strongly suspects that the owner of that device is the person they’re looking for.

Which type of person are they trying to find?

Someone who can figure out so much that they have to hide who they are?

Or someone that knows so much that they’ve turned their knowledge into some kind of game to make money?

Shinsou has already matched four café regulars with the router logs from that day. Midori’s laptop didn’t show up in the logs the day before, but that doesn’t seem too strange. Some devices stay offline until the internet is needed, and working on a writing app to translate doesn’t seem like it should need an internet connection.

He takes a sip of his coffee as his thoughts turn to his neighbor.

Midori is a bit of a mystery. Someone passing by on the street might say there’s nothing particularly special about the guy, but Hitoshi has been paying close attention for a few days, now.

There’s a lot to the short guy living next door.

He’s sweet and shy, and so quick to blush.

He’s both cautious and a little too trusting, and might be a pushover. (Hitoshi is worried about this - why would someone be cautious of everyone but then give in at the smallest sign of kindness?)

He’s so curious, and he seems pretty smart (but there’s only so much he can pick up from a few days of interactions).

It feels genuinely nice to just hang around the guy. It’s clear from his reactions that he’s at least physically interested. Going out on a date in the middle of a surveillance mission isn’t exactly approved, but his boss did call this a low priority task, even a ‘mini-vacation.’

It’s possible the lead won’t turn up, and there isn’t a whole lot riding on the case's success.

Hitoshi props his chin on his hand and turns his gaze to the lobby.

Going on a date with the cute guy next door is probably just fine.

The only problem is that he’s never asked someone out, before.

Like any adult with a computer, he opens a browser and searches for the answer.

(And like any adult that should know better, he finds a lot of junk and not much help.)

His big idea is to return the little ceramic dish, then invite him out to eat (or if he’s already eaten, then a drink or something.)

Midori blinks in surprise upon opening his door. Hitoshi panics a little and shoves the container into his hands, then promptly forgets everything he'd planned on saying.

“Would you like to come inside for a bit?” Midori offers like an absolute saint.

This will work just fine!

His reply of 'Yes, of course,' gets stuck in his throat as he stares down at Midori’s earnest expression.

He freezes for a moment, feeling a bit lost.

He doesn’t even need to reply, he could just step forward.

At first, he’s not sure why he hesitates. But then he remembers he’d planned on taking Midori somewhere out, in public, where they could see each other and be seen together.

He’s a little wary of following the cute guy into his home and closing the door behind them.

There’s a chemistry between them, a buzzing electric excitement, that he worries might be too easy to fall into if no one else is around.

He drops a flimsy excuse at Midori’s feet and flees like a coward.

It’s only after the elevator doors have closed that he realizes he could have just asked Midori to come with him on his flimsy excuse “errand”.

He thumps his forehead against the metal wall twice before the elevator dings a warning, and someone else steps into his little box of regrets.

He’ll try again later. (And next time he’ll succeed.)

Midori somehow beats him to it, later that night. (Although, he’s not sure asking to come along on a run counts as a date, but he’ll take it.)

He doesn’t think about his running gear past making sure it’ll slide over the taped gauze without catching, but the shell-shocked look on Midori’s face when he sees what he’s wearing is something he’ll be thinking about quite a bit, later.

If there was any doubt that Midori’s interested in him, he’s fully certain now.

He knows Midori is a runner, but seeing him do it, running alongside him, feeling the pace he sets while still holding a conversation is a little impressive. The idea that this sweet guy with a blindingly bright smile can also run like the wind and react to Hitoshi’s playful distractions is pretty appealing.

He wants to know more. What else can he do?

(He should have been paying closer attention to their path and not so much the flush on Midori’s cheeks as he mischievously grins. If he’d been a split-second slower, he would have run into that bench.)

Their run ends too soon.

Far too soon.

He wants to keep going.

He wants to see how long Midori can keep up.

He takes the stairs up to their floor with ease. Midori has really nice legs, and if this is the kind of exercising he likes to do, then it tracks.

His compliment goes over a little too well, and he’s rewarded with a stumble that he has the privilege to catch, with bracing hands on his upper arm and abdomen. He lets go a little too soon for his liking, but he doesn’t want to push his luck.

They stop in front of Midori’s door. If it were anyone else, their close proximity would be too much, but this feels right as he looks down into wide green eyes. Sweat glistens along his brow, green curls clinging to the damp skin.

He kind of wants to touch, to brush the wayward hair back, lean down and press his lips against Midori’s.

Is that something they both want?

Is it too soon to be thinking of kisses?

Maybe they should have a rational discussion about a possible relationship before he swoops in and does something he might regret later.

He nods once to himself and turns away from Midori.

Until that moment, he has never hoped for an ambush against his exposed back.

And it doesn’t happen. (He’s not surprised, but he’s still a little disappointed.)

He turns back in time to see the edge of a red shoe disappear into the apartment, the door closing quietly behind him.

He leans against the doorframe and stares down the hallway toward Midori’s door, seriously considering walking that short distance to knock.

He should go over there and knock.

Simple.

Take his hand. Tell him it was fun. Let’s do it again.

It doesn’t have to be anything more than that.

But the warm, fluttering excitement in his chest at the thought of doing something simple like that makes it too easy to imagine how much better it would be if he also snuck in a kiss. And a long embrace.

It’s impossible to miss the way Midori looks at him. Is it taking advantage of the shorter male’s weakness in order to indulge in something he wants?

Fuck.

They need to talk. They need to discuss. They need to clear the air between them. Midori has to know about his quirk and agree in advance to anything that happens, just in case something goes south.

Something could go terribly wrong, or Midori could discover what he can do and then claim (or think) he’d forced his participation.

Hitoshi slides into his apartment with a shudder of revulsion.

They have to talk before he dares even a single kiss.

On Saturday, he’s again disappointed to not see Midori at the café, but he does spot a few more regulars that he can mark off his list of potentials. Two of them are teenaged boys that spend three hours playing some internet game, side by side.

His eyes are drawn to their nearly matching bright red shoes, and he smiles a bit, thinking about his neighbor’s similar preference in color. It’s cute and very eye catching, especially how it contrasts so starkly against anything else he chooses to wear. A fashion statement of red red red, look at me!

He will definitely be looking at his next opportunity.

The old lady appears in the lobby on the arm of her husband, and she’s chattering away as he nods in quiet agreement. She peers into the café as they pass the door, and she gives a long, suspicious look at the two boys before her eyes slide past them and land on Hitoshi.

She brightens and waves in his direction, then does some strange eyebrow gymnastics as she intentionally looks over at the two boys again.

It takes him a few short seconds to piece together what she’s trying to say, and he smiles reassuringly with a slight shake of his head. He’ll have to clear up her misconceptions later, it seems, as she nods in farewell and continues on past the café without stepping inside. She and her husband walk down the street as she laughs heartily at something he’s murmured.

Hitoshi wonders how long the couple has been together.

What must it be like to settle into a relationship with someone that compliments you so well?

He stares down into his coffee mug until one of the fluffy feline residents decides to take pity on his confused state of mind and demands his attention.

That night, he marks a few more devices and names off of his list, but he’s starting to get a little bit worried about the name he hasn’t marked off, yet.

He’s glad to see Midori the next morning in the café, but the lack of a laptop or cellphone makes his mood fall. He’d really like to take him off his list of potential suspects, especially with this physical interest that’s sparking between them.

He slides onto the stool next to him, soaking in the closeness as he props his face on his palm. Sitting right next to the window mere feet away from people passing by on a nearby sidewalk is a little uncomfortable without the capture weapon to hide his face, but he’ll manage it for a little while.

They have an enlightening conversation about quirks. It gives him hope that Midori will be able to accept his ability without shutting him out.

But then something he says makes the shorter male tear up, and Hitoshi panics a little.

Has he upset him?

Are those good tears?

He almost asks - he almost asks.

It’s okay to ask questions, he knows it is, but he can’t.

He can’t do it.

Questions are weapons, and he uses his weapons against the badguys.

Fuck please don’t cry. He wants to reach out and give him a hug, one way or the other.

Is hugging okay?

Do neighbors hug?

Understanding dawns on Midori’s face, and the tears in the corners of his eyes glisten with the beginnings of a smile as he asks, “Are we friends?”

Hitoshi has never been so glad to confirm something so mundane, something so simple, something so perfect.

Especially when he sees Midori smile.

(Something in his heart breaks a little, and he wants to confess everything on the spot. But he doesn’t. And he won’t.)

Sunday night marks the end of his first week of surveillance. He has met most of the regulars and marked off two-thirds of his list. Catching the rest as they meander in amongst whatever is going on in their lives will be a continued waiting game.

One that he knows personally and has yet to see, however, he wants to go ahead and clear up as soon as possible so that he has one less thing to worry about.

He reaches out to one of his former teachers and arranges a brief meeting to chat about the other hero that lives in his building. He’s tempted to ask her directly, but he’s been making an effort to keep their potential suspects ignorant of their agency's interest.

They meet late Sunday night in the middle of a local park. Shinsou had wanted to meet on the roof of a local business to avoid any random passersby, but an arm broken in three places and strict doctor’s orders keeps one of them from doing anything strenuous until they can see the school healer on Monday morning.

(Shinsou doesn’t mention his current similarly-benched status, especially with it being due to something so damned minor. He wishes his employer had a healer on staff, too.)

He’d rather meet now and have one less thing to worry about, then wait for another week or two until they both are free again to meet someplace less obvious. The relative normalcy of their conversation means that even if someone overhears them talking about a teacher’s schedule some months ago, there’s very little risk.

The older, dark-haired male looks just as he always does: vaguely done with the world in general. His hair is shorter than Shinsou remembers, and there’s a new scar cutting through the stubble on his chin. But Shinsou’s seen the full gamut of his expressions and can spot the deeply hidden amusement as they size each other up. They’re now the same height, but his old teacher never fails to sufficiently intimidate.

“I could have given you this information over the phone,” he drawls, his deep voice gravelly and bored as he folds his arms across his chest. The broken arm in a sling makes this action look weird, but he manages.

Shinsou shakes his head once and slides a hand through his hair. “Not this. It’s a single piece in a touchy case, and keeping everything offline is our best bet for avoiding leaked data.”

A single eyebrow lifts with interest. “Alright. Both the week before and after the date in question, your listed resident was away with students in her second-year class for the work-study program. Their mission took them across the country.”

Shinsou nods once. He’d been expecting something like that to be the case.

“If you also need known associates that have visited her apartment, I can ask around,” he offers. He glances at something over Shinsou’s shoulder and his eyes flash red in warning.

“You’d think,” Shinsou sighs, “that people would avoid the park this late at night.”

The dark-haired male rolls his eyes and tucks his face into his capture weapon. “There’s always one that’s going to be a trouble-magnet,” he mutters.

“I feel like my next-door neighbor is precisely that kind of person. He’s already run into me once on patrol,” he grumbles. Shinsou is suddenly pinned under a sharp, calculating charcoal gaze.

“This mission you’re on, isn’t it-?"

He winces and finishes the incomplete statement. “Undercover surveillance. Yeah.”

His former teacher blinks at him, clearly not impressed.

“It’s not like I was being careless. He just likes to go running in the dead of-“ Shinsou stills, peering warily over his shoulder. There’s no one there, now, but there’s no way-

“Green hair, lean, and short enough to be mistaken for a high school kid?”

Shinsou sighs deeply and buries his face in his hands. “Fuck.” He rubs his hand down his face in growing irritation. “I’m honestly not sure if his sunshine personality is genuine or just a really convincing act.”

The older male tilts his head, regarding Shinsou’s frustration with a calm demeanor. “You know what they say.”

Shinsou grumbles and stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Yeah. The simplest solution is often the best. I’ve just gotta figure out whether it’s simpler to assume he’s innocent with a streak of bad luck, or guilty as hell and following me.”

The other male adjusts the arm stuck in the sling and shakes his head once. “Not this time. With what little you’ve told me, there doesn’t seem to be anything simple about your case. I think it’s better to focus on eliminating the impossible, and whatever remains must be the truth, no matter how improbable it might seem.”

Shinsou snorts in amusement. “Just keep on keeping on, and I’ll eventually figure it out.”

“Be careful with this case,” the older male warns. “You seem a little-“ he pauses, considering his next words carefully. “A little frazzled.”

Shinsou rubs the back of his neck. He wants advice about the feelings he’s developing for his new friend, but it feels like this is something that is better to ask about and reflect over once the mission has ended, and not a moment before.

He doesn’t want to let this personal interest conflict with his work, especially when it’s a case that seems to have a danger lurking hidden somewhere over the horizon.

“I’ll do my best,” he murmurs, turning away to head home.

Chapter Text

Izuku can’t sleep for hours after he’s returned from his Sunday night run, but that’s fine. He has work he can do until his eyes blur from exhaustion.

The boss is scheduled to arrive on Thursday. Four days away. There is a tiny possibility that his carefully crafted plans may fall through.

For that to happen, the company would either have to agree they need major reform and accept his suggestions to turn a new leaf (which would still probably involve a few people going to jail), or they’d have to know what he’s been up to ahead of time and go to equally sneaky lengths to sabotage his reporting.

Both are entirely possible, but he’s done all he can to ensure the most favorable outcome, so worrying about it this late in the process is completely counterproductive.

(There is also the chance that they’ll try to kill him. He thinks they shouldn’t have much reason to with what he plans on doing, but people have killed for less. It eases his anxiety a very small amount to know that murder isn’t currently in the list of crimes he’s dug up on the management or their direct reports. Yet.)

(Except the timing of a possible mercenary (?) moving in next door and befriending him is starting to look awfully suspicious.)

His boredom in waiting these last few days is completely alleviated by two research tasks.

One is a big job he was sent the details for late the previous week (and then promptly forgot about while lusting over his absolutely hot neighbor), and the other is looking for any evidence suggesting that he should avoid lusting over his absolutely hot neighbor.

The Big Job, as he’s started calling it, is a civilian contract promising a ridiculously large payout upon completion, but directly conflicts with a similar job from the authorities.

Over the last few months, a pair of jewelry thieves have hit a few high-end retailers that supposedly have top-notch security systems. He’d seen the request for the arrest profile on Hero Network a little over a week ago, with half of the reward proceeds provided by one of the business owners that just happens to be on the Commission Board.

(This makes the police request a little less appealing, knowing that the rule-makers are paying to catch the rule-breakers, while the rule-makers oftentimes don’t care at all about the people’s lives they’re affecting with their policies.)

The case didn’t look particularly difficult to solve, so he’d left it for another consultant to handle.

With the reveal of this new job posting, though, he’s pretty certain the Commission-funded capture hasn’t been successful. The new job has been flagged with several markers that draw his attention like the muscles in Murasaki’s arms like a magnet.

(He’s not thinking about Murasaki. Nope.)

The difficulty rating, the price point, and the clear request for a hiring profile instead of a capture profile makes this new job incredibly appealing. Whoever has posted this request wants to lure these jewel thieves in for a new job instead of putting them in prison for their thefts.

A new job doesn’t always mean continuing to break the law. Sometimes a skill set, especially with a team that has developed good synergy, becomes so highly valued that certain individuals will request consults on hiring contracts and methods to bring them under their employ.

These hiring contract jobs don’t pay out unless the requested individuals actually sign on, so they are offered at very high rates to offset the risk of time potentially wasted.

(Izuku has actually seen one such request for him in the last year offering a pretty hefty fee. He likes the freedom to select his own jobs too much to tie himself to a single contract, no matter how much they are offering. The anxiety he felt seeing one of his aliases in a wanted posting may have been part of the reason behind him paying for reinforced glass window inserts.)

There are a few concerning points about this new hiring post he’s seen, though, which makes Izuku hesitate to accept the job. The hiring agent’s details are sketchy, and he wonders if, by taking the job and successfully completing the hire, that the pair he’d be helping to lure in won’t actually end up in grave danger instead of a fancy new placement.

It is a very tricky problem to consider before he’s even signed on to the job.

If he finishes the job for the police instead, the pair might be caught and placed into protective custody while they await trial. They’ll certainly (probably) live a lot longer in the hands of the police.

But is living safe in jail better than possibly living dangerously doing whatever you love?

And if the Commission is behind the arrest request, then who is to say that those thieves would actually end up in prison? The Commission member paying for their capture might actually have something else in mind.

Izuku sighs, rubbing a hand down his face. There will be a lot of background checks and leads to chase before he can make this particular decision.

It may end up being a lot of wasted time if the pair is arrested before he can decide which ways will help or hurt. He’d much rather help.

The Spicy Research, so as to differentiate from his other stuff, is a whole different story. (It’s spicy because either he’s about to get burned, or he’s about to burn. He completely understands that if someone sees the title of this particular folder, he will promptly burst into flames of embarrassment and die on the spot.)

There have been a few too many red flags around Murasaki for Izuku to just let this go, now. Weapons on the kitchen counter are a bit unsettling, but fine. People collect stuff, or have questionable hobbies, whatever.

Weird encounters on the street late at night and him coming back home with injuries is a little worrisome, but still fine. People sometimes get into fights, whatever.

The meeting with the totally scary guy in the park the previous night is distressing. But he wasn’t chased down and threatened. A mean glare because he was being nosey does not make someone actually dangerous.

But Izuku’s secret analyst job? His aliases? The work he’s doing to bring down a well-off company that’s been enriching the ownership at the expense of taxpayers and the employees working for them?

There are suddenly a lot of reasons that those ‘maybe this is bad’ moments are suddenly far worse.

He feels like he’s been a bit blinded by the pretty. It has been too easy to ignore the bad while ogling the good. (so, so much good)

He only has the presumed-alias to go off of, and with zero hits the last time he’d thought to look through his sources, he decides to go a different route.

He drops the name entirely from his search inquiries and punches in what he does know.

Unless his mysterious neighbor has been getting appearance modifications from an extremely expensive quirk salon, then the violet hair is natural. He’s been close enough to see his eyebrows and lashes up close, and the fine hairs along his arms and legs (when he rarely shows them off) are the same pale shade. His eye color, too, is probably unchanging.

And those milky-white pupils are key. They must be his most unique feature. He regrets that he still has no firm idea as to what Murasaki’s quirk might be, but he’ll just have to work without.

His access to the international Hero Network comes as part of his consultation job, and even his lowest-level clearance gives him basic details on every publicly registered hero. It also grants him a certain level of access to criminal files.

There are exceptions to both of these levels of access, though. Entire profiles for certain heroes fall under higher security clearance due to the nature of their jobs, and criminal files are sometimes locked down when they’re part of larger or sensitive operations.

The only time he has access to more sensitive files are on a need-to-know basis.

Armed with only Murasaki’s estimated age and the few unique characteristics that he’s (mostly) certain are unchanging, he casts his net.

The search takes two hours to trawl for potential results.

His computer helpfully dings once the search completes, and Izuku slides back into his seat to examine the page.

There are few matches.

Worldwide.

Few. Matches.

Izuku rolls his head back to stare up at the ceiling.

Few matches is usually a great thing, but in this case, a single glance tells him otherwise.

Izuku can think of at least three violet-haired heroes in America, but the search results indicate only one with a slightly similar eye color, and she has a quirk that utilizes her very obvious feminine assets in fighting crime.

If Murasaki has managed to disguise that much flesh under his workout clothes, Izuku will eat his left shoe.

Two similar matches live in France, working as an inseparable twin duo (literally inseparable since birth due to a ten-foot magnetic field between the two of them). Izuku hasn’t seen a duplicate Murasaki lurking around corners, so that’s also an immediate nope.

(He absolutely doesn’t let his imagination wander over to what two of his neighbors could mean. Hot damn.)

There are no other hits for violet hair and violet eyes.

One villain, estimated to be at least 35 years old, is a match for the unique eyes only, and the last confirmed sighting had been in South America nearly ten years ago. Izuku leans a little closer when he reads the brief description of the villain’s quirk: Hypnotize. With an undetermined amount of eye contact, the villain can ensnare victims for an unspecified length of time.

He’s also been on a wanted list for nearly twenty years.

Izuku props his head on his chin and considers any possible connections.

First, there are very few ways that Murasaki can be old enough to match this villain’s very limited profile.

Second, his neighbor has a honey-sweet voice that sings in Izuku’s veins whenever he speaks, an aversion to asking questions, and a proclivity to stare if they’re around each other for more than a few minutes. At least half of their conversations, when they aren’t paying attention to devices or food, include a lot of eye contact.

Izuku thinks this means that Murasaki probably doesn’t have a sight-based quirk.

(...Unless it is a sight-based quirk and he’s just been using it to draw in Izuku like a fish on a hook.)

(It’s fine.)

There’s a slim chance that Murasaki is part of a higher-clearance case, and therefore won’t show up in any searches.

There’s also a good chance that he’s never been caught doing something bad, so he wouldn’t have a criminal file at all.

(He could also just be some guy with strange hobbies and bad luck.)

Regardless of what he’s seen, he can’t judge one way or another without firm evidence that something is wrong.

It might be nothing. He might be just a little paranoid.

If he sees something concrete, something actionable, then he’ll just reach out to someone in authority.

It’ll be fine.

(He keeps his EDD on the bedside table, just in case.)

This villain that hasn’t been seen in a decade, though, is rather fascinating. He’s only been caught once (briefly), and the authorities that captured him were overcome by the villain’s hypnosis. Any photographic evidence of his appearance has been wiped from the investigation files.

The only descriptor that his victims retain are the white pupils and purple iris.

His neighbor can’t possibly be old enough.

He likes to stare.

He’s also very hot and there’s definitely some chemistry there.

What if he is that old, and he hypnotized a specialist into making him look young again? (Or has naturally youthful skin?)

What if he likes to stare, knowing he can catch Izuku in hypnosis whenever he likes? (Or already has?)

What if there’s such crazy chemistry between them because he’s being convinced that’s the truth? (Izuku discards that possibility immediately, because any villain that’s been around for that long can surely think of better ways to use their quirk.) (His neighbor is just really that good looking and he’ll have to deal with it.)

What if the company that he’s working to bring down has found out his plans and has hired this guy to stop him?

What if another company has finally figured out a way to track him down and trick him into …

Izuku plops his face into his hands with a long groan of irritation.

There are too many possibilities, and he’s starting to feel stressed. He does not want to bake right now. He does not want to go bang on Murasaki’s door and demand answers (especially if he knows Izuku is on to him and just, hypnotizes him into walking off the balcony to shut him up.)

(…Unless he just kisses him to shut him up, then Izuku might actually want to go next door to demand answers.)

There’s only one thing he can do to set his mind at ease, and that’s figure out if this villain is still at large or living next door.

And in the meantime, act natural.

(Easier said than done.)

Going back to the café on Monday is tough. The barista is all smiles and winks as she slides warm food and hot coffee into his space, but he’s finding it difficult to enjoy. The work he’s putting into tracking old leads on this mysterious villain (who he really hopes isn’t the guy living next door) and poking around at the profile on the two jewel thieves is mind-numbingly boring.

The worry/excitement about the upcoming culmination of his side project on Thursday puts a weird damper on interest for much else.

…Until Murasaki slides into the seat across from him with a warm smile, and his pressing concerns and paranoia vanish. This is the smile of someone who cares, someone he might be able to trust. The tension in his shoulders relaxes, and Izuku just props his chin into his palm and stares into those violet eyes, wondering if he’s truly fated to die at the hands of this beautiful man.

He sighs wistfully.

“You look like you slept badly,” Murasaki remarks with a grin.

“You look roughly the same,” Izuku counters.

He arches an eyebrow. “I always look like this.”

“Maybe you just need someone to cuddle,” he mutters quietly, frowning down at his breakfast as he pokes at a bite.

Murasaki hums noncommittally.

A cat mrrps into Murasaki’s lap, and Izuku peeks up at his face while he’s distracted with the fluff. No new obvious injuries, today. He wants to ask who that was the night before, but he doesn’t want to call attention to the fact that he’d seen anything.

“I hope you don’t have plans, tonight,” Murasaki says without looking up.

At once, Izuku is both excited and on guard. “Why, is something going on?”

“I’m considering touring the alley cats for about an hour at around seven, if you’re interested in coming along.”

“Touring the-“ Izuku trails off in confusion. “What does that mean?”

“Bringing snacks and treats to see how many I can tempt into a petting.”

Izuku blinks. “This requires two people?”

Murasaki looks a little sheepish. “It’ll seem less weird if there’s a second person there while I’m talking to a bunch of cats.”

Izuku breathes out a short laugh and glances back down at his food. He pops a bite into his mouth and chews while he thinks. At which point does going out with a friend to do something fun turn into getting lured into an alley by someone you thought you could trust?

“You haven’t said no,” Murasaki murmurs, and as Izuku looks up into those pretty violet eyes, he finds he really doesn’t want to turn down his offer.

“Okay. Seven,” he agrees.

This is such a bad idea.

Chapter Text

Shinsou returns home Sunday night with a firmed resolve and a new plan of action:

* Get the rest of the names marked off his list.

In the meantime, act natural. Midori may have seen him meeting his former teacher in the park, so he has a story lined up in case his neighbor asks.

He does not.

In fact, he pretends like he hadn’t seen anything at all, and doesn’t mention anything about the park the previous night. (That’s strange, and a little suspicious.)

He likes Midori, though, despite the strangely suspicious behavior he’s exhibiting. And as he slumps into his seat across from the guy, it’s obvious that he feels the same.

Whether he’s an innocent civilian with bad luck, or playing for the other team and possibly knows who he is, following him for reasons… Hitoshi wants to get to know him better.

As he’s managed to knock more and more names from his list of possible suspects, signs point disturbingly close to Midori’s direction. He can’t judge without knowing something more concrete than a maybe, or a suspicion, so getting to know him better might help him decide how to handle an eventual reveal and direct questioning. (Fuck, he hopes he never has to interrogate his cute neighbor.)

He starts with something simple and innocent, a little walk to go see more cats. Midori seems to like them alright. (Probably not as much as Hitoshi likes them, but close enough.)

He seems so wary, though, of his intentions. It stings a little, seeing the previous blind enthusiasm shift into uncertainty.

He’ll earn this skittish guy’s trust if he has to drag him to every cat-spot he can think of.

They sit in the café together for a few hours, talking little as Midori spends most of his time staring pensively out of the café windows. Hitoshi offers that they go sit alongside the glass, but Midori gives him a half-hearted shrug and frowns into his coffee. There’s a wrinkle between his brows and a tense set to his shoulders.

Something is clearly bothering the guy, but he hesitates to pry.

This is a terrible idea, he thinks before he stands. Midori’s pensive stare flicks up to his face in surprise. He wonders if he thinks he’s already leaving, because that looks like a flash of disappointment in his expression. Definitely a terrible idea. He steps around the table and moves to sit right next to Midori, commanding him to scoot over as he slides into the bench at his left.

“Um,” he says, staring up at him with wide green eyes. Hitoshi can feel the side of his body go rigid against the contact as his cheeks turn pink.

Hitoshi reaches across the table to collect his mug and keeps his hands firmly on the tabletop where Midori can see them. He glances to the side from the corner of his eyes and peers down at the blushing male. “You look like you need either a distraction or a hug. Tell me if I need to get the hell away from you. I won’t be offended.”

Hitoshi wiggles his fingers the same way he’d seen Midori do the other day, and the largest cat in the cafe struts in their direction.

It sees the wide expanse of two laps and slinks up into the newly available space, sprawling casually across the warmth.

Midori snorts a surprised laugh and drops his hand to the cat’s fuzzy head, petting between its ears with a soft smile.

It takes a few minutes for him to relax next to him into the seat, their shoulders touching, elbows bumping as they savor their drinks and pet the cat, the warm length of his thigh pressing against Hitoshi’s.

“Thanks,” Midori mumbles. “You’re a good distraction.”

“I don’t suppose you want to talk about it,” he says.

Midori shakes his head. “Not today,” he mutters. “Not today,” he repeats, more softly, like he’s saying he’ll want to talk about it, sometime.

Hitoshi wonders about this. He wonders about a lot.

He glances to the side again, and finds a new topic with which to distract. “The bobby pins are cute.”

Midori chokes on his next sip, coughing hard enough to earn a glare of reproach from the cat lounging across their laps.

Midori dabs at his face and the corner of one eye with his napkin, clearing his throat with an embarrassed chuckle. “Uh, yeah. My mom gave me a few to keep some of the hair out of my eyes. I’ve been meaning to get a haircut.”

Hitoshi really wants to touch the soft-looking green hair that falls in loose waves to frame the sides of his face. It’s not quite long enough to pull into a ponytail, but there’s enough to obscure his eyes.

Hitoshi smirks. “It still looks cute. I don’t have that same problem, though,” he says, drawing one of his hands through the hair at the side of his head. It seems to defy gravity at this length, but Hitoshi has never let it grow out much longer than a handful of inches.

Sometimes he wonders if it’ll fall in long waves around his face once it gets too heavy, or if he’d have perpetually floating hair like a mermaid underwater.

“Must be nice,” Midori sighs, watching the hand playing through his hair with clear longing.

Hitoshi leans against their table and props his face on a palm, turning to look at his friend with a widening smile. “You look like you want to touch,” he says, invitingly.

Midori jumps in surprise. “Oh! Uh-um. I-“ He looks away, nervous and a little frantic. “I-I need to. Um. Go.” He presses gently on Hitoshi’s shoulder with a pleading look, and Hitoshi feels a sudden swell of regret as he stands to get out of the way.

“I-“ Midori says, wringing his hands together as he gets to his feet, looking up at Hitoshi with pink cheeks and a nervous smile. “I’ll text you later, okay?”

Hitoshi smiles down at him. “Sure. I look forward to the cat memes.”

Midori flees with a wave to the barista, who has been watching their entire interaction like it’s the best drama she’s ever seen. Hitoshi spots a poorly hidden bowl of popcorn next to the register.

(He sighs and rolls his eyes.)

He sticks around in the café for several more hours, meeting more of the regulars that he’ll inevitably mark off of his list of potential suspects.

Midori ends up texting him at around five in the evening, but the message he sees makes him frown with concern.

I’m not feeling very well. Rain check? <

Is he really feeling unwell or is it just an excuse so he can avoid him?

> let me know if I can do anything to help

 

thanks, I will <

Will he?

He doesn’t hear anything else from Midori that evening.

Patrol is boring and uneventful, yet again. The new sidekick that took his routes for Thursday and Friday night caught two robberies in progress and nabbed a drunk driver as they tried to start their car.

Is it that Shinsou is so distracted that he’s missing the crimes in progress, or is his luck just that terrible that nothing has been happening while he’s around?

He almost wants to ask his boss to let the sidekick accompany him for the week just to have a chance at something interesting coming up.

On Tuesday morning, he’s not expecting to see Midori in the café, especially if he hadn’t been feeling well the day before. The café is quiet most of the day, aside from some stranger meeting with the building managers to request permission to put up some advertisement for a community program. They disappear into the elevator with a stack of door hangings, and appear half an hour later, empty-handed and calling thanks to the elderly couple before they leave the building.

Shinsou is glad to see the program coordinator asked for permission before distributing junk on their floors.

He shakes his head in mild irritation, wondering what group is peddling their nonsense now, asking for donations or new converts to whatever cult might be gaining traction.

> hope you’re feeling alright

> text me if you need something

Midori doesn’t answer for a few hours, which makes sense if he’s not well.

k <

Hitoshi returns to his apartment to see a placard hanging from his door handle that gives information about a locally funded community outreach program, offering services for job placement, counseling, and free anonymous therapy sessions via phone call.

Hitoshi’s eyebrows lift with surprised interest. This is precisely the sort of thing that he’d like to see happen all over the city. Humming thoughtfully, he brings the pamphlet into the apartment and drops it with his patrol gear he’ll be putting on later that night.

His cats demand attention, annoyed that he spent his day cheating on them with the furry harlots downstairs, but he avoids any bites by bribing with their favorite treats. He pulls out a little brush to gently tug at some of their loose fuzz as he worries about his neighbor next door.

It’s probably nothing.

It’s probably fine.

He didn’t see him a few days last week, too. Their schedules won't always line up, and they won't both be spending all their free time drinking coffee in the little café.

He absently rubs the ginger cat’s toebeans until he dozes off for a pre-patrol nap.

Tuesday’s patrol is just as boringly bad as Monday’s. He sends a text to his boss when he gets home early Wednesday morning.

> let the sidekick have my patrols for the rest of the week.

> i’m going to take actual vacation.

> the boredom is going to kill me.

He’s not sure what he’s thinking, that not being on patrol could possibly be made less boring than being on a patrol where nothing is happening, but he’s a little worried that his distractions are affecting his work efficiency.

His boss texts him back later that morning with an excessively large thumbs up. They know him offering to take time off is absolutely worth accepting, because otherwise it’s like pulling teeth to get him to ignore work for a while.

He still plans on hanging out in the café to look for others to mark off his list, and maybe visit with Midori a bit.

(A lot.)

The outreach placard is still on Midori’s door when he steps out into the hallway, just like it’s on the other two apartments that aren’t occupied. That’s a little weird, but if Midori hasn’t left his apartment at all because he’s not feeling well, then he wouldn’t know it’s there.

> hope you’re still alive

Midori doesn’t open his message for hours. Hitoshi sits in his booth, worrying his lip between his teeth as a café cat paws at his ankles for attention. The coffee sits before him, long forgotten and ice cold. Had he been too forward in sitting next to him? Had he teased too much? Has he scared the guy into hiding from him?

When Midori answers around three that afternoon, Hitoshi is minutes away from going upstairs to knock on the door to make sure he’s ok. (And that he hasn’t ruined everything, somehow.)

Yeah I’m ok. <

Just feeling a bit under the weather. <

 

> but you haven’t left your apartment

 

Sure I have <

it’s not like that’s weird tho <

I have everything that i need there <

Hitoshi pauses at that wording. He has everything he needs, there? Instead of here? Is he not home? Not that it matters when he’s home and when he’s not, but…

He pushes it from his thoughts.

Wednesday night, he absolutely regrets taking vacation time as he rolls around on the floor, bored out of his mind.

He pulls out his phone and starts typing a message to Midori:

> thinking of you and hope I didnt scare you off somehow…|

He stares at the unsent message for a long time, then deletes it in a hurry before he can accidentally hit send. What is he doing??

He hunts around for a little while and then sends him a stack of his favorite cat videos, instead. It’s a neutral offering to repair what might be a rocky patch in their new friendship.

(But he really hopes he didn’t scare him off by being too forward.)

Thursday dawns without Midori, again.

He didn’t even get a reply to the cat videos.

He can tell his messages were opened, at least, so he thinks Midori is alive.

Regardless, he’s very concerned by now, and he’s seriously thinking about stepping out onto his balcony that night to peek into Midori’s apartment for any sign of life. (or signs of a struggle that he’s been kidnapped, or any sign that he’s quietly moved out.)

He goes through his day feeling a bit like a shadow of himself. He doesn’t remember the last time he worried this much about someone. (Sometimes he realizes he only cares about his cats and who will feed them if he dies, so worrying about anyone is a rather novel experience.)

By two that afternoon, he caves and sends a single message to Midori, feeling like a bit of an idiot and hoping they’re both just really bad at communicating.

> I feel like I’m being ghosted, but I also hope you aren’t dying and/or dead

The message isn’t opened for hours.

Hitoshi doesn’t worry.

(He does, however, go to a store about half a mile away and buy a bottle of alcohol, then sit on the balcony that is shared between their apartments, staring into a darkened, empty apartment as he sips at a small glass of the stuff for the next three hours.)

(He feels like an absolute creep.)

(And he’s worried sick.)

(Should he break in, search for clues, and go searching for his missing friend?)

(Did he realize the agency has the apartment complex under surveillance and make a run for it?)

(Did some polite person ask the cute guy to get in their car and now he’s been kidnapped?)

His phone pings, startling him from his spiraling thoughts.

sorry about that. I’m still alive! <

I’ve been visiting my mom. <

I’ll be home this weekend :) <

Hitoshi drops his face into his hands and breathes a shaky sigh of relief.

Thank fuck.

Chapter Text

Izuku is both ecstatic and unnerved that Murasaki has asked him to come along on what sounds like a date. His peaceful contemplation of the pretty male begins a slow descent into vaguely worried speculation, and he finds his gaze drifting away from appealing shares of violet to linger on fleeting impressions of people passing by on the street outside the cafe.

The request to go on a date isn't what worries him, is it?

Maybe it's his dogged insistence on inserting himself into Izuku’s life. Goosebumps prickle along his skin as he briefly lets his mind wander through thoughts of the pretty male finding more ways to get into his space. Murasaki seems content to play on his phone and Izuku’s not sure how much time passes while he stews in his thoughts.

Murasaki unexpectedly slides into the seat next to him and his heart about flies out of the window.

Izuku freezes in place.

He’s so warm.

He nibbles on his lip and wrings his fingers together, feeling increasingly distressed that he yearns for this guy, to be around him and listen to him talk and learn everything about him and stare and touch and cling.

Everything about this moment with him, this experience together, is just too perfect.

Scarily perfect.

It’s everything he could want.

Suspicion that this is too good to be true doesn’t even have a chance to take root before he’s shoving Murasaki out of the way so he can get up and out of his seat, awkwardly dropping a goodbye before running like a coward.

(He’ll have plenty of time to be suspicious in a few minutes, after the blushing desire to reach out for the flirting male dissipates.)

He rubs his hands down his face as the elevator lumbers upwards, whining pathetically at what he’s just done. He peeks through a gap in his fingers at the numbers ticking toward six, a nervous anticipation building in his stomach.

He’d agreed to go on a little outing with Murasaki, to (probably) pet alley cats. And he’d openly flirted, gotten right in his space, and it had been so, so perfect.

So perfect.

He wants that to continue. He wants that so much, but now he’s terrified.

This is exactly how he’d suggest approaching an anti-social recluse like himself. He doesn’t have friends. He avoids socializing for fear of someone finding out his secrets and giving him the swift boot of ew gross, no thanks. (Or that he’s been tracked down by someone who wants revenge, or someone who wants to use his skills in ways he won’t agree.) He’s been shutting others out of his life pretty solidly for years, now, and at the first sign of interest from any person, he’s caved like a lonely, love-sick teenager.

It’s too close to Thursday, to the final step of his plan. If Murasaki’s goal is to distract from that plan’s completion or to stop him before he can get to the last steps, then he can’t let it happen.

He hopes and prays that he’s not making a terrible mistake, by revealing he knows too soon.

He hopes and prays that he’s wrong, and it’s all just stupid paranoia and terrible coincidental timing.

He texts a flimsy excuse why he can’t make the date, then hides in his apartment for the rest of the night, worriedly checking and double-checking (and triple-checking) his door and window locks.

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting to happen, but he can’t relax.

He doesn’t sleep at all that night.

As soon as the sun rises on Tuesday morning, he’s made up his mind to get the heck out of the apartment complex. He knows he’s being over cautious, now, but he won’t be able to rest knowing that there could be someone living right next door that is waiting to pounce at the first opportunity.

He’s too nice.

There are too many coincidences for this to be real.

Too much can go wrong, now, and he wants to be able to see this project to its end.

He’s too perfect.

Damnit.

He packs a small bag, just a few changes of clothes and the nicer outfit he’ll need to wear on Thursday. He packs his laptop and the charger, drops a hat over his vibrant green hair, and throws on a jacket.

He steps out, quietly locks the door behind him, and sneaks down the stairwell.

He’s very aware that he’s running away.

It’s not the first time. It won’t be the last.

He books a hotel across town through Friday morning and pays in cash. He doesn’t want to use a payment card for accidental damages, so he’s required to pay a hefty security deposit in advance. He grumbles a little, but it’s worth it to avoid having his name or aliases used anywhere.

It’s fine.

He places orders for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to be delivered to his door at assigned times and tips the receptionist for their discretion.

He slips into a windowless room and locks the door behind him, then slumps against the wall and absolutely doesn’t cry at the mess his life has become in the last few days.

I'm so close to this fucking company going down in flames and then I meet this gorgeous guy next door who I really want to be as perfectly awesome as he looks but there are so many questions and the timing is awful and now I don’t know who I can trust or what the hell I can do-

He rolls over and presses his face into the plush hotel pillow, muffling a scream of frustration in the soft, fluffy darkness. It helps to dampen his racing thoughts and he breathes out a long sigh. 

The exhaustion from the last few days catches up with him and he’s out like a light. 

He wakes with a start at the sound of knocking. He holds his breath for a moment, terrified for no discernible reason until he realizes the room service has been delivered.

He stands, peeks through the peephole, then cautiously opens the door once he’s sure the coast is clear.

He eats methodically, rubbing at an eye to try and clear the blurry remnants of his unexpected nap. He breathes out a heavy sigh, realizing he is being a little (a lot) paranoid. His emotions feel a little (a lot) prickly probably due to the lack of healthy meals and his recent inability to sleep. But here, in an unexpected place, no windows, and no name on the register, he feels like he can relax.

If he can make it through Thursday, he might be able to go back to his regular life.

Damn, he hopes so.

Because Murasaki keeps texting.

And either it’s because he cares, or he’s freaking out that his target has skipped out before he can finish the job.

He doesn’t have any friends to text, but he knows enough about text etiquette to understand that leaving someone on read is horribly inconsiderate.

He keeps leaving him on read.

He realizes that if Murasaki is a good guy, then he’s being the worst kind of asshole.

(But he’s a scared asshole because Murasaki is being awfully suspicious for a good guy.)

(It’s fine.)

(It’s not fine.)

(He’s not crying again.)

Closed behind the hotel door, he’s able to sleep in short bursts, waking when room service drops by with another meal. He has a lot of time to work uninterrupted, otherwise.

Tracking the mysteriously vanishing villain has become a kind of morbid game as he seeks out clues and details that may have been overlooked.

Time flies quickly while he’s tunnel-visioned in his research.

He’s just spotted an interesting and obscure news article from seven years ago. The villain was briefly apprehended in Spain, drunk off his ass during the televising of the lauded UA Sports Festival. Witnesses overheard him screaming obscenities about a relative in attendance. He didn’t make it to the police station before he’d escaped again.

His phone pings, then pings again, and keeps going for a few minutes.

He glances down at the notifications.

Murasaki is in the process of sending him dozens of cat videos.

He swallows down the lump in his throat.

This guy.

Then he realizes it’s Wednesday night, and the big meeting is tomorrow.

His internal panicking skyrockets once again, but this time it’s anxiety for what he’s about to do.

He spends the next few hours intermittently pacing the plush carpeting and hiding under the cozy blankets on the bed.

He barely gets any sleep that night, his nervous energy keeping him wired for the next day’s events.

If everything goes well, he’ll have plenty of time for an afternoon nap.

If everything goes to shit, he’ll… probably be too busy taking a dirt nap to care much about a lack of sleep.

It’s fine. It’s fine. No one (probably no one) knows what he’s been up to except his mom, and she knows only the smallest of details. His neighbor might know something, and damn if he regrets telling him anything now.

It’s fine.

Thursday morning dawns bright and perfect, completely unlike his life.

(Which is currently dismal and awful.)

He showers and dresses slowly, putting his hair in order with the precious bobby pins from his mother. He leaves his laptop locked in the safe, but he slips his phone into his pocket and tucks the folder he has prepared for this day under one arm.

He’s ready.

The owner of the company arrives to great fanfare, with all current employees in attendance to greet him on his tour of the facility. Everyone gathers in one of the bigger warehouses for an all-employee meeting, which Izuku is required to attend and remain quietly in the background. Only three of the hundred people in attendance even recognize him as another employee.

It’s a little sad, but it’s fine.

The owner gushes praise for the management team and throws around kudos for the leadership crew running such a tight program for nearly an hour. Izuku does his best to hold on to a straight face during the worst of the lies. It’s so bad.

After the employees are dismissed with reminders to clock-in appropriately, the management team disappears down a side passage to conduct a private financial review of company assets.

Izuku is not invited.

He invites himself anyways.

His direct manager stands in anger at the audacity of his interruption, but Izuku politely bows and speaks over him with a firm, unwavering voice. He presents his folder to the owner: a small packet of reforms that will help the company meet city regulations, improve employee retainment, and avoid potential lawsuits.

There is a minute of shocked silence from the leaders sitting around the room.

And then he’s fired on the spot.

A security guard roughly escorts him from the grounds and tosses him through the gate.

He turns and smiles with a short wave.

(Because it’s fine.)

He pulls his phone from his pocket and presses play to ensure his final recording is audible, but it doesn’t matter much if it is or isn’t. He has evidence for days. He saunters to the train station and takes the first available back to his hotel, where he spends the next hour compiling the final bits of his report. He has an extensive collection of paper trails, video evidence, and recorded interviews.

Giddy with relief and excitement, he drops his findings and the piles of evidence into a secure storage location online and sends the link to the three closest police agencies. He’s added a note informing the police that a summarized copy will be sent to local media on Friday afternoon, in case they’d like to get started on investigation and arrests before it goes public.

It’s not even lunchtime, yet.

Izuku flops backward on the hotel mattress, his arms sprawled out to either side of his body. He feels so good that this has been taken off his hands.

His summarized copy is ready to go, as well, and he wonders how this will all end up playing out. He’s never seen the direct results of his work, only occasionally spotting a news article about the arrest of someone that had been in one of his reports. Oftentimes his job feels very thankless, aside from his payouts, he’d almost wonder if anything he writes is ever put to any use. (He knows some of his warnings about upcoming events are often overlooked, and he feels terrible when he sees his predictions come true as reported by the evening news.)

He sighs and rolls over onto his stomach. In this particular report, he’s made a risky decision to include his quirkless identity as one of the victims of the company’s discrimination. It’s a major law to break (if you’re caught) and he’d warred with himself on whether or not he should include his name.

There is so much wrong with the company, though, that he knows leaving himself out of the report would look like a pretty big discrepancy, and investigators might ask a lot of uncomfortable questions.

(He’s filed the report under an alias, anyways, so the company won’t know it was him.)

He includes a bolded note in his reporting that, thanks to the serious nature of quirkless discrimination, the victim Midoriya Izuku could suffer from further harm should his name or likeness be released to the media, and therefore efforts should be made to keep his identity obscured for his safety (and to avoid potential lawsuits that could result from such disclosure).

The giddy high eventually starts winding down, and he’s feeling boneless and relaxed, his face buried into the squishy soft pillows of the hotel bedding.

He pulls out his phone and texts his mom.

I sent off the report. It’s done! <

I’ll come over tomorrow! <

Maybe we’ll see it show up in the news? <

> I’m so proud of you!

> Love you so much! see you soon!

Love you, mom <

He dozes off with a smile, his bright screen the only light in the darkened room.

The phone buzzes in his hand, and he glances blearily at the screen in confusion. He’s been asleep for a few hours. It’s Murasaki.

His work against the company is past the point of stopping, now, even if his neighbor had meant to stop him. Maybe he’s a legitimately sweet guy and he’s just been leaving him hanging for days.

He leaves him hanging for a few more hours before he even opens the message.

> I feel like I’m being ghosted, but I also hope you aren’t dying and/or dead

Izuku reads the line a few dozen times, feeling a warm flutter in his chest, and the sting of tears at the corners of his eyes.

Then he fibs a bit about where he’s at (it’ll be more true tomorrow when he gets to his mom’s house), hoping that Murasaki hasn’t been knocking fruitlessly at his door.

He misses the guy. If he’s been wrong this whole time, it’ll be nice to see him again once the whole thing has blown over.

Early on Friday, Izuku’s mom greets him with a cry of delight and a warm embrace. She ushers him inside and makes him change into pajamas so they can curl on the couch and be celebration-lazy all day.

She makes his favorite food.

They have a dessert delivered from a favorite local bakery.

Izuku’s message to the media is sent at 3pm.

Less than fifteen minutes later, one of the stations is already running a byline, and a reporter interrupts the afternoon talk shows to drop a hype-building blurb:

Breaking news: Local disaster recovery company under investigation for major allegations, including quirk discrimination, fraud, and safety violations. More on this with the evening news. As they were a former top-ten Commission-favored company, we’ll have a Commission representative in for an interview with their thoughts on the matter. Coming up next, right after the break!

His mom cracks open a bottle of champagne and Izuku claps his hands over his mouth to contain his joy.

They are so busted.

Chapter Text

Hitoshi stumbles back into his apartment, relieved and angry with himself that he’d been so damned worried. He’s still worried, and will probably continue to be worried until Midori is within reach, but he’s feeling a sharp pain in his chest that he doesn’t like to think about.

His phone pings again, and he picks it up with a sudden excitement that he might read something else from his friend.

His smile immediately falls upon seeing it’s from his boss.

> Come in tomorrow when you get a chance.

Hitoshi sighs and slumps into his folding chair. He’s going to ask for a damned couch when he gets into the office.

He glances at the wall separating his apartment from Midori’s, wondering which he’ll do first when he sees him again: shake him for worrying him so much, or pull him into a fierce hug.

He frowns, still unsure if his neighbor bolted because he’d been too forward. (Maybe he’ll ask this time before flinging himself bodily in his direction.)

The next morning, Shinsou heads out early, wondering what the hell his boss might have to talk to him about.

His boss ushers him inside the office and closes the door behind him before pouring two cups of coffee. Shinsou slides into one of the cushy chairs and links his fingers behind his neck, feeling much more relaxed than the last time he’d been in here.

His boss drops into his chair and sighs before plucking a thick pile of papers from his desk drawer. “We got a new report from our mystery consultant.”

Shinsou shifts in his seat and sits up, his interest piqued.

The dark-haired male pushes his glasses up his nose and takes a sip of his coffee. “It wasn’t requested as part of any investigation, and there are no linked job requests for this.” He shakes his head, smiling in disbelief as he continues. “It just showed up at a few police stations yesterday afternoon with a link to several months of accumulated evidence.” He pushes the thick stack across the desk for Shinsou to take. “This is just the summary.”

Shinsou flips through a few pages, then back to the front, frowning down at the name of the company. He taps it twice, looking up at his boss. ”This company name looks familiar.”

The older male nods. “It’s the name of the company we usually call in for cleanup after major accidents or villain-related catastrophes.”

Shinsou whistles lowly. “They’re a Commission pick.”

His boss nods gravely. “It’s supposed to hit the media some time today. There’s gonna be a primetime news shitstorm about the Commission’s involvement in selecting this particular company if all of this evidence holds up. It’s really not looking good for anyone on the selection committee.”

Shinsou chuckles as he flips through the pages to read highlights of the consultant’s findings. He glances up at his boss. “Thanks for this copy, but I get the feeling that this police case isn’t the only reason you called me in today.”

His boss shakes his head and gives him a wide grin. “You’re right. We aren’t handling that mess, but I fully expect that this new problem for the Commission is going to encourage them to start moving on anything that might pull some heat off their asses, like our big case.”

Shinsou cracks the knuckles of his left hand and grins wildly. “This is exactly the kind of news I like to hear.”

The older man nods. “No guarantee it’ll be overnight, but I will be surprised if they wait longer than a week to get us rolling on our mission to generate a bigger headline than this bullshit they’ll be dealing with soon.”

Shinsou laughs out loud, feeling a thousand times better than when he’d walked in that morning. “Call me when you’re ready, and I’ll cancel my vacation plans early.”

“Don’t get too out of shape kicking around in that coffee shop,” he warns with a grin.

“Nah,” Shinsou waves off his concerns. “I’ve got a neighbor keeping me on my toes.” His boss raises an eyebrow, but Shinsou doesn’t elaborate. “By the way, I’d like it if you could have a couch delivered.”

His boss squints with mild suspicion. “Just a couch? That’s a weird request. Is it for this neighbor?”

Shinsou rolls his eyes. “If you want to send more furniture than a couch, feel free. I have a folding chair to sit on. It gets a little uncomfortable.”

“Right, I imagine so. You expect to be there much longer, then?”

Shinsou shrugs. “The last few devices I’m waiting to match up have yet to show, and it doesn’t look like they’re in much of a hurry.”

“Alright. We’ll get it taken care of this weekend. Any preference in color?”

“Anti-cat,” he says as he turns to leave.

“I have no idea what that means.”

Shinsou just salutes his boss with a broad smile and walks out of the office.

In all honesty, he’s been considering a more permanent move. The location is perfect for his route, the cafe is an added bonus, and he might have a bit of a thing for his next-door neighbor.

He won’t bring up the idea until everything has been resolved and he’s able to actually introduce himself to Midori, but if everything doesn’t fall to pieces between now and then, he could easily see himself staying.

He heads back to the building and sets up in the café, absently panning through the first dozen pages of the consultant’s report. There are so many safety violations that he can feel disgusted dismay roiling through his stomach. Those poor people, he thinks, scrolling slowly.

The barista drops off a mountain of something sugary pink with a look of hopeful concern. “You doing alright today?” She asks, pausing by his table.

He gives her a brief smile. “I am, yes.”

She leans forward with a look of interest, and her voice is little more than a whisper. “Have you heard from our greenie?”

Maybe his distraction and Midori’s absence had been a little too obvious. He can’t help the wide grin that crosses his lips when he thinks of seeing Midori again in the next day or so. “I have. I’ll see if I can drag him down here when he gets back this weekend.”

She nods sharply and walks back to the counter. “I’ll hold you to it!”

He turns back to the consultant’s report and, in morbid curiosity, clicks to the end of the file.

There’s 287 single-spaced pages.

In the preliminary findings alone.

It’s going to take him all week to read this damned thing. He chuckles a bit to himself, wondering how many police officers they had to dedicate to wade through this mess.

He returns to page three of the safety violations and takes a nice sip of coffee to accompany the growing feeling of delight at this newest turn of events. He loves seeing a bad company go down for misdeeds.

And knowing this report was compiled without any prompting or payout makes him feel like their mysterious author might not be in it for financial gain. Even better.

A few hours later, his phone pings as the media picks up the story, and he pauses his reading to skim some of the highlights. The media fallout on this is bigger than he thought it’d be, and the Commission is trying to spin up a storm of support for everyone that suffered under the company’s mistreatment. Employees, former and current, have been coming forward all afternoon with stories of ignorance and neglect, of cut corners and missed paychecks, of horrific working conditions and lost limbs.

He marks his spot and closes the document for later, fully enjoying the brief media blurbs of the company attempting to do damage control. The other barista leans against the counter with his phone in his hands, muttering in irritation about the evils of corporations that are in it just for the cash grab.

The law student takes a seat at the counter for an afternoon cup of coffee, and suddenly it’s the only thing anyone coming in wants to talk about.

Hitoshi leans back in his booth, wondering at the idea that the consultant writing these reports has sent at least one of their documents from this cafe.

Did they sit at one of these tables to work on them?

Maybe they enjoyed a cup of coffee and a snack as they dug up damning evidence on this case in particular?

He grins a little at the thought and taps the edge of his mug. The fluffy cat basking in a patch of afternoon sunlight by the cafe window flicks its tail and rolls over to stretch its limbs.

It’s a good place to be if you’re wanting to inspire change.

“I like it here,” he says to himself with a little nod.

A pair of movers show up early on Saturday morning. He is mildly impressed that his boss has moved so quickly, although he suspects it’s because his boss is very happy about this new turn of events.

One of the movers has a basic anti-gravity quirk, and they use it to float several new pieces of furniture up six flights of stairs.

They’re pushing the couch into its new spot when Midori appears in his open door, peeking in with open curiosity. “You’re getting furniture?” He asks with wide eyes. “I thought you were just like, ultra-minimalist.”

Hitoshi pauses and stares at him with mounting pleasure. Ah, shit, I really missed that face.

He waves him inside the apartment with a little grin. “I’m glad to see you’re all right,” he says. “Was kind of worried you might be dying next door without the sense to ask for an ambulance.”

Midori grimaces and glances away with a guilty wince. “Didn’t think you’d care that much.”

“I care,” he insists, folding his arms across his chest. “I’m really sorry if I did things out of order or made you feel uncomfortable,” he says, frowning down at Midori as he looks up at him with a wide-eyed expression. He has trouble holding back a grin of amusement at the pink flush already traveling over his friend’s cheeks.

“You- uh. You were fine. Are fine-“ he snaps his mouth shut and looks mortified for a moment, then continues on, “Are um, okay, I mean.” He glances to the side again. “Things were a little rough for me, personally, for a few days there.”

“Because of something I did,” Hitoshi says, edging sideways to try and catch Midori’s gaze again.

“Kinda. But not really,” he mumbles. “I just got a bit overwhelmed with how, er-“ He turns bright green eyes up at Hitoshi and looks at him searchingly for a moment, his cheeks flaming crimson. “Um. You’re really too good to be true, sometimes, you know?”

Hitoshi feels his mouth fall open. “I do not know,” is all he can think to reply.

He folds his arms across his chest and ducks into himself, rubbing his hand across the back of his neck. “The other morning I panicked. I worried myself sick and needed some space to think, and my mom is just amazing.”

“I’m really not sure if you’re complimenting me,” he hedges. Worried himself sick over what, exactly? Too good to be true? Does that mean he thinks Hitoshi is fooling him into believing that he’s something he’s not?

(Technically, that’s absolutely the truth.)

(Hitoshi doesn’t feel like a total asshole.)

(Nope.)

Midori shrugs. “You seem like a pretty good guy, and I like being friends with you.”

The smile tugging at his lips feels about as warm as his heart. “I’m glad.”

Midori wrings his fingers together in front of him and glances away, utterly embarrassed again. It’s endearingly cute, and Hitoshi wonders how this guy is still single. “I-uh,” he says, “I might need time, sometimes, away from people. And I’m used to being able to disappear for a few days without someone worrying about why I’m not replying.”

Hitoshi tilts his head in Midori’s direction with a little grin. “Having friends means you’re going to have people worrying about you even when you’d rather they didn’t.”

Midori hums, a little frown pulling at his lips.

Hitoshi nudges him with an elbow. “So, about that raincheck,” he arches an eyebrow.

Midori cracks a grin, finally, and nods once with enthusiasm. “Tonight. Seven. Are you bringing the treats?”

“Just answer your door when I knock this time.”

Midori laughs.

Chapter Text

As the Midoriya exuberance about the media storm finally dies down, his mom turns to him with a half-grin. “So, how’s the friend situation?”

Izuku’s good mood falls. “I may have been a little inconsiderate this week. I hope he’s not mad at me for ignoring him so much.”

She hums and tweaks a lock of hair over his ear. He pulls his blanket up to his nose and grumbles into the soft fabric, “It seems like he likes me, but I still don’t know if I can trust him.”

She tucks him under her arm and squeezes him to her side. “Those sorts of things take time, dear. Maybe you can try talking through your concerns, and set some boundaries for your friendship.”

Talking through his concerns might not be something he can do, exactly. At least, not any time soon.

But he can at least consider this strange new friendship rationally.

* If Murasaki wanted him dead, there have been more than a few opportunities for him to succeed without any witnesses.

* He never asks about Izuku’s work, aside from one instance of general curiosity.

* If he was hired to distract him from his projects (?) then he’s doing a really good job. The question then becomes: would Izuku care if he’s had a distraction sent his way?

Despite the dim light in the living room, Izuku feels compelled to hide his sudden blush behind the blanket. He wouldn’t really mind Murasaki distracting him from his work (because he’s a fine distraction), but he would mind to discover that someone he’d thought as a friend is only sticking around because they’re being paid.

He breathes out a long sigh and wills his cheeks to cool off as his mom slips away to refill their mugs of hot cocoa.

Izuku thinks he can try trusting the guy a little more, especially now that his big job has been completed. He’s still a little worried and a little suspicious, but he has to try to get over his concerns. If he keeps freaking out over every little thing, he might never be able to keep any friends.

(Maybe he should just adopt a cat and forget about people.)

(Cats can’t replace how hot Murasaki is.)

(Damnit.)

Saturday rolls in, bright and fresh with the excitement of maybe something new.

Izuku follows a pair of movers in through the lobby that morning, wondering who might be moving in while feeling a little anxious to be back in the building.

(It’s fine.)

He watches with mild curiosity as they angle and squeeze their half-floating burden through the stairwell door and disappear from sight.

Movement from the corner of his eye catches his attention, and he realizes the barista is waving excitedly from the café. (Had she actually noticed his absence?) He gives her a wobbly smile and a small wave before he heads into the elevator.

He deposits his bag in his apartment before curiosity pulls him next door, and he’s very surprised to see the blackout curtains pulled back to fill the apartment with bright morning sunlight.

His heart skips a beat when he spots his neighbor slouched against the far wall, observing the placement of his new furniture. (If this were a movie, Izuku thinks he’d run toward him full tilt, crash directly into the guy’s open arms, and pull him down to his level for a messy, frantic kiss.)

Izuku sighs.

This is not a movie.

And he’s feeling extremely embarrassed for being such a neglectful asshole via text messages.

He tries for polite conversation, instead.

Throws in a few awkward apologies.

And his neighbor makes him fall just a little bit harder with soft looks and understanding smiles.

(All that muscle, and he’s such a sweetheart.)

(Or faking it so hard.)

(No. Nope. Full Stop.)

(It’s fine. It’s still fine.)

He’s going to go out on a limb and trust Murasaki not to murder him in an alley while feeding cute stray cats. He’ll just… send a text to his mom, first, telling her that he loves her.

It’ll be fine.

They part ways well before lunch, and Izuku escapes into the quiet confines of his apartment behind locked doors and windows. He pulls out his laptop to poke at his new pet-project of probably-not-Murasaki villain-tracking. His inbox has a new message that’s flagged both important and time sensitive, and he clicks into it immediately.

One of his contacts has found someone that’s heard a rumor about the guy who can get anything he wants by looking at you.

He rolls his eyes. Flimsy.

He continues reading.

The rumor actually checks out. He holds his breath, skimming once to catch the highlights, then reading more closely to soak in the more specific details that are mentioned.

Within the last year, the villain has been seen living in a little beachside town. His hair at last sighting was a “floaty” ash blonde, but Izuku knows hair color takes little effort to shift. He wonders about any other defining characteristics. The contact intends to follow up and try to get a confirmed sighting by Monday.

Izuku chuckles in delight and begins preparing a report.

He is completely okay owing this contact a freebie consultation in exchange for the information he wants, and he has a good feeling this lead is going to pan out nicely.

At seven sharp, Murasaki raps twice on Izuku’s door. He absolutely has not been standing on the other side, bouncing nervously on his toes while watching the time tick forward on his phone.

Izuku takes three long breaths before he opens the door. (He doesn’t want to seem too eager.)

He’s glad to see Murasaki dressed casual, like he’s still intending to go on a walk through city alleys. A pale grey, loose fitting long-sleeved tee is topped off with his weird dark-grey summer scarf draped over his shoulders. And then Izuku realizes he’s wearing jeans again. He swallows nervously, wondering how much trouble he’s going to get himself into walking alongside or behind this man.

Murasaki watches him take in his outfit with a placid expression, then reaches up to Izuku’s hair to tuck a loose strand behind his ear.

I’m going to die of the warm fuzzy feelings, tonight, Izuku laments furtively.

“You look like you’re ready to see some fluff.” He holds up a little bag. “I have treats, and a few more treats, and a bit of magic that we might find a use for later.”

Izuku quirks his lips in amused confusion as he follows Murasaki to the elevator. “So, where are we going?”

“We’ll walk between here and that little flower shop to the north, then back again down a parallel street,” he replies as the elevator doors close them into the tiny metal box.

Izuku stares at Murasaki’s reflection, and he stares right back. He bites his lip, then dares to tilt his head and peek up at the taller male standing beside him. Murasaki grins and tucks his hands into his pockets, nudging him with an elbow as the elevator arrives on the first floor.

Izuku is immediately interested in how tense the elevator ride back up will be, and if maybe this time he can expect a goodnight kiss. He blushes and ducks his head as Murasaki holds open the lobby door.

They take an easy pace down the street. The night is overcast with thick, low-hanging clouds, and there’s a cool breeze drifting along through the streets. The city lights reflect between the damp streets and cloud cover above, leaving the night air almost glowing with pale golden-pink light. Even the normally dark and oppressive alleys seem a little less intimidating with this much ambient illumination.

Murasaki crouches at the entrance of an alley between two shops and waves Izuku over to do the same a few feet away. He glances over to make sure he’s watching, then presses a fingertip to his lips to indicate silence.

And then he peers into the shadows of the alley and makes a weird noise with his mouth. Izuku has to mash his lips together to hold back a laugh.

They both sit still and silent for a moment, then a tiny mew sounds from just beyond a trash bin. Murasaki makes the noise again, and a little grey fluff trundles out of a torn cardboard box. It approaches with caution and peers up at them with glowing golden eyes. It’s barely the size of his hand, and skinny with matted fur, but Izuku has to press a fist to his mouth to suppress the sound of delight threatening to break loose at the sight of it.

Murasaki slips his hand into the bag of supplies and withdraws a little pile of fishy-smelling treats and stretches out his arm to drop them a safe distance away.

“Sometimes,” Murasaki murmurs, “it’s better to feed these little guys without teaching them that humans are safe.”

Izuku frowns and looks over at him with furrowed brows.

Murasaki catches the look and elaborates. “I don’t know this area very well, yet, and to teach a young cat that all humans are safe could put one at risk for abuse.”

Izuku’s lip wobbles dangerously as he struggles to get a grip on his emotions. “That’s really sweet,” he whispers back, thankful that they’re being quiet, because he’s not sure he’s able to speak normally at that very moment.

They watch the little cat snack on its treat for a minute, then it sits in the middle of the alley to clean its whiskers and face with its paw.

Izuku is melting with adoration. “I haven’t even met your cats, yet,” he complains as Murasaki leads him further down the street. They cross an intersection and peek into the next alley.

“Mmhm,” is all he gets in reply. Murasaki makes the weird noise again, and two bigger cats slink out of opposite ends of the alley to peer at the humans. Their eyes are like little green jewels flickering in the shadows. “These two are pretty cautious, and I haven’t gotten them to come out much farther than that.” He hands Izuku a few snacks roughly the length of his thumb and motions in the cats’ direction. “Toss them over there and we’ll see if they’re interested.”

Izuku tosses and they watch. One cat braves the danger to creep forward cautiously, snapping up the edge of the treat to escape into the shadows with its prize.

The other cat merely stares at them, the tip of its tail flicking with disappointment.

Murasaki breathes out an amused sigh and turns to Izuku. “That one probably won’t move until we’re out of sight.” He peers back at the cat with a half-grin. “I’ll get them to trust a little easier, eventually.”

“The cat-whisperer,” Izuku teases.

Murasaki scoffs. “One of my old teachers could convince the meanest of cats to come take a nap on him anywhere, anytime.”

Izuku smirks. “Maybe he’s a mean old cat, too, and they recognize one of their own.”

Murasaki stops and stares at Izuku for a few seconds, then glances around cautiously before he chuckles quietly. “You might be on to something, there.”

“Are you worried someone might-“ Izuku starts to ask, but Murasaki whips a hand up to stop him from saying more.

Izuku’s immediately on guard for something bad to happen, but Murasaki winks and gestures they should continue on.

At the next block, his friend spots an empty can at the edge of the road and plucks it from the ground to toss it overhanded into a nearby trash bin.

(Izuku refrains from pulling out his phone to add a gold star to his neighbor’s performance report. Because he absolutely hasn’t started one of those. At least, where anyone else could read it.)

(He’s hopeless.)

They continue on like this with the snacks for about an hour, and Izuku gets to coo over six more cats (and one even lets him pet). He can see the flower shop on the next block, and he’s a little sad that they’re already halfway done with their night, but it’s been such a nice way to spend time with his friend.

As they pass the flower shop, Murasaki reaches toward a sign that’s hanging a bit crookedly to straighten the display. When he withdraws his hands, he has a single white flower tied with a pale purple ribbon the same shade as his hair.

He holds it out to Izuku for his inspection, and he can’t help but stare down at the fragrant blossom in shock. No one has ever given him-

Murasaki takes his limp fingers and presses the bloom into his hand, curling his digits around the stem. “Unless you don’t like it. Or are allergic,” he peers into his face expectantly.

“No, I like it just fine,” he whispers. Be still my heart.

There is no way this isn’t a date.

There is no way I’m going to let this guy walk me to my door without a goodnight kiss.

Maybe I should kiss him now, before something happens.

He peeks up at Murasaki, biting his lip with indecision. Before he can make up his mind, his friend hooks an arm around Izuku’s elbow and tugs him down the next street to find more cats to spoil.

There are a few people also out walking the streets in pairs and trios, and a small group of young adults burst out of a nearby bar with a chorus of laughter.

Izuku steps a little closer to his friend until the group passes by.

“I’m guessing you aren’t a fan of crowds,” he says, idly transferring the little bag of cat snacks to his far hand.

Izuku shrugs.

“Maybe it’s the drinking, then,” he suggests.

Izuku flicks a glance in his direction. “People can get a little mean when their inhibitions are lowered.”

His friend gives him a long look as they walk down the sidewalk. “You don’t look old enough to drink.”

Izuku rolls his eyes. “I am. I just don’t."

Murasaki’s free hand slides around Izuku’s and grips his fingers in a warm hold. “People aren’t only mean when their inhibitions are lowered. Sometimes they can be very sad, ridiculously loud, or a bit more… friendly.”

Izuku feels his cheeks burn and doesn’t look up at him. He’s not sure what he’s suggesting exactly, but he’s hoping he finds out soon. The line of conversation is temporarily dropped at the next alley as a trio of small cats immediately swarm their ankles. They clearly recognize the human that’s fed them before.

“We should do this now, before it gets too late,” Murasaki says with a wicked smirk, tugging Izuku closer.

He gulps and stares up at his friend, admiring the shine of his pale eyes in the dim evening light. He squeezes their linked fingers once, stroking a thumb over the back of Izuku’s hand.

He shivers, inching closer to the warmth standing in front of him.

The bag at their side rustles, and Murasaki…

…holds up a can of tuna.

And a can opener.

What.

“Please try to survive the cuteness overload. While I’m sure I can carry you around without much difficulty, we’re pretty far from home.”

Izuku kind of likes the thought of Murasaki carrying him home, but he nods seriously, wondering what kind of cuteness he’s about to witness.

The three cats that are already complaining at his delay watch as he cracks open the can, and Izuku is startled by a half-dozen pint-sized balls of fluff that come bounding out of wherever they are hiding.

Kittens.

So many kittens, mewling and tumbling over one another in their haste to reach the proffered goods.

Izuku drops to his knees in the damp alley and strokes furry backs and fuzzy ears, getting nudged by wet kitten noses and nipped by tiny kitten teeth.

They climb Murasaki’s back to nestle and play in his scarf, and Izuku laughs brightly when he sees one fall down the front of his shirt.

He wants to bring them all home with him.

Murasaki catches his look of longing. “Alley cats take care of the rats,” he says. “You shouldn’t try to save the ones that are doing all right. Save space for the ones that need help.”

They play with the cats for a little while longer, and Izuku doesn’t really want to go home yet, but Murasaki takes his hand in another warm grip and pulls him to his feet with a soft smile.

And then Izuku remembers that he’s on a date with a very cute guy and might be walking home toward a goodnight kiss.

He kind of wants that kiss right now.

Murasaki smiles knowingly and tugs him down the street by his hand.

They make it another block before Murasaki’s phone screeches in his pocket, and they both flinch in surprise.

“Shit,” he mutters, fishing the device out of his jeans with a scowl.

Izuku’s heart sinks with sudden disappointment as he peers down at an unfamiliar lock screen.

There’s a red banner flashing small text across the top, like a dozen warning alerts firing in rapid succession. He tucks the phone back into his pocket and flicks a worried gaze over at Izuku. “I’ve gotta go,” he says, leaning in close to peck him quickly on the cheek.

No, Izuku’s brain rebels, a protest forming on his lips but no sound coming out. This is not-

He reaches out for Murasaki to reel him in for an actual kiss, but he’s already sprinting back down the street. “I’ll text you!” He shouts over his shoulder with a half-wave.

Izuku puffs out a long sigh, running his fingers over where Murasaki had kissed his cheek. His face tingles pleasantly, but he’s feeling quite abandoned in the middle of the darkened street. What the hell kind of emergency could he have to just run off like that?

Also, this is not the first time he’s seen Murasaki run away from him like a bat out of hell. He scowls and trudges back toward home, one hand stuffed in a pocket and the flower dangling from his fingers. He wonders if Murasaki will have more injuries in the morning.

He wonders if he’ll ever get that kiss.

(Next time.)

(It’s fine.)

Chapter Text

Shinsou wants to murder the sidekick with a burning passion. Straight out strangle the idiot and throw them over the edge of the closest rooftop. But luckily for the both of them, there are bigger problems to tackle, first, and maybe afterwards they’ll revisit the option.

The oddly peaceful patrols for the whole last week was bound to eventually end, and the sidekick can’t quite handle the trio of criminals that decide to bring out their quirks when they see one hero all by themselves.

The sidekick’s call for backup had unbelievably (un)lucky timing. Shinsou is closest, only three blocks away. And isn’t that insane, he thinks as he skids into an alley out of sight of any onlookers and scales the side of a building. Three blocks away from where he and Midori have been spoiling alley cats.

A single tiny tweak in someone else's plans could have had both of them smack-dab in the middle of a knock-down drag-out fight in the city streets, with his capture weapon on full display and quirked heroics no longer something he could hide.

He got lucky this time.

Unlucky, the back of his mind corrects.

Until he can reveal his identity and what’s been going on with his side-mission, anything else with Midori has to be taken slow and careful. It feels like too much of a lie to sink into something more serious when they don’t even use their names.

Names first.

Kissing after.

Without his voice modulating mask, it’s a little more difficult to do impressions of the criminals’ voices, but one of them is easy enough to fake, and in the sudden confusion of a random civilian (him, still in jeans and his comfy shirt) showing up out of nowhere, he manages to snag two of the idiots, leaving the third for the sidekick to knock out and restrain.

“Thanks,” they wheeze, bent over and coughing.

“Try requesting backup before you get in over your head, next time,” he mutters, and the sidekick lifts a shaky thumbs-up.

(Maybe he’ll postpone sidekick-murder for another day.)

Shinsou is not happy to spend the next two hours filling out paperwork alongside the sidekick, but it’s a somewhat bonding experience of them apologizing profusely while Shinsou ignores everything entirely.

He does wave over his shoulder once he finally gets a chance to escape.

He doesn’t even flip the bird.

Progress.

He comes home via rooftops and drops quietly onto his balcony. A peek into the neighboring window reveals all the lights out and Midori fast asleep on his couch with his laptop half-closed on the small table at his side.

Strange. Midori is usually up later to keep his night shift schedule on track.

He wonders, briefly, if Midori would appreciate being woken with a knock on the window. To make him go to bed in his actual bed, nothing more.

Probably.

He sighs.

(Names first.)

He slips into his apartment and greets his cats. They both know exactly what he’s been doing and are not pleased. He is forced to air out his capture weapon on the balcony, then put his clothes in the wash and shower before they’ll grace him with their presence.

At least they don’t bite him. For now.

He stares at his phone for a while, wondering if he should text Midori despite knowing he’s asleep. Would it wake him? Would he want to be woken? He said he’d had a rough week. Maybe he needs to worry more about getting sufficient sleep. He puts his phone away and tries to follow the same advice.

(It doesn’t work very well.)

Sunday morning is clear and bright, with a thin layer of damp coating everything from the rain that must have crept through after he’d finally dozed off. He texts Midori before rolling out of bed.

> i’ll be coming down to the cafe sometime today if you want to hang out

Sure! <

Midori’s response comes so fast, he wonders if he had the text box open and ready for him to start the conversation.

He is responsible (this time) and does his laundry before leaving the apartment, bringing his laptop down to the café fully prepared for another day of going cross-eyed reading through the consultant’s newest report.

He waves at the barista, who looks prime to burst with excitement as she points to the booth where he can see Midori’s already set up with his own laptop. There are at least three windows tiled on the screen, with text so small he has to squint to be able to see anything.

“You need more monitors for whatever it is you’re doing,” he comments idly, watching as Midori jumps in surprise as he slides into the seat across the table.

Hitoshi curls his fist beneath a chin and watches Midori collect himself after the sudden start. “I get the feeling you normally sit on this side of the booth,” he says with a little gesture at his own seat.

Midori hums and swipes the touch interface on his screen. “It seems like it’s your spot, now.”

He doesn’t bother holding back his smile at the thought of them having spots. He opens his own laptop on the other side of the table, the tops of their screens touching in the middle of the narrow space.

The barista brings over a new and suspiciously sweet looking concoction, mounded with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. He arches an eyebrow up at her in silent question, and she grins with unbridled glee.

“Glad to see you both in, today!” she says with a wink before Midori has a chance to look up.

“Oh, uhm, yes. Hi,” he greets with an awkward smile.

“Lemme know when you guys want refills!” she says without missing a beat, heading back to the counter.

Hitoshi watches Midori turn pink as he hovers over his coffee with a look of consternation. “She seems friendly, but I don’t get the impression she’s your type,” he nonchalantly murmurs.

Midori winces guiltily. “I ehm,” he stalls, rubbing the back of his neck. “She’s friendly enough, but that’s not the problem. I can’t remember what her name is. And I’ve been coming here for years.”

Hitoshi chuckles lowly. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”

“Hey,” he grumbles petulantly in response.

“I bet you don’t even remember my name,” Hitoshi says, dramatically waving his hand.

“Because you haven’t told me anything other than your nickname?” Midori presses.

Hitoshi thinks about his reply for a moment. He could give him an actual name (and then they could kiss). All would be perfect. But then he notices the documents open on his screen and is reminded of the side mission. He can’t break his cover now just because he wants to be able to kiss his neighbor without feeling guilty about it.

A better way to respond drifts across his mind. “Maybe I’ll give it to you when you’ve earned it,” he says with a hooded gaze. He wonders how long it’ll-

Midori chokes on air and instantly turns red. “You-you,” he stammers.

“Me,” he replies with an innocent blink, a fingertip touched to his sternum.

“You can’t just- just say things like that,” he whines, although it’s not exactly a look of mortification he sees on the shorter male’s face.

He hums and dips a fingertip into the whipped cream of his drink, then meets Midori’s eyes and licks it off while they’re staring at each other.

Midori rips his attention away from Hitoshi’s completely flirtatious behavior and ducks behind his laptop screen to hide his expression.

Hitoshi chuckles to himself. “Sorry if I have embarrassed you,” he says, absolutely not sorry at all. He’d walked into that complaint about unknown names on his own and should have been more cautious about their path of conversation.

Midori sighs and peeks at him with one bright green eye. His cheeks are still scarlet. “It’s fine,” he mutters. His face eventually returns to its normal shade and the two of them work silently on their respective projects.

Hitoshi’s still skimming the safety violations when Midori says, “What do you do on your laptop all day? Read romance novels?”

Hitoshi laughs a little, knowing that yes, he does spend some of his time doing exactly that. He forcibly pushes back his amusement and assumes a perfectly straight face for his reply. “I’m a Russian spy plotting corporate espionage at a local pharmaceutical branch.”

Midori processes his response for a moment with a thoughtful tilt to his head, then his lips curl into a wicked grin. Hitoshi is taken aback when he leans forward with an arched eyebrow before murmuring a question (possibly) in Russian that Hitoshi has no hope of translating. The slight growl in his voice and the lilt of a practiced accent gives Hitoshi plenty of reason to fall still and stare with slack-jawed surprise.

Holy shit. Hot.

Midori reaches out with a single finger and pushes up on Hitoshi’s chin with a satisfied smirk.

“I’m…” He trails off, unsure what to say, realizing he sounds a little breathless. He swallows heavily, hearing the click of his throat in the sudden swell of silence. Has his heart stopped beating?

Also, his friend speaks Russian?

But his passport says he’s from France??

How much does this guy know???

He’s been worried that his friend might be the mystery writer his agency is looking for, as the names and log entries are matched and marked off one-by-one, and Midori's device has yet to make the cut.

He’s been worried that the tiny insights he’s been picking up on are the signs of someone with a lot of time on his hands and knows a heck of a lot more than he lets on.

He can’t quite believe this guy could possibly be working for the wrong sorts of people, but he’s complained about his “shitty job”, and mentioned once or twice that it might not be a problem for much longer. Does that mean he could have his sights on something bigger and more financially viable?

“I asked where’s the bathroom.”

Midori’s voice interrupts his thoughts, and he blinks at the cute face of the guy he’s thinking of dating while also contemplating how he fits into the investigation. His face is once again a brilliant crimson as he clears his throat. “It’s some of the only Russian I can remember from school,” he explains.

Hitoshi glances away and absently thumps a fist against his chest, hoping his heart is still in working order.

Okay, actually-a-criminal-mastermind crisis averted once again, he thinks. This guy throws him for so many loops he can barely keep his head on straight.

He casts a quick peek in Midori’s direction.

Not that it was straight to begin with.

“I’m guessing that means your spy story is a little fake,” Midori snickers.

Hitoshi shrugs, tugging at his collar in mild exasperation. This guy. “Maybe I do spend all day reading romance novels and don’t want to admit it out loud.”

Midori laughs and turns a little pink as he runs a hand through his hair. “Hey, um,” He says quietly, leaning forward again. “That flower…” He trails off, seeming uncertain.

Hitoshi’s not sure what he wants to know, so he blindly replies the first thing he can think of. “The florist picked it out. I know nothing of them. I would have done a whole bouquet, but that’s a pile of flowers that you’d have to lug around like some delivery person.” He frowns a little. “I hope it was alright.”

“N-no! I mean, yes! It was fine. It’s cute,” he says, a little blush traveling over his cheeks. “So,” he bites his lip and looks hopelessly adorable as he peers up at him. “When do you want to go on another date?”

Hitoshi breathes out a little sigh of relief. Message received and accepted. “Next weekend,” he says with a little smirk.

“Is your phone going to demand more of your attention?”

His mood plummets at the sour memory. “Fuck, I hope not,” he grumbles irritably.

The barista helpfully supplies him with a fresh mug of something topped with more whipped cream, so he scoops up a dollop of the white fluff on two fingers and reaches across the table to smear it across Midori’s nose.

Midori gasps in feigned outrage, and Hitoshi feels his spirits lifting once again. He laughs.

Then he watches as Midori scowls and wipes at his face with a napkin, feeling regret that he didn't swipe the whipped cream across his lips, instead. Cleanup could have been a bit more interesting.

(Next time.)

Chapter Text

Izuku is thoroughly kicking himself Sunday night for being so idiotic in the café. If his neighbor is actually into some shady dealings, him knowing he isn’t just bilingual and can speak more languages could be dangerous. Why not just hand him a resume with all the other things he’s capable of, too, while he’s at it?

Should we take this chat someplace more private? is not what one says to a possible criminal ten seconds after he’s admitted to planning misdeeds.

(Even if it had turned out to be a ridiculous lie.)

(And he couldn’t understand him, anyways, thank god.)

(It’s fine.)

He needs to be more careful. Flirting with his hot neighbor is (probably) fine as long as he remains a mostly normal citizen. Nothing to see here except an idiot that will apparently make very bad choices in his quest to get a damned kiss.

(He does not spend the next hour contemplating how much he might be able to impress his very hot neighbor with his wide variety of obscure skills.)

(Or which language might be the biggest turn-on.)

(There has probably been a study. Izuku adds that to his list of things he’ll want to find later this week.)

Monday morning, he decides it might be safer to lounge on his couch for research, mostly because he’s antsy for the contact to send their update and he wants to be able to focus on the information he’s found. He texts Murasaki something cute about cats so he doesn’t worry about his absence and buries himself in old news articles and police records. There is very little, but he doesn’t need much to build a profile.

Every once in a while, his thoughts drift to Murasaki and his enchanting eyes. A shiver runs down his back when he thinks about how helpless someone would feel to just look at someone and lose their free will.

He wonders at the level of trust he’s built that lets him forget about the possible danger, to just blindly believe Murasaki isn’t going to abuse his quirk.

He wouldn’t normally assume someone would abuse a tool they have just because they can, but the villain (that is probably not Murasaki) has done it in the past and likely has no qualms about using the quirk whenever it suits.

And he’s spent so much time staring into those eyes.

Is it a quirk, or is he just obsessed?

(He’s not sure which is better.)

It’s very late Monday night when Izuku finally receives the follow-up from his contact.

The contact estimates that the villain’s home has been empty for at least a month. There’s a fine layer of dust along the interior that hasn’t been disturbed. An opened letter has been left on a desk, and the contact reports it’s from a former partner talking about a lucrative opportunity back home.

Back home?

In the villain’s home country?

Home city?

There’s even an address where they should meet to discuss in person.

Izuku’s mouth falls open at the disturbingly obvious clue. How the hell has this guy evaded capture for years and then just leaves a clear trail like this?

He sees trap written all over it.

He’s vaguely suspicious of the wording his contact has used. Some of the phrasing seems a little stilted and unnatural, like it’s been prepared by a different hand, or his contact has been told what details to pass along.

The strangest part of it all: The address is a location less than an hour away by train.

His contact knows nothing about where Izuku is living. Is this just a highly unusual (and unsettling) coincidence? His eyes slide from his laptop screen to peer at the wall separating his apartment from Murasaki’s.

Is this villain-hunt actually coming back around to prove that he was wrong (or horribly right) about his friend the whole time?

Murasaki can’t have lived there long if he’s only just now bothering to bring in furniture.

He wonders if the obvious clue means the villain he’s tracking has really been in the area for the last month, or if that detail is part of some ruse meant to misdirect, and he’s still wrong about everything that matters.

He swallows nervously, turning his attention back to his laptop. One way or another, he’s going to find out.

He’s not equipped nor properly trained to do any kind of in-person investigating or reconnaissance, but he’d gotten such an emphatic plea from that investigator for any leads on cases that might need some legwork. This thing that Izuku has stumbled upon is both interesting and off the wall.

He might just take him up on that offer.

He narrows his eyes and begins amending his report.

If they plan this right, they can set a trap and manage an arrest. It’ll require some precautions and a team of people that know what they’re about to get into, but he’s confident they can counteract a sight-based quirk.

(He bites his lip and pushes back the guilt as he writes, wondering if one day soon his neighbor won’t be there anymore because he had misplaced his trust.)

In light of the new details, Izuku leaves his laptop in his apartment on Tuesday. There are a few questions he’s hoping to slip into conversation with Murasaki, if he shows up that day, that might ease the burden weighing on his heart.

(He’s not a bad guy, he can’t be, please.)

Just a few hours, he promises himself. A short break from his nonstop compiling and planning will help his brain reset. He worries if he spends too much time staying buried in the paperwork and clues, he’ll forget something important.

Murasaki is already sitting in the booth when he arrives. He bites his lip against the sudden thrill vibrating across his skin as he approaches with a widening smile and slides into the other side of the booth.

“Hello,” he greets, meeting those perfectly amazing violet eyes.

He’s forgotten to say hello to the barista or request anything to eat or drink, but those little details don’t seem to matter too much as he props his chin on his hand and blatantly stares.

Is the electricity between them because he’s been ensnared by a quirk? He feels like he’s willing to do just about anything Murasaki tells him. (because he doesn’t ask.) He sighs like an idiot, realizing he’s being a little creepy, but Murasaki doesn’t seem to mind, staring right back with slow, peaceful blinks.

“You look like you have something on your mind,” he says, glancing away to focus back on his work. (whatever it is he does that may or may not be spying on a local company.)

Izuku shrugs. You. You are on my mind.

He doesn’t say that, though. There are too many coincidences worrying him to feel very flirty right now.

The barista swings by and asks if he wants anything. He does, but he doesn’t. “Surprise me,” he murmurs with a small smile.

(He should be concerned about the sudden glee that fills her eyes, but he’s too busy worrying over his neighbor.)

“You mentioned you had a bit of a rough time last week,” he prompts. “I hope you’re not still suffering from some of that, now. You look kind of down.”

“It was my job. I finally got fired for speaking my mind,” he says. It’s hard not to break into a total grin at the memory of everything. It would be very weird to be happy about getting fired.

“That sucks,” he commiserates, closing the lid on his laptop to focus fully on Izuku.

Another point in his favor. I am so ruined for anyone else after this guy. Or is this how normal friends behave with each other, and my expectations are just ridiculously low?

“I’ll listen, if you want to talk about it.”

“I’m not too upset, now. I’ve been working on getting away from a nocturnal schedule. It’s a little tough to get to sleep and wake at a decent time.”

His neighbor nods thoughtfully. “If you haven’t deduced yet from the obvious markers,” he gestures to his eyes and the perpetual dark marks, “I don’t sleep well, at all. Day or night.”

Izuku is very convinced that could be changed with the right circumstances. Someone to curl up with and make him feel safe.

(Or being exceptionally worn out.)

(He tries not to consider how he’d like to wear out Murasaki to test that theory.)

He forcibly brings his brain back on track and scrambles for a topic that will steer away from late night activities. “I might have a new job offer,” he blurts.

And then winces internally. He hadn’t meant to bring up anything regarding his consulting.

“That’s great news,” he says, then sees Izuku not cheering about a new source of income and tilts his head with curiosity. “That doesn’t seem like great news, for you.”

Izuku shakes his head once, not sure where to even begin relaying his problem about the jewel thieves. The barista drops off a mug of something frothy and green alongside a small cake covered in chocolate shavings.

“It’s actually two job offers,” Izuku murmurs. Murasaki’s eyebrows lift with interest. “But they’re from competing companies.” Close enough.

His friend taps his fingers along the edge of his mug. “Assuming both jobs are of interest, I’m not sure where the trouble could be,” he says.

“One offer is for a lot more money than I’d normally expect,” Izuku explains.

“I still don’t follow.”

Izuku tugs at his lip, clenching his teeth against the muttering he can feel creeping up on him. There’s so much he thinks about this whole damned thing, and so much he absolutely cannot talk about.

He sighs. “One side pays less but is generally the safer option. Guaranteed paycheck.”

Murasaki nods, and Izuku continues. “The other side pays a lot more but is a risky choice. If something doesn’t go just right, I could miss out on a paycheck entirely.”

“Big risk, big reward,” he simplifies, leaning back in his seat. “I suppose the real question now is…”

Izuku sits up straight, suddenly on edge to be faced with a question from his mysterious crush.

He pauses and considers his next words carefully. “The question is what the job would have you do.”

Izuku deflates with disappointment. How the heck does he engage in this much idle conversation without letting a single question slip?

“Hopefully it’s nothing illegal,” he says with a little arch in one eyebrow.

Izuku chuckles nervously, thinking back to the two job postings. “I don’t think either of them include anything illegal, but sometimes I can’t be sure what the end result of anyone’s actions are used for, you know?” He waves in the direction of the counter. “The baristas here are just making coffees and handing out snacks, but the owner could be spying on everything we say to blackmail choice targets, or using the money that comes through the register to fund something nefarious that we’d know nothing about.”

For a moment, Murasaki seems mildly alarmed.

“N-not that they’re doing anything like that!” he says, frantically waving his hands. “I think,” he tacks on as an afterthought.

“So, I’m understanding that either job seems legit, and you’re just not sure if you’re willing to take the risk to get the bigger payout.”

“I don’t really need a bigger paycheck,” he admits, swirling his oddly delicious green drink in the mug, “but the risky job does sound more challenging.”

“You seem like the type to enjoy that sort of thing,” he says, leaning forward across the table.

Suddenly, Izuku isn’t sure if they’re still talking about the job. “Enjoy what sort of thing?” he asks, because he has to know what dangerous path he’s being led down this time.

“Having to work for what you want,” he replies, his lips curling into a little smirk.

Izuku is still not sure if they’re talking about jobs. “Seems like I’m working harder than usual for all the little stuff.”

“Maybe it’s less exciting if you can just reach out and take it.”

“I can think of a few things that would be plenty exciting if they were just handed to me on a silver platter,” he shoots back, frowning in mild irritation. Like you, Izuku thinks to himself.

“You say that now, but I wonder if it would be as…” He bites his lip before continuing in a lower voice, “rewarding.”

For a long moment, Izuku seriously considers how much trouble he’d be in if he just reaches across the table and grabs this man by the collar to yank him in for a kiss that he so desperately wants. Would the table be able to hold their weight combined?

He pauses.

Swallows.

Clenches his fists beneath the table.

It’s fine. He’ll wait a little longer. They have another date this weekend, and he’s fully anticipating cornering this delightful bastard in the elevator on their way to wherever they’ll be going and kissing the daylights out of him.

(That is, if he’s not arrested and in jail by then.)

(He hopes he’s wrong. Right. Whichever.)

He didn’t come to the café to flirt.

He came to gather information. So he steels himself to stop fantasizing about how easily those muscular arms would be able to-

(Stop. Nope.)

“So,” he says, clearing his throat and doing his best to not stare into those riveting eyes, “I’m thinking maybe the risky job might be worth it, then. For the challenge alone. Maybe I could take the bigger paycheck and go on vacation somewhere.”

Murasaki chuckles lowly and takes a long drink of his coffee. ”Mm, a vacation would be nice.”

“I don’t remember the last time I went on a vacation, and really have no idea where I would go, but it would be nice to get away from here for a while.”

His neighbor nods with a little smile. “I can think of a few places I’d go, if I went on vacation.”

“Like what?” he asks, trying not to seem too eager, but the idea of vacation is a little exciting, even if he’s using it to pluck information from his friend. “Someplace cold? Or… No, you’re always wearing that scarf. Maybe somewhere warm.”

Murasaki laughs, but Izuku isn’t sure what's amusing. “Yeah, warm sounds nice. It feels like I’ve been here for forever. Maybe a visit to someplace tropical, with those little drinks that come with tiny umbrellas.”

Izuku pounces on the opening. “Have you ever been to the beach?”

“There’s literally a beach on the other side of the city, Midori.”

Izuku sighs in frustration. “Not that kind of beach. I mean like the tropical kind you just mentioned. One of those out-of-the-way kinds of spots, where there aren’t a lot of people and you can just kind of chill.”

He nods with understanding, and Izuku doesn’t see any sign of suspicion or hesitation at his oddly specific line of questioning. A good sign, he thinks. He hopes.

“Not yet, but maybe someday soon.” He props his chin on a palm and smiles that horribly perfect smile before he adds, “Might be fun to go with a friend.”

Izuku suddenly doesn’t want to forward his findings to anyone. He wants to drop the whole damned thing and just bask in this perfection.

Who cares if his neighbor could maybe possibly be up to no good?

He blinks and looks away from those pretty purple eyes. Shit. What if he’s still being manipulated into thinking everything is fine, nothing to worry about?

He can’t help the warm smile that inches across his lips as he thinks about spending a warm afternoon lazing on a beach with his friend. Maybe going swimming. Maybe holding hands for a long walk in the surf. Maybe kisses beneath a moonlit sky.

He sighs wistfully and stuffs his mouth full of whatever cake the barista has brought him. It’s good, but not good enough to distract him from his guilty thoughts.

He makes his escape far earlier than he’d intended. He can’t think rationally when Murasaki is there, and he needs a lot of rational thinking right now.

The report and planning he'll be sending over to the investigator is pretty solid. It outlines a plan for capture and detainment, suggestions on how to counteract the sight-based quirk, and related cases to help bring this guy to justice once they’re in custody. All the investigator needs to do is follow the clue to find out if the suspect has been to the listed address recently.

Izuku hesitates on sending it, though. He hesitates for hours. He hates the idea of sending someone on a chase after an old lead, something that might pan out to be another long-abandoned home with nothing but an obvious letter pointing to yet another location halfway across the world.

He pulls up the address and pokes around at the neighboring buildings, wondering if there’s anything he could use to get a sense of anything recent.

The location is pretty run-down and seriously lacking in network security. It doesn’t take much effort to peek into whatever camera systems are available at each of the nearby businesses, and he clicks through a dozen colorless feeds, wondering if it’s another waste of-

He freezes between clicks.

There’s someone standing on a loading dock, smoking as they lean against a railing. Pale, gravity defying hair. He can’t tell if it’s blonde or violet.

Izuku pulls out his phone and opens his chat with Murasaki.

You up? <

> i am, but i’m out right now running a stupid errand if you’re hoping for a running partner

No, it’s fine <

> probably won’t see you tomorrow until late.

> something going on i can’t miss

Ok, text me! <

The person on the video feed has a phone in their hand, but everyone is always on their phones it seems, and he has no idea what to think.

He revises his report with the confirmed sighting.

Flags it as important and time sensitive.

And sends it to the investigator.

He really, really, hopes his neighbor doesn’t end up disappearing in the next week.

Chapter Text

Midori has a conundrum that makes little sense to Hitoshi.

He’s stuck between two job offers, doing the same thing for different sides. The side of what? Local versus Another Country? Community versus Corporation? Good versus Evil?

What kinds of jobs could conflict so badly that wildly differing payouts on a similar task would garner different kinds of interest?

His thoughts are that any normal employer willing to pay top dollar for services might be desperate. Whether it’s just desperate for someone able to do the job well, desperate for someone willing to bend the rules, or something else, it’s hard for Hitoshi to guess.

Midori has intriguing ideas about legality of work in general, though, and Hitoshi is struck by the sudden thought that this man has a knack for thinking outside the box.

And he absolutely doesn’t want to follow that line of thought right now, not this close to their big bust. The vaguely sinking suspicion that Midori might know (or is) the person they’re looking for nudges at him incessantly, but he hasn’t seen any concrete proof. He has no known acquaintances. His devices have yet to connect to the café router. He doesn’t seem to do anything online while he’s in the café. It could be nothing. (It could be everything.)

But their conversation shifts into a fun bit about vacationing, and the thought of sunny beaches and cool drinks alongside his new friend-but-maybe-something-more brings his thoughts around to dozens of glowing, warm maybes.

He’s being a little irresponsible in regards to the mission.

He likes to trust his gut, though.

And his gut says this one’s a keeper.

(But if Midori’s somehow working with or for the bad guys to collect a massive paycheck, then how is he going to keep him?)

On Wednesday morning as he’s heading to the agency for their big mission brief, he spots another community outreach group that has set up an information booth with free drinks and snacks on a normally empty street corner. He stops by the display, looking over the pamphlets with interest.

This might be exactly the sort of thing Midori needs to see, if he’s having trouble with staying on the right side of the law due to whatever circumstances might be affecting his life.

“Good job with this program,” he comments to the person standing with the display. “I’ll take a few to pass around at work,” he says. And maybe leave one where Midori can see, he thinks.

He really hopes Midori doesn’t need anything like this in his life, but having more options is better than having few (or none).

The agency is busier than usual as he strolls in and makes his way to the conference room. His boss is already there along with one of the heroes that normally walks the publicly visible daytime routes. This mission is expected to take place late in the evening when fewer civilians will be at risk of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but they’ll have everyone available to help bring the case to a close.

The group they’re planning on taking down is rapidly gaining notoriety, with a vast collection of assets and a few high-profile targets. They have solid intel that the group’s primary hideout is currently occupied by a high-level captain and two lieutenants, and the hand-off that should occur late Friday evening will contain both a cache of weapons and a shipment of volatile drugs that they’d very much like to keep off the streets.

The assets they’ve been waiting on from the Commission include several heroes in high demand and a team of special operations guys that Shinsou is glad to have on their side.

The plan of approach is laid out in nice, clear terms that has everyone breathing a sigh of relief. The mission should be simple, and they have the element of surprise. The number of hostiles expected to be there is almost laughably small, but Shinsou knows those kinds of details can change without a moment’s notice.

They’ll all be on guard and cautious, but they’re fully equipped to handle a wide number of unexpected problems.

(Shinsou understands they’re all being a bit too optimistic. Planning rarely survives first contact with the enemy. But he trusts his team to be able to adjust on the fly just like he will, and the addition of these Commission assets should make a major positive difference in their expected outcome.)

The briefing wraps after a few hours and is followed by a short bout of questions and answers from the involved parties. Shinsou’s boss waves him to the side to have a private chat.

“Anything new?”

Shinsou shakes his head. “Nothing concrete.”

His boss nods. “Figured as much. It’s still not a huge priority, but the Commission is getting to be a bit more interested in this consultant, now that their work has brought such a big case into the media spotlight. Going after this slow and steady may not be the path we take for much longer.”

Shinsou had guessed this would eventually happen, but he’s surprised it’s taken so long. “I hope you have some good news about the investigation from internal affairs,” he says.

His boss scoffs with irritation. “Heck no. They haven’t been able to prove anything worth suspending the asshole over.”

“That feels like a terrible mistake,” Shinsou scowls, crossing his arms.

“Yep. It’s gonna end up biting us in the ass one of these days.”

“At least tell me he’s staying in the office doing some menial shit,” Shinsou says, lifting an eyebrow at his boss’s darkening expression.

“Nope, the chief authorized him to head out to check into some case that came across his desk. He’s been out all morning.”

Shinsou rolls his eyes. “I hope he checks right into some trouble so they can bag him on something concrete.”

“You better watch what you wish for,” his boss warns with a smirk.

Shinsou heads out a little while later with only a half-irritated wave over his shoulder at the receptionist’s farewell.

They’re all scheduled to come back on Friday evening for the final mission briefing in case any last-minute details are revealed.

He cannot wait to wrap this mission.

He’s starving by the time he makes it back to the building. He’d turned down lunch at the agency like an idiot, and now the only thing he can think of is getting a sandwich, post haste.

He catches sight of Midori sitting alongside the café windows as he walks by and waves with a widening smile. Midori nearly sags with relief when they make eye contact, and he wonders at that strange reaction. He steps inside the air conditioned interior and moves quickly to his side.

He looks him over with concern and demands, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Midori laughs a little in reply. He looks close to tears, but he doesn’t know what’s happened. “I’m just glad to see you,” he says, and Hitoshi can hear a tiny crack in his voice.

“I’m fine,” he says. He brushes a careful hand through the hair along Midori’s temple and says, with hesitant surety, “And you’re fine, too. I think.”

Midori nods and then shakes his head with disbelief. “You and your questions,” he mutters with a tiny grin, turning back to his drink.

Hitoshi pauses, looking at the back of the shorter male with a shiver of apprehension. He supposes his manner of speaking might eventually become obvious to someone he talks to all the time, but this seems a little too soon.

The barista takes his order with a grin and waves him back to Midori’s side. Hitoshi drops himself onto the stool at Midori’s right and eyes the pastry that he’s barely touched, wondering if he should encourage his friend to give him a bite or two while he waits on his food to arrive. “It doesn’t look like you’re going to finish that,” he murmurs, propping his chin on a fist.

“I might be convinced to part with some of it, if someone were to ask.” Midori looks like he’s up to something.

“I’m asking,” Hitoshi says.

He narrows his green eyes in challenge.

(Hitoshi likes where this is going.)

“Ask me,” Midori demands.

Hitoshi opens his mouth and leans closer into his space.

Midori bites his lip and forces back a laugh. “You-“ he turns away, pink cheeked. “Ugh, fine,” he says. “I can’t deny you and your stupid face,” he grumbles, picking up a twist of the glazed treat with his fingers.

With his fingers.

(Hitoshi likes where this is going.)

Midori innocently tilts his head and holds up the morsel of food. “Are you going to bite?”

Hitoshi fights back his wicked smirk. “Of course not.”

Of course I will.

Midori nods once, to himself, and brings those fingers within inches of his mouth.

He finds himself salivating at the idea of what he’s about to do, and he’s thinking he should take hold of the wrist just to be sure he can’t pull away too quickly.

It’s going to be-

Midori flicks the pastry into his mouth with passable aim. It bounces off his tongue and nearly ends up down the back of his throat. His mouth snaps shut around the food and he barely stops himself from choking in shock.

“You were going to bite,” he explains with a shrug. “I don’t have my first aid kit with me right now.”

Hitoshi chews his bite with utter disappointment.

It’s good, but not nearly as good as it could have been with that personal touch.

His sandwich is alright. (He’s not pouting.)

“I really am glad to see you,” Midori says, peeking over at him with a small smile.

Hitoshi chuckles as his finishes his mouthful of sandwich. “You shouldn’t have to worry about me,” he claims.

“You’re right, I shouldn’t,” his friend mumbles, but it sounds an awful lot like regret.

At an ungodly hour the next morning, he’s woken by frantic knocking at his door. Grumbling with murderous irritation, he pulls his handgun from the bedside table and stomps over to the front door. He blearily swings it open, fully prepared to commit gross acts of violence if anyone unwelcome has dared to interrupt his very rare and precious sleep.

He’s caught completely off-guard by Midori throwing himself at him with a sob of relief, only barely having the sense to switch the handgun to the opposite hand that’s holding the door open before he pulls him into a half-embrace.

“What the fuck,” he mumbles, rapidly coming to full awareness of the shorter guy clinging to him like it’s the end of the world.

“Midori, tell me what the hell’s wrong,” he says, looking down at the unruly mop of messy green hair. It looks like he’s just woken up, too.

“Nothing,” he sniffles, his face buried in his chest.

“This is not nothing,” he says with disbelief.

Those arms wind a little tighter around his midsection. “Nothing’s wrong. You’re here,” he says, looking up at him with a wobbly, tear-stained smile.

Hitoshi’s heart melts, and for a very brief moment he’s tempted to cup his cheeks between his hands and lean down to kiss those smiling lips.

Except he has a gun.

Hidden behind the fucking door.

That he can’t let Midori see.

He runs the fingers of his free hand through Midori’s hair and his green eyes slide shut as he sighs with some kind of relief at the contact. “Fucking hell, man, you gave me a start.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you so early,” he says, looking incredibly sheepish now.

“I hope you have an amazing nightmare to tell me about over breakfast,” he grumbles down at him with fond exasperation.

“Oh, no-“ he hiccups, rubbing the wetness away from one of his eyes. “Nothing like that. Just…” he hesitates and rubs at his other eye. “Heard some news. It’s so early, I think I’m still too sleepy to think straight. My brain just went in the wrong direction and I panicked.”

Hitoshi hums in agreement. He, too, had not been thinking straight when he’d grabbed a handgun to answer the door.

Someone meaning to break in and kill him wouldn’t have had the decency to knock. And he certainly wouldn’t have shot at a door-to-door salesperson just to get another hour of sleep. (Or would he?)

He laughs to himself. “Alright. Everything is fine. Text me when you wake up for real,” he says, ruffling his fingers through Midori’s hair.

He beams up at him, relief still shining brightly in his vibrant green eyes. Whatever spooked him must have been something pretty bad.

“Thanks, Murasaki. For being here.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m not going anywhere,” he grumbles with a grin.

“I’m glad to know it,” he says, turning back toward his apartment with a little wave.

Chapter Text

Izuku can’t remember ever feeling so guilty. Not when he accidentally flushed his (former) best friend’s favorite toy down the toilet, or when he slipped and dropped (and shattered) his mother’s favorite tea pot.

The investigator hasn’t replied to his message, but that’s fine.

They might just be busy catching an evasive criminal.

(It’s fine.)

Murasaki hasn’t texted him all morning, but that’s fine, too.

He said he’d be busy with something until late.

(It’s … probably fine.)

(There’s a small chance Murasaki will not come home.)

He picks at his snack and sighs into his coffee, feeling like an asshole. He can’t even find joy in people-watching at the café window.

Something walks past the window with a hint of violet. Izuku startles to attention, searching for where he’d seen the color.

Some woman walks down the street with a scarf looped around her neck in a pretty shade of purple. Izuku feels a lump in his throat. Is he going to be stuck here for the next several days, staring at everyone that walks by until his friend comes home, safe and sound? He’s never regretted submitting a report as much as he does in this moment.

He dips a spoon into his mug and swirls the cooled drink, watching the creamy eddies flow with detached interest. More purple appears in the corner of his eye, and he flicks his gaze up to see Murasaki waving at him through the glass.

He nearly falls off of his seat.

Calm.

Calm, it’s okay.

Nothing happened.

Don’t make a scene.

It’s fine.

It’s really fine.

(For now.)

Murasaki’s delightful distractions pull his thoughts away from the guilt for a little while, but they eventually part ways. Izuku curls into bed with his hands wrapped tightly around his laptop.

He’s waiting for a notification that may never come. Most of his reports don’t ever have any kind of success thank-you note after the fact.

Just radio silence until they need something else from him.

He wants to sneak next door and hang out like nothing’s wrong, just to see for himself that everything's fine. Or so he can face Murasaki when the betrayal comes knocking with a warrant.

The anxiety eats at him through the long hours of evening, but he hears nothing, no banging doors, no shouts of police!

He wonders if he even heard Murasaki come home last night. He can’t remember for sure, now.

His laptop pings with a notification.

He scrambles to open it, his eyes blurring with tears. He blinks rapidly to clear his sight and clicks into the new message from the investigator.

They’ve got him.

They’ve got him.

He tears out of his apartment and races next door, his heart thumping harder than his fist does against the wood.

Please please please please please please

The door swings open, and Izuku doesn’t hesitate. He’s warm, solid, right here, safe and sound, unharmed, free. He squeezes harder, glad to have his arms around this man.

He’s never been so glad to be completely wrong.

It’s fine.

It’s going to continue to be fine.

He stares up into pretty violet eyes, and thinks nothing can go wrong, now.

(Maybe.)

(Okay, maybe he might still need some kind of criminal rehabilitation if he’s getting himself into trouble, but that’s something they can work on, together.)

It’ll be fine.

He’s tempted to stay with Murasaki for the rest of the… he doesn’t know what time it is. The rest of the night? Until a more normal time of day, at least.

He could ask.

Just curl up on his couch and enjoy the knowledge that his friend hasn’t vanished into custody.

Murasaki sends him packing, though, with a demand that he text at a better time of the morning.

Izuku tries not to laugh. It’ll be fine. He’s overreacted a little, and damn if he isn’t feeling worn out now that the adrenaline is wearing down.

He falls into an exhausted sleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

Much later in the morning, Izuku rolls over with a groan. His head is pounding and the light spilling in through his curtains seems far too bright. He squints at his phone to figure out what time it is and sees a few missed text messages from his neighbor. He cracks a tiny smile and manages to type a short reply that he’s awake and alive, sorry for worrying, maybe they can talk in a bit.

He buries his face under a pillow to hide from the light and dozes off once more.

He startles awake again at the sound of knocking. His head still hurts a little, but he stumbles out of bed to see who’s bothering him in the middle of a too-bright Thursday. He squints up at Murasaki with a measure of confusion. “Did I forget to…” he trails off, uncertainly.

“No. I was a little worried that you weren’t responding to my messages. Looks like I worried for good reason.”

Izuku grins and rubs a hand over his face. “It’s fine, just a bit of a headache after a rough night.”

Murasaki hums and rubs his hand gently over Izuku’s forehead. “I suppose so. Go take some medicine and drink some water before you make yourself sick.”

“Did you just check me for fever?” Izuku asks, blinking up at him with a soft smile.

“Go take care of yourself before I steal your phone to call your mother.”

Izuku smiles and waves off his friend. “Are you staying or going?” he asks, leaning against the doorframe.

“I think I’ll leave you to your misery. Text me if I’m needed.”

He blinks up at him with wide eyes. “But I can’t text you for help if I’m dead.”

Murasaki lifts an eyebrow and shifts his stance. “If you want me to stay, then let me in already. And I hope you have coffee.”

Izuku doesn’t do a happy dance, (bouncing around at that moment would be embarrassing as well as cause his head more discomfort) but he grins a little as he opens his door wide for his friend to enter.

“You worried me yesterday, and then again this morning. You’ve been acting weird. I hope everything is okay,” he murmurs as he kicks off his shoes and toes them neatly into place besides Izuku’s.

“It’s much better, now,” he says with a smile. He escapes to take some medicine and returns with a glass of water. “Coffee is brewing,” he announces with a grin. “Do you want anything else?”

Murasaki hums with a little smile but doesn’t say anything, and Izuku can’t help but blush. Okay, maybe inviting him into the apartment was a great and terrible idea.

He stands in the kitchen entryway a bit awkwardly before Murasaki points to the couch and says, “Sit down.”

Izuku sinks slowly into the cushions with a sigh.

His friend disappears down the hallway for a moment before returning with Izuku’s pillow and a blanket. Izuku is past the point of being amazed at his concern for his well-being.

Murasaki settles onto the other end of the couch and pulls out his laptop as Izuku covers his head with his pillow, reveling in the cool fabric against his face.

It’s nice to sit with him in the silence of the apartment, the scent of fresh coffee brewing as he scrolls through whatever it is that he’s reading.

His friend puts his laptop on the table and walks into the kitchen. “I can pour you a cup of coffee, too, if you’d like,” he offers from the other room.

Izuku lifts the pillow long enough to say, “nah,” and buries his face again. He’s tempted to see what kind of book his friend is reading this morning, but he’s afraid he’ll discover some heated romantic scene and have bad ideas plaguing his thoughts for the rest of the day.

(Izuku doesn’t realize his whistleblower document is currently open to page 129. Victims’ profiles, their interviews, and additional information supplemented by further police investigation start on page 188. If he looks, his questions about Murasaki would immediately be answered, and then he’d have different bad ideas plaguing his thoughts for the rest of the day. But he doesn’t.)

Murasaki sits back down with a long, pleased sigh. Izuku smiles beneath his pillow. He stretches his legs out and accidentally bumps Murasaki’s foot. He unapologetically loops his foot over the ankle in his way and leaves it.

He hears a quiet snort of laughter as he shimmies deeper into the couch cushions, comfortable and confident that Murasaki won’t escape while he dozes.

He wakes after another long nap, feeling much better. He’s curled onto his side with a blanket draped over him, and his feet are tucked securely against Murasaki’s hip.

“Good afternoon, sleeping beauty,” his friend greets, pushing his laptop closed.

“Ugh, I slept that late?” he grumbles.

Murasaki shrugs and pats his foot with a fond smile. “It’s still early enough that we can head downstairs and get something to eat. Or I can order something for delivery. I assume you’re hungry,” he says, arching an eyebrow.

Izuku rolls off the couch with a little thump and a laugh. “Let’s go downstairs. I want to stretch and get out of here for a little bit. Maybe eat something ridiculously unhealthy.”

Murasaki leaves to put his laptop away while Izuku showers and gets dressed. His spirits are flying high with relief and satisfaction. The message from the investigator is short (and maybe a little too unprofessional):

Successful capture! Good intel! I’ve got him for questioning. Please call me if anything comes up. It has been a pleasure working with you!

The investigator has added his personal cell number as a measure of thanks, which Izuku finds pretty strange but shrugs it off. Who knows when it might be handy to have someone in a good position of authority as a point of contact?

He wonders which plan they ended up using, but knows better than to ask. (They never appreciate him questioning the things they’ve done.)

(It’s fine.)

They sit at the window seats again. Izuku happily spoils the café royalty as they take turns basking in the combined warmth of the sunshine and his lap. Murasaki doesn’t mind so much that they seem content in ignoring him, and instead plies Izuku with random desserts and baked goods until he complains he’s going to end up sick for real.

“You stress-bake, so I figured you also stress-eat,” he explains.

Izuku whines in exasperation. “I do not stress bake,” he claims once more.

“Keep telling yourself that. I’ll just keep eating your extras.”

“And I’m not stressed,” he adds on. “I’m perfectly fine, thank you very much.”

“You are now. Yesterday you were not.”

Izuku hums in agreement and pokes at the last chunk of cake that’s left on his plate.

“So let’s just call this a celebration of things are better,” he suggests, instead.

Izuku turns to look at him with a little smile. “I like that,” he says.

I like you, he thinks.

They part ways again sometime before dinner. Murasaki receives a message on his phone and he has to go run an errand, and Izuku is thinking about calling his mom just to hear her voice for a little while. (And maybe gush about his date with his friend-that-might-be-something-more.)

He is feeling positively blissful by the time Thursday night rolls around, and the only thing that could make it better is to see Murasaki again before he crawls into bed.

> you better sleep well tonight

Oh yeah ? <

That sounds like an ‘or else’ <

> don’t test me

You don’t know me too well <

Izuku falls asleep with his phone in his hands and a smile on his lips.

Friday dawns bright and perfect. He rolls out of bed, lazes around his living room, and eventually gets ready for the day, although he’s not really sure what he’ll do with himself, just yet. He’s feeling ready to tackle the hiring profile for the jewel thieves, so he might end up working on that once he’s had some coffee.

(and maybe after he’s verified Murasaki is still alive and kicking. Every one of his ‘errands’ now give him a tiny thrill of terror. Is he going to come back injured from some shady street fight? Will the police eventually catch him doing something he shouldn’t be?)

He packs his laptop and heads down to the café. He greets the barista and she bounces on her toes with a happy, “Good morning, greenie! The usual?”

He nods with a little grin and settles down at the booth that he usually shares with Murasaki when they’re both there.

She slides his plate of food and a big cup of coffee in front of him and takes Murasaki’s seat with a barely repressed smirk and an arched eyebrow.

“Soooo, you two, huh?”

Izuku blushes and hides behind his mug. “I’m working on it,” he mutters with a smile.

“The old baba has been wheedling me for details, so I hope you have some to spare!”

“Gossip about me after I’m gone, please,” Murasaki’s voice calls from somewhere behind him.

The barista giggles and moves so he can sit. “How long until you leave, then? I want to interrogate this one!” She points perilously in Izuku’s direction.

“But there’s really not that much to say-“

“I’ll be leaving again in an hour. I’m sure you can wait that long,” he drawls, grinning up at her with a wink.

She laughs and takes his order before sauntering away with a little wave.

“So soon?” Izuku doesn’t mean to sound whiny, but Murasaki gives him the warmest grin he’s ever seen.

“It’s nice to know I’m such an important part of your day,” he says. “After the stuff I have going on today, I’m thinking…”

He pauses for a moment and tilts his head as he watches Izuku. “I’m thinking I’m just about ready to start planning some kind of vacation.”

Izuku feels a tiny thrill of anticipation. “Really?”

“Mmhm,” he says, accepting his coffee from the barista with a polite nod of thanks.

Izuku bites his lip. “Where are you thinking of going?”

Murasaki shrugs. “Wherever you feel like going,” he suggests.

The shiver of excitement wars immediately with the realization that his very hot neighbor who hasn’t yet told him his name is suggesting they go away on vacation together. This is bad. (so bad.)

“Don’t you think we should at least exchange our names, first, before we start planning getaways?”

“Not knowing my name is part of the excitement,” he says, leaning across the table. His voice has dipped into a low rumble, and Izuku finds himself leaning closer to hear him better. “I could be literally anyone. Someone famous only by name, a dangerous outlaw with a bounty, or a pro-hero with a secret civilian identity.” He bites his lip and lowers his lashes to peer at him with something Izuku thinks is called bedroom eyes. “Like this, I could be whomever you want.”

This man could talk me right into the trunk of a car, Izuku realizes. I’m toast. Dead. If he wants to lure me into a cabin in the woods to take his time murdering me, I’d follow like a lovesick idiot.

Knowing he has it bad doesn’t help stave off the longing.

He just resolves to figure out who the hell his neighbor is. (At least so the police know where to start looking when he goes missing. His mother will be sad.) His last lead hadn’t perfectly panned out, but it had been successful in another way, and he doesn’t regret following that path.

He just needs to figure out a new way to dig up the truth.

(And he really regrets that he moved into an apartment building where the managers avoid technology like the plague. Their paperwork being offline and held in rickety old filing cabinets worked perfectly for his needs, but now he has no way to type his happy way into unprotected records to fish for his neighbor’s credentials.)

He sighs.

Maybe he can just peek at his passport while they’re getting ready to board a plane.

(That’s a terrible idea.)

(Or is it?)

Their hour together comes to a close far too soon for Izuku’s liking. Murasaki stands to leave, and drops his hand on his shoulder to give it a gentle squeeze. He looks oddly serious. “Stay out of trouble while I’m gone,” he says, and Izuku gets a weird feeling.

“Will I see you tomorrow?”

His friend shrugs, but doesn’t smile. “I’ll text when I can,” he offers instead.

Izuku’s weird feeling gets marginally worse. He inches out on a limb of maybe and says something he’s not sure he’ll regret later. “Try to come back in one piece, okay?”

Murasaki’s expression hardens for a moment as he stares down into Izuku’s eyes. He hopes he hasn’t stepped over another one of those boundaries they just don’t talk about, like quirks.

But then he breathes out a quiet laugh and smirks. “So observant,” he murmurs, giving Izuku’s shoulder another gentle squeeze. “I’ll do my best,” he says.

Izuku finishes his breakfast, but now he’s a little worried about his friend and can barely focus on profiling the duo of jewel thieves.

“Good day, lovelies!” a scratchy voice bellows from the café entrance. Izuku blinks and turns to see the gossiping old lady gliding in like she’s the true royalty here, not the cats.

(The cats don’t like her very much.)

She sees Izuku by himself and slides into the booth across from him.

In Murasaki’s spot.

He blinks in utter disbelief.

She grins at him with a little sly tilt to her expression and waves at the barista to come over. “I’ll have tea, dear, and get this lovely boy some more of whatever it is he’s drinking. On me!”

Oh no, she’s up to something, he worries, biting his lip and wishing he had a good reason to make a quick escape.

The old lady reaches across the table and pats his hand with a knowing smile. “I know all about you, sonny,” she says with a firm nod.

Izuku stills with wary suspicion. She knows what exactly?

The barista brings her the tea and she takes a bracing sip before she continues, “I’m glad you’re on our side. Keep up the good work, hm?”

Izuku wonders what universe she’s living in, but smiles gratefully. “I’ll do my best,” he says, but his thoughts turn back to his friend that may or may not be getting into trouble that afternoon.

She beams and lightly pinches his cheek. “Good, good.”

What.

“And that writer of yours,” she goes on with a devilish grin.

Izuku tries to hide his confusion behind his fresh cup of coffee. Writer?

She sighs happily. “He’s such a sweet lad. You had better take care of him!”

Izuku blinks, feeling strangely blank. Murasaki? She thinks he’s a writer? And that I need to take care of him? What kind of person does she think I am?

He wonders if she’s seen any hint of the taller male’s muscles. They put anything Izuku has to offer to complete shame. If anything, he’d be the one protecting Izuku, but he doesn’t tell her that.

She already seems to have enough ammo, as it is.

The barista makes good on her promise to come back and interrogate Izuku for details about his date, and the old lady listens in as he blushes and stammers about cute cats and a ribbon-wrapped flower.

(He’s not the only one distressed when he laments about zero goodnight kisses.)

(He promises that there will be amends, this weekend, one way or another.)

(The two ladies’ giggles are in full swing when the law student walks in. He turns around and walks right out.)

Izuku eventually escapes the café to hide in his apartment with the oppressive silence for company instead of the worryingly empty booth across the table.

He manages to distract himself passably well with a documentary or three while he pokes around through the networks looking for more information on the hiring profile.

He sighs and gets up for a glass of water, then lingers at his balcony door to crane his neck and stare up at the stars just barely visible at the top of the neighboring building.

Maybe he should sit up on the roof tonight and worry under the night sky.

Maybe in a bit.

He turns back to the couch and his glowing computer screen and plops onto the couch with a bit too much force. His water sloshes over the edge, and he grumbles to himself as he sets the glass down to fetch a hand towel to wipe up the droplets.

Izuku doesn’t follow the news often, but he has a ticker app that runs an unobtrusive feed of headline stories in the corner of his screen. Sometimes those headlines turn into job opportunities, and he likes to know when something interesting might be coming up.

Tonight’s ticker is interesting, all right, and he stares at it with growing concern as he clutches the towel between numb fingers.

Earlier this evening, a major police action at a warehouse downtown went south as a villain’s quirk turned heroes and a special operations task force against one another. Two pro-heroes and several law enforcement officers were seriously wounded in the exchange. Multiple villains escaped during the chaos. Police caution that citizens should stay home if possible and remain on the lookout for any suspicious activity. The warehouse where the chaos unfolded is still burning. The fire department is on the scene, but officials speculate there could still be victims trapped inside the building. More on this as it develops throughout the night.

He’s not sure why this story sets him immediately on edge, but in the back of his mind he’s hoping that it’s completely unrelated to the thing that Murasaki vanished for earlier in the day.

He freezes at the unexpected sound of a muffled thump on the balcony. There’s a terrible screech of the metal railing complaining from a heavy weight, then shortly after that there’s a crash in the apartment next to his that sounds like furniture being toppled.

Izuku shoots to his feet in alarm. Murasaki.

Chapter Text

Midori’s behavior is a little worrying, especially that he doesn’t want to discuss whatever’s bothering him. But he takes the sudden flip in mood toward the positive as a good sign and does his best to encourage it to keep hold.

He hopes his friend understands what it means to have people he can depend on.

He manages to get very little reading done as he sits alongside Midori dozing his headache away. The mystery writer’s document is so long that he has trouble focusing on the details of fraud. He’s very tempted to skim past it to get to the people that were affected, but he’s stubborn and doesn’t want to miss anything that might reveal a good clue.

This slice of domesticity is pleasant, hanging out in the quiet with his friend’s feet finding new and interesting ways to maintain contact with him every time he gets up for more coffee.

He wonders how much of a cuddler he’ll be.

He wonders how soon he might find out.

There is more to do on Thursday evening before the bust Friday night, so Hitoshi wishes Midori a good night before he trudges off to the agency. He has gear to prepare and double-check, and he’s supposed to get fitted for a bulletproof bodysuit.

They’re a bitch to get on and off, expensive as fuck, and worst of all they have to be replaced after using them three times, so he doesn’t get to wear them often unless something exceptionally dangerous is coming up.

(A team full of specialists carrying automatic weapons is a reasonably dangerous situation.)

He doesn’t have to worry so much about taking a bullet to the neck or the groin, though, which is a vast improvement over the kevlar vests the police force usually gets to wear.

He’s glad to see Midori in the café the next morning before he heads out to the agency. The knowledge that their big case is finally coming to a close that night weighs heavily on him, but a portion of that lifts when he sees Midori’s bright green eyes and knows he’ll be missed.

He kind of wants to stick around for the rest of the day. Tell him everything. Drop his obligations and anything else going on in his life and learn all he can about this man.

If the agency isn’t in much of a rush to find the mystery consultant, then he won’t be, either.

And if it turns out Midori is (or knows) the guy they’re looking for, maybe some one-on-one time is exactly what he’ll need to help reveal some of those secrets that he’s been hiding.

He wonders how easily he might be able to pry answers out of that cute little mouth with the right kinds of motivation.

(The kinds of motivation that Midori would enjoy.)

(Because he wants him to want him back.)

(To stay.)

Midori wants to know his name before they do anything, of course, and he thinks that he’s finding enough reasons to hand it over, if only for the simple fact that he’d like to hear him say it.

Often.

Frequently.

Before each kiss.

Between each one thereafter.

(And when he inevitably asks for more.)

But he can tease and play hard to get for another day. Another day, he thinks. Maybe tomorrow. We can talk.

Midori is scarily observant, and he thinks, he thinks, that even if he isn’t the guy they’re looking for, maybe hinting at what’s going on could be a good idea. It might generate new leads they hadn’t considered.

The sooner they resolve this side-mission and clear up any lingering concerns, the sooner he can skip off into vacation mode with his cute neighbor in hand.

He’s got it bad, and everything feels horribly out of order.

Everything is out of order.

They have so much they’ll need to talk about.

(Tomorrow.)

The team is geared up and ready to move into position. Shinsou clicks his voice modulator into place and flicks the deployment switch that expands the device to cover the lower half of his face. The recent upgrade includes lightweight metal plating and a tinted safety visor that keeps debris out of his eyes while providing a very helpful heads-up display.

The plan is simple. He will enter first from a window near the roof. It has been confirmed to have a broken latch and easy entry that opens along a catwalk.

There are two armed guards that rove the upper levels. Surveillance over the last few days have revealed that they are very chatty with one another.

Shinsou will bring them both under and secure them, then infiltrate deeper into the building.

This group has a habit of shouting at each other across the warehouse floor. If they weren’t packing so many damned weapons, Shinsou thinks he could probably take out the whole group on his own by picking them off one by one, catching them unawares with little impersonations of their associates.

There should be around a dozen people in the warehouse tonight. They have just as many highly trained police operatives as well as four daytime heroes. He’s the only underground hero that will be sneaking in to pave their way with brainwashed criminals walking like docile sheep out the side door.

He knows something is wrong when he enters the window. There’s only one guard, and they’re standing stiff and lifeless.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d think this one is already caught in his quirk. He flicks his voice modulator over to the other guard’s voice and calls out a quiet greeting they’ve heard passed along a dozen other times. It’s a flawless impression, but the guard lifts their arm and speaks two words into their wrist communicator. “They’re here.”

It all goes downhill from there.

The guard doesn’t even look at Shinsou before blindly aiming the weapon in his general direction.

Shinsou realizes he’s fucked.

This high up on the catwalk, there is absolutely no cover. Losing the element of surprise puts their team at a serious disadvantage, almost dangerous enough that Shinsou is sorely tempted to call off the whole damned thing to avoid losing lives.

The guard is at a bad angle and just out of range of his capture weapon, but the binding cloth isn’t his only form of attack. He rips a knife free from the sheath on his wrist and flings it in the guard’s direction, ducking and rolling to his right to avoid the spray of bullets.

Whoever is controlling the hand holding that weapon does not seem to have any kind of aim, and it might be the only thing that saves him from being immediately taken out of the fight.

He can see it now, for certain. The guard’s eyes are pale and blank, no sign of recognition. Their movements are jerky and uncertain, but the knife sticking out of their arm doesn’t seem to have snapped them out of whatever is controlling.

Then they blink, and some sign of awareness returns in time for them to stare down at their arm in belated shock. They scream.

Shinsou clicks his voice communicator and rattles off his situational report. “Fuckers know we’re here. Some kind of mind control in place. Watch out for blank expressions and shitty aim. Pain will kick the control, but it might be delayed. Request immediate additional backup.”

Shinsou has crept into range while the guard has their mini panic attack and flicks out his capture weapon to catch the guard by surprise, yanking them to the catwalk to bounce their head against the metal grating.

He takes the guard’s weapon from limp fingers and slings it over his shoulder, then binds their wrists together with a pair of quickcuffs that’ll lock their quirk down (whatever it might be) for the next hour.

“Catwalks are clear,” he mutters into the comm, slinking toward the central area of the warehouse. Now that the overhead walkways are free from hostiles with great vantage points, the special ops team and their attached heroes are clear to slip in the side entrances.

There’s no way for Shinsou to catch any of the higher-ups in his quirk by surprise.

He’s beyond pissed - how the fuck had they known they were coming?

Something terrible happens in the next moment: Shinsou glances at the lead operative on the southbound entry team just in time to see him turn around and aim his weapon at the two that have followed him in. The muzzle flashes in rapid succession and the first operative falls to the ground with a shout of pain while the second scrambles to take cover.

More gunfire echoes from the other side of the warehouse, and he briefly stumbles with bemusement.

What the hell is going on?

He scans the warehouse floor in a panic, watching as a flood of hostiles dash out of darkened hallways with firearms, blades, and quirks on full display.

Shinsou hates using his own firearm, but this is not the time to be squeamish with such overwhelming odds. He uses his binding cloth to make a rapid descent to a slightly elevated position just off of ground level to provide more close-ranged support to the other members of their team, the few that haven’t been caught under mind control or taken out due to surprise attacks by their own teammates.

When more gunfire erupts on the lower level, Shinsou realizes the only reason why their entire team isn’t killed outright is because of those fucking beautiful bulletproof bodysuits.

But they’re only good for stopping projectiles, and he barely dodges the swing of a villain that finds him and has swords for arms. The sharp sting of pain along the side of his ribs lets him know that he didn’t dodge nearly far enough, but the wound doesn’t seem too deep and he continues fighting like their lives depend on it. (Because they definitely do.)

Rock-Paper-Scissors flicks through his head like an idiotic mantra as he dodges another swing from the bladed villain. His scarf is the paper and might not stand up against such a sharp edge. His only choice is a rock, his firearm, and he pops a single shot into the villain’s dominant arm.

They curl over with a scream of anger (or pain, because he knows how much that kind of injury hurts) then straighten up to continue fighting. Nope. Shinsou twists into a kick and catches the villain in the side of the face, and they fall like a sack of (very sharp) bricks.

He jumps down from his position to aid a team member in a rough match-up and gunfire ricochets off the hard steel of the shipping container at his side. Shrapnel glances across his voice modulator at a bad angle. The device crackles and sparks, briefly blinding him to the approach of a spiked fist that barely catches him across the edge of his visor. He feels a sharp pain above his eye and dances out of range of another strike, hurriedly checking his face to make sure the wound isn’t life-threatening.

The villain that attacked him dodges as another hail of bullets come tearing through the warehouse and ping loudly off the container several meters away from Shinsou.

The hero at his side falls to their knee with a shout of pain, and Shinsou curses some of the more ridiculous costume choices of his coworkers for the millionth time.

He dives behind the shipping container and flings out his capture weapon to drag the injured hero to temporary safety. The bullet wound is clean through, and they help him apply a quick field dressing to stop the bleeding and stumble back to their feet.

“Fuck, no, you idiot, stay put for a damned minute. Help from here. Don’t move if you can avoid it.”

The hero has a long-range attack that will work fine from cover, and he’s angry that they put themselves in the line of fire with those legs exposed like shining beacons of shoot these spots, right here.

Minutes of chaos have gone by before he’s able to snag control of anyone with his quirk. It seems like whatever was keeping them protected from his ability has either worn off or the perpetrator has gotten out of range of control. He sags with relief as the three still-standing and previously-controlled special operatives point their firearms toward the ceiling and drop to a knee, looking around in bewilderment as they bark for status updates and try to get a handle on what the hell had happened.

There are still ten criminals in various stages of murderous rampage, so the few remaining able-bodied members of the team band together to take the rest down.

At some point during the chaos, a fire broke out along the north and east walls of the warehouse, and it’s burning quickly through offices and the evidence they’d hoped to collect. Shinsou curses as he knocks another villain against a supporting beam. If everyone survives this damned mess, he’s going to have a field day figuring out how the fuck they lost their advantage of surprise.

(If someone doesn’t survive, he’ll do the same thing, just with a little less yelling.)

He hears clanging footsteps of two perpetrators fleeing along the catwalk and he gives chase, skipping the stairs by using his binding cloth to pull him straight up. One of the suspects shouts out a warning to the other, and without thinking, Shinsou mimics the warning like a questioning echo. When the other suspect cries out a reply, they fall still and Shinsou is left chasing the first.

An explosion rocks the warehouse and Shinsou is knocked from his feet. He barely has time to grab onto the railing as a secondary blast shatters the nearby windows and smacks him with flying debris. He nearly loses his grip as the impact tosses him over the edge, the sudden weight along a single limb yanking painfully in his wrist and elbow. It takes a second for the stars to clear from his sight, then he pulls himself back up to the catwalk and looks in the direction the fleeing criminal has run.

They’re slipping out through the same damned window where he entered.

He growls with irritation and races after them, flinging out his capture weapon to snag an ankle. There’s a screech of outrage as he grips it tight, preventing the criminal from escaping so quickly. Their body swings down from the window and lands against the wall with a muffled thump as they struggle to free their foot.

He’s sorely tempted to just drop them on their head to the concrete below for all the shit his team just went through. But he doesn’t, because that would be pretty anti-heroic. He pulls them back inside the warehouse by the seat of their pants and elbows them right in the nose once a face is visible, hurling a questioning insult along with the strike. When they reply with a bloody snarl, they’re trapped.

The building is still on fire. He rushes his captive criminals out of the closest exit that isn’t a roiling wall of flames and hands them off to a nearby group of officers. Some members of his team had to be carried out on stretchers, but no one has any life-threatening injuries. Thank fuck.

He runs back inside to collect another set of criminals- or are they victims? Fuck if he knows anymore. If they were under mind control, then they could be anyone off the street that just got caught at a bad time. Sorting this mess is going to be an absolute nightmare, even without considering they had a leak that nearly got the lot of them killed.

A quick accounting of everyone they’ve found so far reveals there are at least two of their primary targets missing that should have been here this evening. Some portions of the warehouse are still on fire, and he wonders if they’ll find any bodies in the wreckage once the burning is contained.

It’s a fucking disaster.

With everyone on his team accounted for and the police and firefighters assisting in cleanup and recovery, a paramedic heads in his direction with a treatment bag.

He waves her off. She looks ready to protest, but he gives her one of his glares and she cows a little too easily.

He’s almost disappointed. She must be new.

He really doesn’t want to deal with someone poking at his scratches or giving him a ridiculous shock blanket.

He’s sure his boss will find another reason to bench him from something else if he finds out he got any scrapes from this disaster.

There’s nothing else he can do right now, and the other heroes still capable of walking are heading back to the agency for paperwork.

Fucking paperwork.

His head hurts, and there’s a little trickle of blood that’s run from his brow near the corner of his visor to trail alongside the edge of his mouth.

He’ll deal with paperwork in the morning. He’s done with this night, and he really doesn’t want to start shouting at everyone at the agency with half-assed assumptions about how their plan had been known ahead of time.

He’ll go home, clean up, take time to cool off, and come back in the morning with his head on straight.

Fuck, he’s angry, practically shaking with rage that the whole thing had gone so badly. That odd, burning burst of vengeful energy plus the adrenaline from the fight fuels a mad dash home. He’s feeling a bone-deep weariness creep up as he approaches his building, and he wonders again if maybe he should just take the lobby and the damned elevator this time. Surely no one will be up at this hour to see him in his costume.

He scales the building anyways, letting the binding cloth pull most of his weight.

He drops easily onto his balcony, and something in his leg gives a little. Ouch, he thinks, leaning heavily against the railing at his side. There’s an injury there he hadn’t noticed earlier, and a wave of dizziness catches him off guard almost badly enough that he has to fight to stay upright against the railing.

His door slides open easily, and he steps inside to greet his cats, only something isn’t quite right.

His face, instead, greets the floor.

Chapter Text

Izuku’s worry about potential dangers in the night wars with his wish to make sure his friend is okay, so he quietly sneaks over to the balcony and carefully listens for any sign of a struggle. What the hell would he possibly be able to do if a bad guy has broken in through his neighbor’s window?

He swallows back his nerves and slips out onto his balcony with his EDD clutched in one hand, the damp towel still absently held in the other. He leans to the side to peer in through the still-open balcony door and spots a dark shape crumpled on the floor a few feet from where he stands. The only illumination comes from the half moon, which bathes the darkened interior of Murasaki's apartment in an unsettling gloom.

He stares for a moment as his eyes adjust to the darkness, watching for any further movement within the apartment.

There’s nothing.

He slips in through the open door, holding his breath. The shape doesn’t move. He edges slowly to the left to get a better view and spots a shock of pale violet hair. He drops the EDD on the floor and rushes toward his friend to check for a pulse.

An oddly garbled voice rasps out a complaint at the unexpected touch and he flinches back in surprise. What the heck?

“Murasaki?” he whispers, gently gripping his friend’s shoulder and supporting his neck. He rolls him carefully onto his back and stares down at the incredibly unsettling sight before him. He wouldn’t be able to tell who the person is on the floor if it weren’t for the unmistakable hair.

His face is covered by a weird metal mask with a huge slash across the front like the sharp, wicked smirk of a nightmarish monster.

His friend’s eyes flicker with partial awareness behind a lurid purple visor that’s edged in a smear of blood. He’s covered from neck to foot in dark colors, thick plating of some kind with more blood spatter that can barely be seen against all that black in the darkness. He reeks of blood, smoke, and the acrid tang of gunpowder.

Holy shit, what the hell has he been doing?

“Murasaki!” he says a little louder, feeling panic run sharp in his veins. He peers out the balcony door, wondering if they’re about five minutes from being set upon by the police.

(shit shit shit)

“Jesus, what did you do?” and then, “Wait no, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

His friend groans in pain as Izuku looks for some kind of latch to get the mask off. “Please don’t die,” he thoughtlessly mutters.

He can barely recognize the gravelly voice behind the face mask. He sounds like someone else entirely. “You should see the other guy,” he tries to joke, but it’s a little less funny when his laugh cuts off with a sharp hiss of pain. A shaking hand lifts to press against his side with a grimace.

Murasaki’s other hand lifts to his neck, and Izuku follows the path of his finger to locate the release button tucked beneath his chin. The whole contraption shudders as it tries to collapse in on itself, a hidden mechanism grinding with a sharp, ear-splitting whine as sparks fly. Both men flinch in surprise, then Izuku tugs it away from Murasaki’s face as soon as the strap unlocks.

There’s a cut along his friend’s chin, and Izuku immediately presses the towel in his hand to the wound. "Do you know where you are?"

His friend winces at the pressure against the cut. "Home," he replies, grumbly and sullen.

Izuku leans close to peer into his eyes. His friend blinks up at his sudden proximity. "Can you tell me what day it is?"

"Friday, fuck," he complains without hesitation.

“Why didn’t you go to a hospital?” Izuku demands.

“Hate hospitals,” Murasaki mutters with a dark scowl.

Hates hospitals, Izuku wonders, or knows he’d be caught if he steps foot into one?

“You’re an idiot,” Izuku mutters as he pulls the towel away to eye how deep the cut is. His neighbor hums a noise of agreement, then stares blankly at the ceiling above him. “And you’re lucky I like you,” Izuku adds on. “I can do stitches, but I’ve only ever practiced on myself.”

Murasaki’s brow furrows at the admission and the wound stretching across his forehead breaks open to spill a fresh stream of blood.

“Oh for gods’ sake,” Izuku grumbles, pressing the hand towel to his forehead instead.

“This is a mess,” he says, grabbing for his friend’s hand to shove it against the towel. “Hold this here. I’m going to get the first aid kit. Don’t move.”

“Aye-aye, captain,” he replies with a grimace.

Izuku quietly curses as he hurries back across the balcony to his apartment to fish out his kit and every spare towel he can carry, then mutters further curses as he rushes back to his friend’s side. If he’s actually on the wrong side of the law, what he’s about to do would definitely fall under aiding and abetting.

He doesn’t think he can just treat him in the middle of the living room floor.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

Izuku half-drags half-carries his grouching friend into his bedroom as he grunts in stifled pain. “You’re heavy,” he whines as he leans him against the side of the bed.

He pauses, staring at his friend with his hands hovering indecisively. “What are you wearing?” Izuku can smell a lot more blood than what’s on his face, and he’s worried how much is being hidden by all that black.

“Armor,” Murasaki replies with a half-slurred mutter, his fingers fumbling with a zipper on his side. Izuku bats his hand away and tugs it down, watching as the outer layer peels apart under the strain. A portion comes loose and Murasaki wriggles an arm to free it from a shoulder guard. Izuku helps him pull it off, then gasps at the sight of a protective undershirt fraying at the edge of a wound where something has sliced clean through both it and his skin.

The other shoulder guard comes off in the same manner, and Izuku’s left confused about how to get off the body-hugging material that’s underneath. No zippers, no fastenings.

Murasaki blinks and stares at the front of the shirt like he’s drunk for a full thirty seconds. “Scissors,” he finally says. “Or a knife. Can’t get out of it easily. Bitch,” he curses with irritation.

“You want me to cut your clothes off of you?” Izuku stares at him in disbelief.

“Just this,” he grumbles, plucking at the odd shimmering fabric.

Murasaki pulls a knife from a sheathe on his arm and-and what the heck why does he have a knife strapped to him?

“No, no put the knife away, I have safety scissors in the kit,” Izuku rambles. Holy heck, no, this is insane.

He slides the rounded tip of the shears against the top edge of the shirt’s collar and cuts through the shoulder, then again down his side.

“Fuck,” Murasaki complains as Izuku peels the fabric away from the wound. The cut pulls and fresh blood dribbles down his right oblique.

Izuku feels his heart rate skyrocket at the glorious sight of so much muscle but jesus christ there’s also a lot of blood.

(This is the best/worst day of his life.)

Izuku hastily tapes a wad of gauze to the wound, then has to cut the other side along the shoulder to get it loose from his chest. The fabric falls around his friend’s (perfectly trim and sculpted holy heck-) waist.

He gulps nervously and helps him out of more layers of his armor.

What the heck does he do that requires armor??

Wait. No.

He doesn’t want to know.

The less he knows, the better.

The less he knows, the less he’ll have to admit, if his friend is ever busted for like, vigilantism.

The less he knows, the less reason his neighbor will have to kill him if it turns out he’s one of the bad sorts of law breakers.

(Please let this coincidence, just be a coincidence, and he’s not actually a villain wanted for questioning and possibly murder.)

The armor is pulled off: quickly, efficiently, piece by piece. Boots, shin guards, knee pads, thigh holster (what the heck), hip holster (oh my god), more knife sheathes (surely someone has died this night), padded leggings-

Izuku stills with his hands over Murasaki’s hip as he spots another injury oozing blood. Ah, crap.

His flicks his gaze up to his friend, who is starting to look a little pale and sweaty, and grimaces.

It’s gotta be done.

“I need to take off your pants, or I can try cutting the fabric away from this injury,” he says, snipping his scissors with meaning.

“Jus’ take ‘em off,” he grumbles, leaning back to undo the waist latches.

Izuku casts his gaze skyward and begs for clarity of mind. There is no stopping the muttering that slips through his lips, now, as he complains about idiotic stubborn males that don’t understand reasonable actions regarding injuries and coming home with them and the importance of wearing underwear and if he isn’t he’s going to strangle him for being a terrible distraction at this pivotal moment in their lives-

Izuku has to cut through more of the protective bodysuit after his pants are undone.

Murasaki is, thankfully, wearing boxers, as Izuku does his best to wrangle the last scraps of the bodysuit away and then the padded leggings over his hips without also pulling off that last shred of clothing keeping Murasaki decent (and Izuku coherent).

He pulls his friend up into his bed and tucks towels under the edges of things that are still bleeding.

It’s fine. He’s…going to be fine. This could be worse.

He washes the cuts that he can find and pulls out the supplies he’ll need to put his friend back together. (He really wishes he’d gone to a hospital.)

His hands don’t shake (much) as he pulls the needle and thread through the edges of the long cut down Murasaki’s side.

His hands don’t shake as he carefully places suture strips across the four parallel cuts that are mere inches above the back of his right knee.

His hands don’t shake as he winds supportive bandaging around Murasaki’s left elbow and wrist.

But he has to lean over Murasaki’s reclining form, close to his face, to clean and dress the last cut over his eyebrow.

His hands shake a little as he holds pressure to the wound, his gaze flicking down to tired, violet eyes that are watching him work.

His hands shake a little as he lifts the gauze and carefully applies butterfly tape to the edges.

His hands shake a little as Murasaki gently grips his wrist. His friend has a peaceful smile dancing across his lips as he breathes out a soft sigh.

His hands shake as he traces his thumb across Murasaki’s cheek and down the violet stubble along the sharp line of his jaw.

His gaze drifts down to the blood still clinging to the edge of his mouth, and he gently wipes a corner of a damp cloth there to wash away the trace. His attention is riveted to that mouth for a moment, and then he looks over the relaxed face of his friend splayed out beneath him.

Izuku swallows, feeling a warm curl in his gut as he leans closer and their breaths mingle. He is going to kiss this handsome, devilish man. There’s an electric current of anticipation as he looks into those beautiful violet eyes and breathes out, “Murasaki…”

His friend’s brow furrows as he blinks once, lethargic. “No,” he whispers.

He pauses an inch away from his face. No?

Murasaki’s lips part on a little intake of air. Izuku’s heart stutters at the ghost of sensation against his mouth, and Murasaki manages to murmur, “no, ‘toshi,” before his eyes become unfocused and his lids flutter shut.

Izuku jerks back in surprise. What did he say?

His heart falls as he stares down at his friend with disbelief. Does he think I’m someone else?

He bites his lip with indecision, then strokes his thumb along his cheek. No response. Is he unconscious?

Shit.

"Hey. Murasaki." He gently pats his friend’s cheek.

“Murasaki,” he says again, louder.

“Mm,” he replies, his right eye opening a mere slit to peer up at him.

Izuku sags a little with relief. “Don’t go to sleep yet, okay?”

He hums quiet agreement as his eye slides shut again.

Izuku sighs, patting the cheek beneath his hand, frowning with consternation. “Murasaki, what’s your name?”

“Sneaky,” his friend whispers.

Oh geez. He blows the bangs out of his face. He needs to pin them back. “What’s my name?”

Murasaki cracks half a grin but doesn’t open his eyes.

Okay, that’s weird. Izuku rolls his head back and groans with irritation. “What are your cats’ names?”

Murasaki’s grin widens. “Honey bunny,” he belatedly croons, his mouth nearly slurring the words as he tries (and fails) to roll onto his side.

"That’s not-" Izuku protests. "You cannot call me that," he blurts with a red face, pulling away to give him space to roll over. He follows his shifting form with the towel in case his wound bleeds through the gauze and medical tape.

"Please be careful of the stitches," he says, quietly. Murasaki doesn’t reply.

He pulls off the surgical gloves and drops them in the pile of bloody towels at the foot of the bed. So much evidence to clean up, he thinks with a sigh. He settles on the bed at Murasaki's side, cross-legged, his face resting against his open palm as he skips his watchful gaze along his friend’s face. His tangled, blood-spattered hair. The soft brush of violet eyelashes against his cheeks. The little frown pulling at his lips.

Maybe it’s not someone else’s name. “Toshi?”

“Mm,” he hums sleepily in reply, then reaches out a hand to grip tightly at Izuku’s shirt. He tugs a little until Izuku scoots close enough for his friend to feel the warmth of his leg pressing gently against his side.

Izuku stares down at his friend as he relaxes in sleep, a soft smile blooming across his lips. Toshi.

(This is definitely the best worst night of Izuku’s life.)

(It’s fine.)

Izuku eventually pries Murasaki’s fingers from his shirt so he can escape for a glass of water and scroll on his phone in the living room, away from clingy friends that need their sleep.

There are more updates on the trouble earlier that night. Most of the suspects from the violent altercation were arrested and are being held for questioning. Two individuals that had been wanted for a string of local bank robberies were found dead, and police suspect they were killed by an unknown individual before the police and heroes arrived.

The warehouse fire was eventually smothered, but a neighboring building also caught fire and contained a large amount of flammable material that may or may not have been primed with explosives. Two separate explosions were reported. Five civilians died and another dozen were injured in the blasts.

Izuku frowns with worry for the families of those that were hurt or killed. He dreads the day he is or knows someone that has to receive that kind of news.

He’s unnerved by the knowledge that police are still looking for at least one unknown individual that remains at large and considered dangerous. He breathes out a long sigh as he reads further to see that three others are sought for questioning.

Izuku takes a very nervous sip of his water, looking down the hall at Murasaki’s room.

He lets his friend sleep for an hour before he nudges him back to consciousness. “Talk to me,” he demands, patting Murasaki’s cheek. (Toshi’s cheek. How soon can he start calling him that?)

"Tell me why I should," his friend grumbles.

"If you can talk to me for a little bit without problems, I’ll let you go back to sleep for however long you’d like," he promises. He leans closer and peers down into Murasaki’s eyes. His friend’s mouth twitches, and he purses his lips like he’s expecting a kiss.

"Maybe that’ll happen if you ask nicely," he murmurs. "Are you comfortable?"

“Hurts like a bitch,” he replies with a scowl.

“I can get you some medicine to help take the edge off. Any wounds I may have missed?”

“Don’t think so.”

Izuku prods him with little questions for the next few minutes as his friend clings to stubborn, frowning half-responses. Worried about his mood and state of mind, but less about his physical well-being now that he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have a major head injury, Izuku gives him a dose of pain relief medication with a glass of water so he can get back to sleep.

Izuku feeds the cats. They like him quite a lot. The ginger finds its way up onto Izuku’s shoulders and drapes itself over him like a stole. The tailless furbaby spends an entire hour purring and kneading its tiny murder mittens into Izuku’s thigh as he scrolls through more news updates about the previous night’s disastrous events. He dozes off for a few minutes here and there, but worry for his friend’s state has him jerking awake every so often.

As morning light trickles in around the edges of Murasaki’s blackout curtains, Izuku pulls them aside to see how much blood he’d missed the night before. Nothing too bad, but there’s a nasty smear along the balcony railing and sliding glass door that he’ll need to take care of.

As Izuku is stepping away from the balcony, he recognizes the dangling edge of Murasaki’s summer scarf at the top of the glass door. He steps outside and peers up at the length tangled around the ladder leading to the roof.

There’s brown spattered all over the dark grey fabric. Izuku suspects it’s dried blood.

(This whole thing keeps getting weirder and weirder.)

He climbs the ladder and gently untangles the strangely stiff material, then carries it with him inside the apartment. It’s heavier than it looks and does not gather together like he’d expect a scarf to behave. He opens the closet door where he’s hidden the rest of Murasaki’s armor (including that creepy-as-heck mask) and drops it on top of the stack.

In the light of day, the mask he’d pulled off of his friend’s face looks pretty intimidating. There’s a jagged gouge in the metal from some near-injury, or intentionally made to enhance the intimidation factor. Izuku would really dislike meeting that visage in a dark alley.

He closes the closet door. He doesn’t want to know.

He checks in on his friend, who is awake and staring at his heavily curtained window with a blank expression. “I’ll be back in a little while,” he whispers. Murasaki doesn’t even look in his direction. He seems to be upset or deep in thought. Izuku grips the edge the door a little tighter with worry. “Text if you need me to come back sooner,” he says, to more answering silence.

(It’s fine.)

Izuku quietly leaves the apartment for a shower and a change of clothes. He towel dries his wavy hair and pins back his bangs so he can see clearly once more, then escapes the building to get some air and pick up food he hopes his friend might be willing to eat.

When he slips back into Murasaki’s, he can hear his friend on the phone in his room. He sounds angry with whomever else is on the line. Izuku has never heard him sound like that before, and it drives home the understanding that he has been seeing (and pining over) the soft, warm side of someone who has dark secrets. Dangerous secrets.

(The kinds of secrets that involve guns and knives.)

Izuku is starting to get the feeling that even very hot neighbors can have dark sides that are scary enough to overcome the warmest of warm fuzzy feelings.

He’s very worried that his friend is one of the people that are wanted by the police in connection with the events of last night.

He’s very worried that his friend might be (by law if not by nature) a villain.

He turns his gaze toward Murasaki’s bedroom door where he can hear him angrily talking about bullshit betrayal and what he might do when he finds the person responsible.

He suppresses a shudder.

He’s not sure what to do about that.

Chapter Text

“What,” he growls. His face hurts. His everything hurts, and he’s pissed that someone got the drop on them.

“You alive?”

“I’m fine.”

“Some of the interrogations have brought new information to light. They knew we were coming,” his boss says on the other end of the line.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

There’s a brief pause. “The investigator’s missing,” his boss drops into the silence.

“Of fucking course he is,” he replies, knowing exactly where this is going.

“He knew about the bust coming up. The internal investigation team assumes he must be the source of the leak.”

“Uh huh,” he replies helpfully.

“His laptop and phone are missing, and we assume he has them with him. The investigation team is searching through server traffic to see if they can find anything useful about what he’s been up to for the last few weeks.”

Shinsou rolls his eyes. “Great. Fantastic.” He’s not in the mood for a chat. He doesn’t want to hear about what they’re trying to do. Not when he feels like a useless pile of nothing, wallowing in his bed with no clear direction of where to go or what to do.

“We got most of them, you know. It wasn’t a total loss.”

“If you say so.” He knows they didn’t get the most important targets. The fire destroyed a lot of valuable evidence they need to bring the group to justice. People were injured in the chaos. Good people, bad people, innocent bystanders that weren’t even part of the operation.

“We’ll keep in touch if we figure anything else out,” his boss says, then adds, “Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Right.” He disconnects the call without another word and drops his phone with disgust.

He wants to throttle the bastard responsible for this betrayal of their trust. He stares at his hands and makes fists, watching the fingers curl and uncurl as he grumbles about how far he can take his retribution before he gets in trouble for excessive force.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep, calming breath. His side aches and the cuts on his face sting. He stretches out his left arm, gently rolling the joints beneath the supporting bandages. He takes some more pain numbing medication and downs the glass of water Midori has left beside his bed.

His friend absolutely saved his ass last night.

His injuries weren’t enough to kill him (probably), but treating the wounds by himself would have been a nightmare with only one and a half working arms.

He imagines he would have had to eventually call the agency (or call in a favor with someone) to get a helping hand, and wouldn’t that have been hilarious.

Stubborn and grouchy Shinsou, finally admitting he needed some help.

(Nope.)

He rubs a hand through his hair, wincing as it pulls a little at the cut on his brow. He feels a little guilty that he’s been sulking in here all morning. He didn’t even respond to Midori, the fucking angel, when he stopped in earlier to check on him.

How is he ever going to make it up to this guy?

He’s damned tired and in a bit of pain. He gently slumps back into the pillows behind him, wondering how he’s going to bring up the conversation that they sorely need to have.

Midori saw a lot of shit last night that he shouldn’t have seen. He’s absolutely going to piece things together if he hasn’t already.

The mess is all over the news. He came home in his fucking hero costume, probably covered in blood.

And he just rolled with it.

Helped him into bed.

Patched him up.

Gave him stitches. (What kind of civilian knows how to do stitches?)

Brought him medicine.

Didn’t even demand answers despite the hundreds of questions he must have had.

There isn’t much he can do about the leak until they hunt down more information on the missing investigator.

There is nothing he can do about this mess of their case.

Angry, he stuffs his pillow over his face and tries to get some more sleep. He’s hoping his boss will have more information the next time he’s pulled from the oblivion of unconsciousness.

Some hours later, he wakes again. There’s a fresh glass of water on the bedside table. He stares at it for a full five minutes, wondering what he’s done in a prior life to deserve anything or anyone like Midori in his life.

He blinks when he realizes his laptop is at his side with the charge cable already plugged in. A small thermos filled with soup is behind the water. His phone is charging.

He swallows down a sudden lump in his throat and starts thinking about what kind of ring he’s going to propose with.

(After he introduces himself, of course.)

(Maybe at dinner, tonight. An introduction, followed by a proposal of marriage. Except he doesn't have a ring. He can get one later.)

He picks up his phone and stares at the locked screen.

He wants to send Midori a text expressing his profound gratitude.

He wants to tell him this is beyond anything he’d have ever expected.

He wants to beg for him to come spend the next few hours curled in his arms while he tells him everything about himself.

> thanks

yw <

> we need to talk

maybe it’s better if we don’t <

Okay, that’s a worrying answer. Hitoshi feels his stomach twist with discomfort at the thought that his friend-that-may-be-something-more is pulling away from him after one bad (and somewhat bloody) encounter.

> i’m not sure what you mean by that

I just don’t want to know anything <

Safer for us both, right? <

What the hell does he mean by that? Does he already know something about who he is and why he’s there?

> but you haven’t even learned my name

ofc that’s something I want to know <

> tonight then

Pad thai? <

> bring enough for us both

Feeling marginally better that he can expect to continue seeing his friend without having to track him down and tie him to a chair (and that’s quite a thought), he cracks open the thermos of soup and takes a sip.

He opens the document and frowns at the last of the fraud entries while he finishes his soup. There’s only a few pages left of those, and then it’ll move on to the more human aspect of this ridiculously large report. He’s both looking forward to and dreading what it will contain.

Hitoshi falls asleep while scrolling through the first few pages of victim profiles, feeling depressed about all the lives that get fucked every single day.

He’s startled awake by his phone ringing again. He peers blearily down at the screen to see who’s calling. It’s a bit after five, and he picks up the phone with a long sigh instead of a greeting.

“We may have found a break. A big one. I need everything you have on your side mission there, including any possible leads on who the mystery author is, or anyone that might know who they are.”

Shinsou feels a wave of dread sink deep into his chest. “Tell me what’s going on, first,” he demands. He’s still leaning on the idea that Midori might be involved, but the tone of his boss’s voice tells him something is very wrong. He doesn’t have any evidence to back up his suspicions, so he won’t say anything about what he thinks unless there’s a damned good reason.

“The writer has been in direct contact with the missing investigator at least a few times since we flagged the Twain alias, most recently this last week.”

Shinsou waits in silence for the rest, hearing the quiet shuffle of paperwork in the background of the call.

“Based on what we’re reading here, the writer sent in a pretty major lead on a cold case late Tuesday night. The Chief gave him clearance Wednesday morning to look into it, and that’s when he disappeared.”

His boss doesn’t have to spell it out. The investigator seems like the type of person to run full throttle after anything that might get them career advancement, but the timing with their other case is difficult to overlook.

“It’s possible the writer set up a trap and lured in our guy. Who knows if this is some blackmail revenge for shitty handling of what should have been great intel, or a power play to take out the competition.”

Good riddance to bad rubbish, Shinsou thinks, but dares not say.

“The investigator knew about the bust coming up. It’s all but guaranteed he’s our leak. Whether the writer was behind it or someone else, it still means we have a very big problem on our hands.”

Shinsou has read Twain’s reporting at length. He’s followed the lines of reasoning, the pattern identification, the dozens of programs and solutions outlined for reform instead of revenge.

It seems inconceivable that the author could have done something like lure in the idiot officer to get their hands on secret details of a police operation.

There is no sense behind it.

No clear motive.

Shinsou’s absently skimming more of the victim profiles, now, not even reading their names or the horrible things that have happened over the course of the writer’s investigations. He’s just glancing at all the faces of the people the writer has saved.

The writer can’t possibly be responsible for this shitstorm of a mess with the gang they were trying to take down, right?

There’s a splash of green.

A familiar face.

Shinsou freezes.

Stares.

Midoriya Izuku. Quirkless.

This is the face of the cute guy next door.

A little younger, his hair a little shorter.

The same wide green eyes.

Skittish. Anxious.

So desperate for a friend that he happily accepts his half-truths, his lies, and eats up his shameless flirting.

Midori.

He can’t believe for a moment that the name Midoriya Izuku is fake. No sane person would fake a quirkless identity, not even to collect damning information on a shitty company.

The joke of their nicknames is like a slap in the face.

He’d assumed it was him hiding his real name behind a play on color like he’d done first.

But it isn’t, which means his “real name” Akatani Mikumo (Quirk: Vert) is an alias.

He pulls up a translation service on his phone and types in vert.

It means green.

(Hitoshi wants to facepalm so hard, but his various wounds say in unison, ‘Please do not.’)

If he has one alias, he might have others.

His boss is saying something, but he can’t hear it past the static in his head.

Quirkless.

“Wait, stop talking,” he says, feeling numb. His boss trails off and waits for him to speak.

Hitoshi knows enough about quirkless individuals to realize this is a humongous break in their case. Someone smart, hiding behind an alias, because he knows no one will take him seriously without a quirk, just like he’s probably been stepped on, ignored, and overlooked for his entire life.

Holy shit.

“I don’t have any supporting evidence, but I think I know who the writer might be, or at the very least they know the writer.” (He very much realizes that Midori is likely the writer, but he doesn't want to back himself into a corner of absolutes.)

“Great, bring them in immediately. We need to get to the bottom of this before the Commission catches wind of how badly this has been fucked. The agency has lost a lot of credibility with this leak and the subsequent fallout.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” Shinsou replies, feeling a bone-deep weariness.

“You don’t really have much of a choice in this matter. You can bring them in today for questioning, or we can remove you from the case and send in a team to finish what you’ve started.”

His patience in regards to the entire ordeal has been hanging on a razor-thin wire all day, and this is the final straw.

Shinsou feels his blood pressure skyrocket. “Fuck, no!” He doesn’t care that he’s shouting now.

He’s incensed.

They trusted him to get this job done, and he’s not going to just drag his friend in to be questioned by the police without any evidence when they have a pretty good idea of where else they need to start looking: this cold case lead that resulted in the investigator’s disappearance.

“No. I’ve been hanging around for weeks to find out more about this guy. I don’t think he has any friends that-“

“Now hold on a second. I don’t care how long you’ve been working that case, but if I feel like you’re too close to what’s going on or that we need a fresh set of eyes on this mess, then you’ll listen to my advice. There’s more that we can find out with very few questions. It doesn’t have to be anything big.”

Shinsou deflates, but he’s not going to budge much on the stance of bringing in Midori for questioning. Fuck, he’ll ask the questions himself from the privacy of their apartment. "You’re right, there’s more I could be missing, but I’m telling you, he’s-"

His boss cuts him off again. “Shinsou. I get it. If you think the other lead we have is worth following first, I’ll trust you, for now. We have got to get the investigator back in for questioning to clear up any doubts about the person you’re trying so hard to protect.” There’s a long moment of silence on both sides of the call.

Shinsou thinks to deny the accusation, but the knowledge that he’d fire back and stand his ground against his boss’s orders to keep Midori safe from anyone that might want to hurt him flickers like a warm fire in his chest.

He wants so badly to protect his friend.

Everything is starting to fall into place. Midori has no contacts and no social life. A lot of spare time on his hands.

The question earlier in the week where he’d been stuck on which job to take makes him cringe. Could that have been about their case? Building information for the enemies to use against them for a bigger payout upon success?

“Tell me if our agency reached out for the writer's help in the upcoming case.”

“No.”

Relief floods through him at his boss's reply. That scratches off one possibility. The only ‘other side’ that would be paying less would be a legit request from his agency to provide planning support.

He thinks back further.

Questions about his name.

Hints of questions about his quirk.

If Midori is the writer, and he can get his hands on all kinds of information to build his reports…

Midori wanted to know who his neighbor was and had very little information to go off of.

Shinsou licks his lips, flicking his gaze around the room as his mind races. “I assume the writer doesn’t have access to underground hero profiles, because I’ve never seen one mentioned in any of the action plans.”

“Correct. The clearance level and security safeguards keep that information out of almost everyone’s hands.”

The cold case report was sent on Tuesday night.

Wednesday afternoon, Midori had been relieved to see him.

Thursday morning, he’d been in tears to find him safe and sound at his doorstep.

Clinging like he thought something awful had happened.

Had heard news.

“Tell me about that lead on the cold case,” he demands, feeling a sudden sense of dread for an entirely different reason.

Shinsou spends the next ten minutes staring at his bedroom wall in a mild state of shock, his jaw hanging open as his boss skims the details they’ve pulled from the server.

He knows exactly who that cold case is for.

And the report the investigator received clearly indicates the lead could be a trap.

To take a team.

To go in prepared.

“That officer is a fucking idiot,” Shinsou growls.

His boss sounds a little hesitant. “Yeah, reading the whole thing does kind of drive home that maybe the writer didn’t want our guy caught up.” There’s a long sigh on the other end of the line.

(There’s a similarly long sigh in Shinsou’s bedroom as he rubs at the bridge of his nose.)

“The vehicles have tracking devices,” he starts. There has to be another way to find where the investigator has gone and question him first without involving Midori.

“They do. The investigator’s vehicle has been parked at the edge of an old suburb for the last two days. We have an officer canvassing the neighborhood to look for anything suspicious, but there are too many houses.”

“Send me the address where the investigator’s car has been parked. I think I might know where to start looking.”

“Do you want backup?”

Shinsou firms his expression. “I’ll let you know when I’m getting close. Send a team to hang out in the neighborhood for any cleanup action. I need to approach this one alone.”

“There are plans in the report, for a team takedown.”

“Yes, which the villain likely has seen and is prepared for.”

His boss grumbles in agreement. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Shinsou breathes out a laugh. “Me too.”

Chapter Text

Izuku stares down at his phone and chuckles. Nervously.

Murasaki (Toshi, he reminds himself with a little smile) wants to talk.

Shit.

Is this where I die?

Surely I’ve left enough offerings to appease the villain-gods.

That’s a lie. They weren’t offerings to appease a villain. He just cares too much about his friend to leave him hanging when he’s hurting, even if he’s a little (a lot) intimidating.

It also doesn’t hurt that he’s exceptionally hot. But Izuku knows better, now, than to just blindly lust over his (hot) neighbor.

There’s very real danger in playing with fire. (And that’s a lot of fire.)

He politely declines answers to any of the questions that are most definitely buzzing in the back of his brain. But an offer of a name, well, that’s a different story.

(He’ll just cover his ears and sing annoying songs if it looks like he’s going to try and share any other incriminating information. He’d really rather live in happy ignorance when it comes to that man, thank you very much.)

Izuku has a favorite place for pad thai. He barely refrains from skipping down the sidewalk as he carries his hefty to-go box back to the building. If Murasaki (Toshi) doesn’t like this, he will eat all of it by himself, no sweat, in two days flat. (Or less.)

(He really hopes he likes it.)

(It feels a little bit like a date with his scary hot neighbor.)

(Maybe this time he’ll actually get a kiss. And a name.)

(And maybe…)

(Maybe he’ll share his, too.)

He slips into his friend’s apartment via balcony like he has been since the night before. One day they might exchange keys, but until then…

Murasaki is on the phone in his room.

Izuku walks over to the kitchen and sets the box on the counter, then heads toward the bedroom door so he can politely interrupt his call with a dinner announcement, and hopefully avoid another few hours of blank-and-moody Murasaki.

“Fuck, no!” his friend near-shouts. “I’ve been hanging around for weeks to find out more about this guy.”

Izuku freezes in the hallway, his hand inches from Murasaki’s door.

“I don’t think he has any friends that-“ his voice cuts out for a moment.

Izuku takes a slow step backward, swallowing hard against the tightness in his throat. No.

“You’re right, there’s more I could be missing, but I’m telling you, he’s-“

Izuku turns right around and slips quietly from his friend’s

his acquaintance’s

his neighbor’s apartment.

He’d been wrong all along.

Or right all along.

Whichever.

He’s hurt that the whole friendly thing was just to get more information out of him.

He knows some people would want revenge on him, maybe even some groups of unsavory people, depending on how many people he may have pissed off with his digging, but to think they’d found him and just surveilled under the guise of friendship?

(Very cute friendship.)

They’d figured out all the buttons to press, to get in through his defenses and make him talk too much, to reveal details he should never have spoken.

That man had wormed his way into his heart, made him give a damn about someone who would probably toss him as soon as he had the information he was after.

How could he have been so blind?

He can’t believe he had been so easily infatuated with a pretty face. So, so many red flags that he’d been seeing and he just went with it, knowing he was digging himself into trouble.

He knew this guy was trouble, and he didn’t care enough about himself to think about what it could actually mean.

He swallows back the self-disgust. Maybe he’d actually been under the effect of his neighbor’s quirk the whole time, lulled into a false sense of security that someone other than his mother cared for him.

It’s all he’s good for, anyways.

Information.

He doesn’t stick around long enough to hear more of the phone conversation. He doesn’t want to hear anything else that might dig that knife a bit deeper, and he definitely doesn’t want to get caught eavesdropping on someone running a long-con against him.

The tone of the phone call makes him think whoever had hired his neighbor must be running short on patience. He might not have long to make his escape. He snags his laptop and stuffs it into a backpack, grabs a few changes of clothes and stuffs it into the front pocket. He tugs loose the false bottom of a drawer and pulls out a zippered pouch containing an emergency stash of cash and an alternate form of identification.

After his last escape to stay at the hotel -was that only a week ago? He should have left for real- he’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to dip into his emergency drawer again so soon.

His burner phone is dead from disuse, but he has a charger and powerbank in his backpack that will fix that quickly enough.

He doesn’t give himself time to think about what he's about to throw away.

How long might it be until he can venture back to the city to see his mother? He tucks the false-bottom back into place and covers it carefully with his clothing, then places his possibly-compromised phone on his nightstand.

There’s something different about it this time. Before, he’d been worried that his single job might be stopped somehow. He hadn’t really looked at the bigger picture, and had been too hopeful that he’d just seen too many weird coincidences and that it would all be fine.

(Ha. It's fine.)

Hearing Murasaki’s voice sound so angry, knowing he has all of those weapons and might be wanted by police, gives him a serious chill of danger.

He’s so fucked.

Unless he makes himself scarce.

Gone.

Cuts ties.

Disappears.

He quietly pushes the mattress askew, rips the bedding aside, then sets the nightstand lamp on its side to look as though it has been knocked over. He unlocks the window and slides it open, then stuffs his hat on his head so he can run. Again.

He leaves his apartment in a silent hurry, locking the front door behind him.

With luck, Murasaki will think someone else has gotten to him first. Makes sense - if he's being chased by one bad guy, then odds are they aren't the only ones. He’ll have time to regroup and consider his next move.

Maybe he should travel, now that his home is no longer safe.

And then he pauses with realization. He should go to the authorities.  He could, but all he has are suspicions and a lot of awful coincidences, including the bloody mess of last night matching up with that major bust that had been on the news. He really worries this is the guy (or one of the guys) the police are worried about. At large, considered dangerous.

Suspicions aren’t enough, though.

Worries aren’t enough.

He doesn’t even know the guy’s quirk.

…But he does have the contact information for that eager investigator that tracked down his last lead. He’d been extremely happy to report his success. He might be willing to overlook the distinct lack of concrete evidence in this particular case to assuage an analyst’s possibly unfounded worries.

Izuku wants to cry. He’d seen so much of Murasaki that it had been easy to imagine that he’s just some guy down on his luck, maybe a soft-hearted criminal, the kind that had a rough time and had just turned to a life of crime for unknown reasons. He’d even been briefly convinced that he could be a vigilante, trying to make things better even if the law didn’t support his methods.

The news loves a good vigilante story. They’re usually money-making headlines, but last night’s news didn’t mention anything about a vigilante’s involvement. It was Villains versus Heroes. Criminals versus Police. Many people had been hurt.

Murasaki could no longer be considered a sweet-natured vigilante and had gotten a direct upgrade to probably-a-villain.

There are plenty of law-breakers out there that don’t deserve the evil rep that media plasters onto them, and he’d truly hoped his neighbor could be one of them.

But the betrayal of his trust like this, leading him on to think they were friends, absolutely tosses that hope out the sixth-floor window of his apartment, and it has splattered messily on the concrete.

He shudders and hurries quietly down the stairwell, his dark hoodie pulled up over his hat so he’s a little less recognizable as he ducks through the empty lobby and slips out the side entrance.

He leans forward into an easy jog and makes it ten blocks away before he dares to dig out his burner phone and plug it into the powerbank. He walks another two blocks toward the train station before the screen lights up.

The investigator doesn’t answer, and Izuku is caught between disconnecting the call or leaving a cryptic voicemail. He’s not sure who else might entertain his story of maybes and suppositions, so he leaves a brief message using his fake analyst handle that he might have a lead on a person of interest and to please call him back at the number he provides.

He’s spent a long time hiding himself online, and he worries now that his greatest mistake has been to stay in the city so close to his mother.

If he’s been followed one of the times he’s gone to visit with her, then she might be in danger. He screws his eyes shut tight and leans against the building at his side for a moment as his heart sinks.

He has to hope that the police will help protect his mother from whomever Murasaki is working for, or maybe this whole thing will blow over before it even has a chance to begin.

The investigator calls him back within a few minutes, and he sags with relief. The person on the other end of the call doesn’t want to hear the details about the criminal (villain?) next door.

“The line’s not secure,” he claims. Izuku completely understands. He is given an address a short distance north of the police station and is told someone will be by to get him shortly, and they’ll debrief him once they’re someplace safer.

Izuku tucks his hands into his pockets and glances over his shoulder at the distant lights of the building he used to call home, disappointment curling through him.

His eyes burn a little, but he promises himself he’ll cry about it, later. (Hopefully not in front of the police.)

He loiters at the indicated meeting spot for only about twenty minutes when a car pulls up. The window next to the driver’s seat descends, revealing a bored driver wearing dark sunglasses and a baseball cap. He lifts an eyebrow as he asks, “Twain?”

When Izuku nods, the driver shrugs and gets out to open the back door for him to see the investigator already sitting at the far end of the back seat. He gives a polite nod of thanks and climbs in.

He slumps a little in the seat next to the taller guy, feeling like he might be safe now that he’s caught up with the authorities. He just hopes they aren’t going to be too annoyed with his use of an alias.

The investigator says nothing, doesn’t even introduce himself. He just sits there blankly with his hands on his knees as the driver closes the door behind Izuku.

Izuku leans forward a little to see the guy’s face better as the driver sits behind the wheel and puts the car in drive. “Cuff him,” the driver says as the car lurches forward, and Izuku’s heart leaps into his throat. His hand is already on the door latch to let himself out of the car, and he’s not surprised at all to discover the blasted thing is locked.

The other man reaches in his direction, unsteady and sluggish, but Izuku has little room to maneuver and struggles against his fumbling iron grip. He’s reacting weird, with little self-preservation as Izuku manages to elbow him in the face and kick his foot into the guy’s crotch. (He doesn’t even cry out in pain. What.)

Cold metal clicks around his right wrist and Izuku pushes forward to try and squeeze through the gap between the front seats to get to the front passenger door, but his backpack gets snagged on something and the driver starts helping to restrain against Izuku’s escape attempt.

The other cuff clicks with finality against his left wrist.

Izuku’s pushed into the back seat with a smarting cheek and an ache along his side from the struggle.

(This is absolutely not how he had pictured this going.)

(For such a smart guy, he’s an idiot.)

The police station is less than four blocks south of their current position.

They are not driving south.

Izuku looks over at the other guy in the back seat for much of the eerily quiet drive. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t blink once. And his dead-eyed gaze would make him think he’s actually dead if he didn’t see him breathing.

Thirty minutes later, the driver gets out and bodily drags Izuku from the backseat, then says over his shoulder, “Go park in the usual spot and come directly back here.”

The dead-eyed male gets out of the back seat and lumbers around the car to climb behind the wheel before driving away in the night.

They’re in an ancient neighborhood, the kind where the buildings are oftentimes condemned, grass has overgrown the sidewalks, and windows are boarded up.

There are a few residents living nearby, but it’s late in the evening, and the iron grip around Izuku’s throat promises pain if he tries anything stupid.

Something was definitely wrong with the investigator, and Izuku realizes what it is about two seconds after the driver pushes him through the front door of a nondescript home.

He pulls off his baseball cap and tosses it onto a nearby table, revealing a floaty fluff of ash-blonde hair.

Oh, no. Izuku screws his eyes closed as soon as the man turns in his direction.

The villain laughs.

There’s a shuffling sound and the scraping of a heavy chair across a wooden floor, and then a hand harshly grabs Izuku’s jaw, pressing his fingertips into his cheeks hard enough for him to feel the pain of his flesh grinding against his teeth. “You are an absolute thorn in my side,” the villain growls directly in his face. Izuku still has his eyes shut tight.

He can’t. He won’t risk falling under this guy’s control.

He can’t.

“I don’t even know who you are,” Izuku complains. “What could you possibly want with me?”

The villain sighs, squeezing Izuku’s jaw so hard that he’s sure it’ll bruise. “You’re an idiot if you think I’d believe you’re innocent in all this. How would you know to keep your eyes closed, otherwise?”

Izuku scowls. “Just because I know what your quirk is doesn’t mean I’m anyone that you’d need to bother with.”

The villain chuckles and releases him with a shove so that he stumbles into the chair that’s right behind his calves. He loses his balance and falls on his butt into the seat with a huff of surprise.

“Tell me what you’ve found while we were gone,” the villain says, and Izuku pushes back the overwhelming urge to look for the person he’s talking to.

Someone starts reciting random technical facts about the Hero Network.

The villain sighs with aggravation. “No, I mean about Twain. What have you found about Twain?”

The person rattles off information about a case opened by one of the agencies. His alias has been flagged by the authorities for notifications as a person of interest since one of his reports sent in months ago. Izuku cringes and shrinks in on himself.

Of course.

He should have known better than to expect people would believe he’s just a good guy doing good things.

Maybe he should have spent more time crafting a better alias, but he hadn’t thought anyone would actually go digging into his credentials to prove or disprove who he claims to be.

The person dropping details mentions the café router history, and Izuku feels a chill creep up the back of his neck.

He has fucked up so badly.

His alias is attached to dozens of jobs ranging from villain profiles and capture plans to recommendations for security overhauls. His alias is also attached to a stupidly large hiring bounty that seems to get bigger every time he sees it.

A good chunk of the stuff he’s been into for the last few years is spouted with crystal clarity as Izuku slumps in his seat.

Someone else enters the house and closes the door with a hefty slam.

The villain calls out a cheery, “Ah, welcome back. Come in here and cuff him to his chair, will you?”

Izuku tries to struggle against the arm suddenly holding him in place and the cold hands that are moving around his cuffs, but he’s terrified what will happen if he opens his eyes to see what he’s fighting back against. Blindly swinging his clenched fists, he manages to pop someone in the jaw, but he’s rewarded with a blow to the side of the head that leaves a stinging sharp pain.

His hands are locked into place against the left armrest and he scowls in growing irritation.

He gets the impression that someone is perched right in front of him, and he's confident it’s the villain sitting right in his line of sight.

“Now then, I’d like to discuss the terms of your surrender.”

“No, thanks,” Izuku replies.

The villain hums thoughtfully, and there’s an ominous pause as the villain gets up and walks away for a moment. Izuku hears a quiet shing as something metallic scrapes against a nearby surface.

“How about this. You can either open your eyes and look at me while I talk to you, or…”

The point of something very sharp touches the top of his thigh and presses in just far enough to hurt like a bitch. He gasps in pain but holds his eyes shut tight.

It’s not enough to seriously wound, not yet, but the promise of violence is there, hanging in the air as the warmth of his blood spreads across the fabric of his pants.

“…Or I can take this knife and remove your eyes from your skull.”

Well, when you put it like that… Izuku isn’t sure what a mind-controlling villain would have him do that could be worse than having his eyes cut out with a knife.

(He really hopes he doesn’t have to find out.)

The villain says to someone, “Hold his hair, will you? I don’t want to make too much of a mess.”

Izuku is terrified.

Can he hold out against this?

Should he hold out against this?

He doesn’t want to just hand over the reins to his life to this maniac that gets whatever the heck he wants.

A fist grabs his hair. A clammy hand presses over his temple. A blade rests cold and sharp against his cheek below his right eye. The tip nicks the fragile skin there and a bead of blood drips down his cheek like a macabre tear.

I’m sorry mom, he thinks. He hopes this isn’t the worst mistake of his life.

Izuku snaps his eyes open to see the grinning face of someone that looks vaguely like his neighbor. His royal purple eyes aren't nearly as pretty, though the pale pupils are unmistakable. 

There’s a weirdly familiar tingle that skitters up the back of his skull.

And then the villain’s grin slides right off his face as Izuku starts talking.

Chapter Text

After Shinsou hangs up with his boss, he’s feeling marginally lighter now that so many things are making sense. He carefully slips out of bed and opens his bedroom door. The scent of pad thai hangs strongly in the air, and he pauses in the hallway.

There’s a large to-go box on the kitchen counter. He strides over to it and touches the lid.

It’s still warm.

There’s a vaguely unsettling sensation creeping up his throat as he calls out, “I hope you didn’t expect me to eat all this by myself, Midori.”

He’s not really expecting an answer. Midori has been in and out of his apartment since late last night.

But he’s dropped off food, recently, so he shouldn’t be far.

He pulls out his phone and sends him a text.

> i hope this humongous box isn’t just for me

> bring enough for us both

> means you help me eat it

> i have to watch my girlish figure

He watches for any notification that his messages have been read.

Five minutes go by.

Nothing.

> i think i tore one of my stitches

> plz send help

No response. His messages remain unopened.

It might actually be nothing, he thinks, his gaze flicking over to the balcony door. He slips outside and peeks around the corner to see if Midori is home. The lights are off.

The bedroom window is open.

His eyes narrow as he leans in through the window frame.

The room is in shambles.

What the fuck.

(Hitoshi does not panic.)

He moves quickly (with his heart in his throat) to slip in through the open window, taking in the sight of everything wrong.

Who?

What?

Midori’s phone lights up on his nightstand, and Hitoshi rushes over to the illuminated device to see his message notifications pop up as a reminder that they’ve yet to be opened.

His attention flicks around the room, looking for any other details he may have missed.

Nothing else is disturbed. No signs of blood. The front door is still locked. Aside from the open window, no signs of forced entry.

The pad thai was still warm. He had to have been here within the last twenty minutes.

He hadn’t heard anything. Was this going on while he was yelling at his boss over the phone?

His phone pings a new message. He knows it can’t possibly be Midori, but his heart leaps with anticipation anyways as he whips it out of his pocket.

> That car is on the move.

> It passed within one mile of your location

He stares down at the message, his mind racing.

There is no way that in the short time he was distracted with a phonecall that Midori was snatched straight out of his bedroom via the window. It’s right next to his balcony door. And a very short distance from his own bedroom window.

Any sounds of struggle would have been immediately obvious.

Unless…

Unless that cold case villain and the missing investigator…

Unless they found their way here.

Mind control quirks are ridiculously powerful.

His expression darkens.

A glance out of the window, a single meeting of eyes, and he’d be lost.

Fuck.

Hitoshi rushes back to his apartment to prepare for the worst. Why the fuck would they want to take Midori?

Revenge? Money?

He drops a hand against his side with a grimace. There’s a damp spot, and his fingers come away with a little smear of blood. Great. He’s already bleeding through the bandage and will probably have to get his injuries taken care of all over again after this mess is sorted out.

(Hopefully he’ll have his friend back soon to help him with that.)

It takes two minutes of throwing open cabinets and doors before he finds where Midori stashed all of his gear.

The bulletproof bodysuit is trash now, but the rest of his gear is mostly serviceable, if a little (a lot) bloodstained. It still reeks of smoke and gunpowder.

The mask - he blinks down at the faceplate. It has seen better days. It works, but it won’t collapse. He hooks it over his neck and loops his bloodstained capture weapon around his shoulders. Fuck, he thinks as he glances at his macabre reflection in the mirror. He looks like some kind of psycho killer from a horror flick.

He runs a hand through his hair with a deep sigh. If Midori saw him looking like this last night, he’s surprised he hadn’t run away at the first opportunity.

(Or did he?)

(Is what he found in the bedroom some kind of ruse?)

Before he leaves his apartment to find his wayward (or missing and fuck please not kidnapped or injured or worse) boyfriend friend, he puts the pad thai in the fridge.

One way or another, he’s going to drag that man back here so they can have dinner together.

Shinsou recognizes the address that his boss has sent over. The neighborhood is old. It was old even when he was a kid.

He hasn’t been to this part of the city in a long time. A decade, at least. There are two old houses next door to each other that he’d hoped he’d never see again, filled with enough bad memories that they fueled his nightmares for years.

He’d gotten out a long time ago and sworn he’d never come back, yet now he’s walking back in.

The house on the left is empty, as he’d expected it to be, but he had to check.

The house on the right has a light on, probably the kitchen, and it glints dully through a gap in the boards covering what used to be the living room window.

He wonders how they have any lights on at all. This section of the neighborhood looks especially bad.

He circles around the side of the building, looking for any entrance besides the front door. The windows are all boarded. He can see through a tiny gap along the eastern wall into an aging and rotted bathroom, but he’ll never be able to fit in that way.

The front door, it is.

Its hinges have always ominously creaked, and tonight it’s no different as he pushes the door open.

There’s no use attempting a silent approach, but he’s wary as he slips inside.

If he takes five steps to the left, he’ll be standing in the light spilling through the kitchen entryway where he can see the shadow of someone standing.

He takes three steps and stops near the wall to listen.

“Ah, I was wondering if he’d make an appearance,” a familiar voice says from around the corner. “If the hero makes any sudden movements, shoot the kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” another familiar voice grumbles with irritation.

Shinsou peeks around the edge of the open doorway and takes quick stock of the four people in the room.

Midori is handcuffed to a chair in the middle of the room, scowling over at someone on the other end of the kitchen. He’s bleeding in a few places, but otherwise looks mostly intact.

The person he’s glaring at has shockingly bright purple hair and is sitting at a desk, hands flying over the keyboard of Midori’s laptop as they stare blankly at the screen.

The missing investigator stands to one side with a similarly blank expression, a handgun pointed at Midori’s face.

The villain behind this mess is standing a foot behind them with his arms crossed.

He smirks and says, “Come on in here and join the party, Hitoshi.”

Shinsou’s face twitches in irritation as he turns his attention to his angry neighbor and steps into sight.

The villain cackles once he gets a good view of Shinsou’s blood-spattered costume. “Don’t you look the part today! What have you been doing?”

Shinsou ignores him, looking over his friend’s appearance with a critical gaze.

He’d fully expected to walk in here and find everyone under control. To see Midori clear-eyed and grouchy about the circumstances is a little weird.

The other two standing in the room are clearly afflicted, docile like puppets until their master pulls the strings.

He doesn’t believe his friend has done anything wrong, but he has to know for sure. He wants to hear him confirm it.

(And if he’s just been caught in the crossfire of coincidence and bad luck, maybe he can keep him from seeing the inevitable violence that will break out in a moment once he has to start fighting to save his life.)

Midori glares up at him, and he wonders, briefly, if he is mad at the situation or at something he’s done.

He hopes there will be time, later, to ask.

He glances at the others in the room, then meets those bright green eyes. “Are you working with them?”

“Don’t answer that,” the villain sneers down at him.

Midori grits his teeth and rattles his wrists against the metal armrest, where both of his hands have been cuffed to one side. “Does it look like I’m working with him?” he replies, incensed.

Shinsou’s quirk activates upon Midori’s response, then slides right off as Midori continues to complain, “That asshole over there is breaking into all of my files, and I am not okay with this.”

He blinks in surprise. What the fuck?

The villain glances at the investigator standing to the side. “Hit him,” he commands, and Shinsou winces as the side of the weapon smacks against the back of Midori’s head.

He flinches forward away from the blow with a harsh exclamation of pain and hunches over to rub the side of his face against his cuffed hands. He eventually sits back up and grumbles irritably, “You guys are a bunch of jerks.”

“Couldn’t have you falling under that little spell of his, just in case.” The villain seems amused at Midori’s reaction and flicks a casual glance in Shinsou’s direction.

“Why are you here?” Shinsou demands of the one in charge. “You swore you’d retired and that we’d never see you again.”

The villain scoffs, meeting Shinsou’s angry gaze. He can feel his quirk Hypnotize sliding into his thoughts, but it takes no effort to shake his hold. “I was enjoying my retirement.”

Shinsou’s quirk activates at his response but can’t get a grip on the villain’s mind.

Their abilities are too similar, and they’ve both had plenty of practice learning how to counter the catch.

“Five years of bliss in a tropical paradise, minding my own business,” he sighs dramatically. “Imagine my surprise when someone,” he glares down at Midori who’s glowering at nothing in particular, “cracked open that cold case and started asking questions. People too close to my circle of comfort started noticing.”

He throws his hands up in irritation and begins pacing a small path behind Midori.

“I couldn’t have my retirement plans ruined by some bored analyst, so I made myself available to tie up any new loose ends.”

Midori breathes out a long sigh of irritation, his messy hair fluttering around his eyes with the exhalation.

“And the investigator that thought to arrest me practically walked into my hands,” he stops with a grin, nodding at the blank-faced male that’s once more staring at Shinsou, waiting for him to make some kind of idiotic move that’ll get Midori killed.

“Because some idiots fail to follow instructions,” Midori grumbles, rolling his eyes.

The villain continues to monologue, clearly enjoying his big reveal. “And he has so much access to interesting cases that are in progress. It’s too easy to just walk into someone’s hideout and help myself to whatever they have. Money, weapons, technology? All for the taking.” He looks incredibly proud of himself. “And then I found this delightful little hacker with the last group that could get me into even more information,” he waves a hand at the purple-haired person sitting blank-faced behind them.

“Best of all, I ended up spoiling one of your cases in the process, didn’t I, nephew?” he grins with delight.

Midori’s mouth falls open in surprise, and he scowls up at Shinsou with clear disappointment. “Is that why you’re here? Your uncle beat you to the punch and your employer wants to make sure they get a return on their investment?”

Shinsou is taken aback. That’s a really weird way to describe his assignment. The confusion on his face must be clear, but Midori narrows his eyes with suspicion and glances away. What the hell is he thinking?

“The most amusing part of all of this? This one dragged me out of retirement because he was trying to figure out who you are. I thought I’d hidden myself so well, cleaned my tracks and killed all the traces. No one cared to try and find me anymore. No one cared about me anymore, but someone cared about you.”

His uncle sneers, pacing again along the length of the room as he begins to mutter. It’s not nearly endearing as the few times he’s heard Midori drop off into one of his quiet mumbling rants. “You, again. Always you getting in the way, ruining my plans. You couldn’t just play along and fall in line. You had to be special. Had to be a hero.”

Shinsou’s insistence to not follow in his footsteps was the reason his uncle finally left to retire. A crueler man might have killed a stubborn nephew, but Shinsou supposes there was enough humanity left in the egotistical bastard to have spared his life when he was too young to fight back.

They’re clearly at a standoff for now, with Midori in the most immediate danger. Shinsou watches his uncle’s pacing with growing concern. “So what do you want?”

“I want to get back to my retirement.”

“You may have crossed too many lines this time, uncle. I don’t think I can let you leave.”

His uncle laughs. “Oh, I understand that much. But you don’t really have much leverage here, do you? I hold all the pieces.”

Shinsou takes a steadying breath. A click of his comms will pull in the backup that’s lingering in the area, but he can't call them in until his uncle's quirk is out of the picture.

“Regardless of retirement, though, this one has caused me troubles, and I think some recompense is in order. Did you know there’s a bounty for his retainment that has tripled in value over the last year?”

Midori sighs and rolls his eyes. “That retainment fee is only granted if you can get the person to sign a contract.”

The villain smirks. “I don’t think that’ll be much of a problem.”

“Right, because your quirk will make me do things whether I want to or not. Like it worked so well when you kidnapped me off the street.”

His uncle sneers down at the back of Midori’s head, his fist raised with invisible warning.

“Don’t hit him. It won’t help anything,” Shinsou says, wondering how the hell he’s going to get Midori out of the line of fire.

“Might shut his damned mouth for a minute. He hasn’t shut up since he arrived.”

Midori’s lips lift in vague amusement, but Shinsou can suddenly tell he’s only been paying partial attention. His hands are loosely clenched together as they twitch in their cuffs, and Shinsou realizes Midori’s hair is much more messy than he’s gotten used to seeing.

Where are his bobby pins?

“As soon as I couldn’t catch him with my quirk, he started talking about it like I’m some kind of science project. Question after question, observations out the ass. Wouldn’t shut up about it until you walked through the door.”

Shinsou’s eyebrows raise with disbelief.

Midori turns pink.

He slides a bored gaze to the investigator that’s still staring him down.

“So, what’s your plan, then? You can’t just order me around like one of these lackeys. And you clearly want to keep your little hostage for some kind of payout, though that makes zero sense if you’re able to talk anyone into giving you whatever you want.”

“He’s of use to me whether I get a payout or not. He knows a lot of shit, and I’m willing to bet good money that there are a lot of people out there who’d like to get their hands on him or his work.”

He flicks his head over to the person clicking through Midori’s computer. “They’re pulling up so much information, too. So many files, everything so nicely documented. It’s a veritable gold mine.”

Midori clenches his jaw with anger.

“And once he’s taken care of, one way or another, I slide back into retirement and don’t have to think about the one that interrupted my vacation plans.”

Shinsou blinks. “What the hell do you expect to happen? You think I’m going to just let you walk out of here?” He’s incredibly lucky that his uncle doesn’t know how much he’s willing to risk to keep Midori safe. All he knows is that he’s at a bit of a stalemate if he wants to keep his winnings intact.

His uncle tilts his head, considering. “I was expecting to take off with a handful of new toys and money for my trouble. I have a ticket already chartered.” He sighs, but he doesn't sound too troubled. “I wasn’t expecting to get my hands on this particular bounty, though, so my plans had to be changed.” He pats the top of Midori’s green hair. “Now that you’re here, throwing a wrench into my ideas once more-”

Shinsou interrupts him, “Maybe, if you’d like to avoid being caught by your estranged family members, you should stop using your old house as a hideout.”

His uncle purses his lips. “Nephew, I can do whatever I damned well please, and most everyone cannot and will not tell me no.”

“Until they do,” Midori mutters.

His uncle chooses to ignore the comment. “Anyways, now that you’re here, I have to adjust my plans. Again. I’m willing to compromise, though, for expediency.”

“You mean so you don’t get your ass kicked,” Midori mutters, and this time he gets the sharp strike of a knuckle to the back of the skull.

Shinsou doesn’t like that his friend has gotten hurt, but his angry scowl is not as threatening as he probably thinks it is. He breathes out a soft chuckle. “Okay, let’s hear this compromise of yours.”

“I’ll give you back your little investigator so he can face the music for all the regulations he ignored. There are two computers and the gang’s little hacker sitting right here, and the evidence I took from your failed bust is bagged in the closet with a pile of money and some other junk that I’d planned on taking but is of no use to me. You’ll have a full recovery of those missing assets from your case.”

“In exchange for…”

His uncle grins and puts a hand on the back of Midori’s chair. “I’ll just take this one with me, and you won’t hear from me again.”

Shinsou glances at Midori, wondering what he thinks of this mess. Midori isn’t even paying attention, anymore. He slowly leans forward in his chair as though to find a more comfortable position. The gun remains pointed two inches from his face, and his green eyes flick between the firearm and the investigator’s blank expression as he watches for Shinsou to make a move.

Midori turns a meaningful glance in Shinsou’s direction and lifts an eyebrow expectantly.

Shinsou doesn’t like what Midori’s suggesting.

What could he possibly expect him to do?

If he makes a sudden movement, the gun that’s pointing at his face will fire.

Shinsou pauses with realization.

The gun will fire…

…with a little bit of a delay.

He shifts his weight slightly, and the investigator follows his movements like an inebriated hawk.

Midori’s hands are free in the next moment, and he leans back to reach for the firearm with both hands, using his leverage to jerk the aim away from his face. Shinsou hears a tiny click as Midori grips the gun, and in the next moment the slide of the firearm comes off in one smooth pull.

Then he twists in his seat and throws the metal piece directly at his uncle’s face, where it bounces off his forehead with enough force that he slaps a hand over the injury with a shout of pain.

Shinsou has no time to be impressed, lashing out with his capture weapon to loop around both his uncle and the investigator that’s squeezing the trigger of a weapon that no longer works in his failed attempts to follow instructions.

He yanks the binding cloth taut and rams the two men into each other, their heads colliding in an explosion of blood from one of their noses.

The villain tries to choke out a command for the purple-haired hacker, but they’re a bit too slow to get to their feet to do anything, and they aren’t even armed. Midori rushes forward and grabs hold of their arm, gripping a wrist and elbow to yank at a nasty angle.

Shinsou hears an unsettling crunch as they cry out in surprise, then a muffled oomph as Midori pushes them to the floor and sits on their back.

“Jerks,” he mutters more emphatically, his scowl still firmly in place.

Shinsou can’t help but grin in barely repressed delight at the sudden and surprising end to their standoff.

“How about you?” Midori asks, his tone unexpectedly snide as he glares up at him across the room. “Are you going to try and kidnap me next?”

Hitoshi stares at him with furrowed brows. “I don’t understand. I have no reason kidnap you.”

“I heard you on the phone!” he exclaims with a rising voice. “How much have they been paying you to hang around so much?”

Hitoshi shrugs. “My normal paycheck.”

Midori gapes. “You just… admit that you’ve been paid to- to-“ His words trail off with a choking sound.

Hitoshi gets a sudden sinking impression that he’s a moment away from ruining everything, and lifts his hands in placation. “Hold on, I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding.”

“You- you’re a-“

“An undercover hero assigned to your apartment building to find a mystery consultant,” he supplies when his friend breaks off with a hitch in his voice.

“I was going to say a bastard,” Midori corrects with a sharp frown. His eyes are suspiciously damp.

Hitoshi bites his lip and looks a little sheepish. “You wouldn’t be wrong.”

“But you’re a hero?” Midori seems taken aback at this information.

“My uncle literally called me a hero more than once during his monologue. I’m surprised you didn’t catch that from context alone.”

“But you-“ Midori looks him up and down. “But your-“ He waves in his general direction. “You have all this-“ He trails off, confused. “I have an entire report on why you might be one of the bad guys,” he mutters. “And I still don’t even know what your quirk is.”

Hitoshi stares at him with a deadpan expression. “You thought I was a villain without even knowing my quirk.”

“Well, yeah. The details painted a pretty grim picture.” Midori narrows his eyes and looks pointedly at Hitoshi's wrecked costume before he continues, “and with what you're wearing…”

Hitoshi wants to laugh. “This is an absolute first.”

Midori frowns with confusion. “I don’t get it.”

His uncle shifts and groans, trying to push the limp weight of the investigator off of him. Hitoshi isn’t too concerned, though, if the two he could have controlled aren’t in much condition to do his bidding anymore. He fishes around in a utility pocket for a pair of quickcuffs, then spots Midori moving from the corner of his eye. After everything he's just witnessed, he's kind of curious what else might happen.

Midori gets off the back of the hacker he’s been squishing. They whimper at the movement and don’t seem too inclined to go anywhere. His friend stalks over to his backpack that’s been tossed in a far corner and unclips a tiny grey box.

He leans over and touches his uncle’s arm with the end of the device. There’s a very loud BZZT as his uncle’s entire body goes stiff, then he falls still with tiny twitches in his extremities.

Midori unties the hacker’s shoe and peels off a knee-high neon pink sock, then brings it back to his uncle and ties it around his face to cover his eyes. “Honestly, the fact that they couldn’t keep this guy in custody for more than a few hours is obnoxiously stupid. Does no one have any common sense?”

Hitoshi gives Midori a long look. “I wonder if you care to explain how you got caught by them in the first place, especially if you have one of those shock boxes on you.”

Midori sniffs and looks away with a little frown, but Hitoshi thinks it looks an awful lot like a pout. “I do not care to explain, thanks.” He glances at his shoes and adds on in a mutter, “It was definitely not because they opened a car door and nicely asked me to get in.”

Hitoshi closes his eyes and rolls his head backwards with a groan of disbelief. Of course.

He uses the quickcuffs to secure his uncle as Midori watches him with a calculating gaze. “I didn’t know at first that his quirk couldn’t catch me, but by then I needed a distraction to make my escape,” he explains.

Hitoshi looks over at him with a lifted eyebrow.

Midori blushes as they make eye contact. “And you are very distracting.”

Chapter Text

Izuku has So. Many. Questions.

Even being fully aware that the villain has a knife and is very upset with him doesn’t do much to stem the tide that comes rolling out of his mouth.

He probably would have been a bit more cautious, but it’s either talk or laugh when he sees the sheer bafflement on the villain’s face as he fails to succumb to Hypnotize.

Questions about its use, its range, its limitations, speculations on weaknesses or how to implement it in rescue scenarios, alternate applications and methods of employment come flying out of Izuku’s mouth like a literary machine gun. The weird similarities to the villain he’d been trying to track down and the fascinating coincidences that led him to finding an obscure link in the middle of nowhere, instead.

(shit, oversharing again-)

He’d be surprised if the guy can understand half of what he’s muttering about, but it doesn’t stop. He just lets him ramble with his mouth slack, like he’s unable to look away from a strange display at a museum of oddities.

At some point in his diatribe, it becomes mindless recitation of facts related to historical usage of hypnosis alongside studies of theoretical application, because the rest of Izuku’s thought process has shifted into coming up with a plan for escape.

If this guy can’t keep him under tight and easy control like his other two minions, then he has a very real chance to get away.

Step 1. Cuffs.

Step 2. Disarm and Disable.

Step 3. Run.

He has tiny, pointy objects in his hair. The three in the room don’t look very tough. And he can run for days. (Well, miles, but close enough.) The only problem is that the villain doesn’t seem too interested in letting Izuku out of his sight any time soon (and Minion #1 still has hold of his hair. Why??).

His plans shift again once the villain has Minion #2 go through his backpack and they find his laptop.

Step 1. Panic.

He has so much dangerous information stored on his hard drive. Company weaknesses. Hero weaknesses. Everything he’s picked apart to put back together into meaningful, helpful analysis, could easily be twisted and turned against everyone and everything that's ever held his interest.

His muttering stream of consciousness is now directed at the hacker minion, as he verbally dissects their quirk and they can’t even hear him. Tiny yellow sparks emit from the tip of their right pinky every time they hit the enter key on his laptop, and he’s willing to bet they’re using a technology interface to push commands through any safety measures the laptop has in place to keep people out.

As soon as they start reciting his folder structure and document titles, he feels a swell of unbridled outrage. No one has ever gone through his stuff like this before.

The front door creaks, and Izuku’s muttering cuts off with wary apprehension.

The villain holds up a finger, and the hacker trails off, though they continue to type and click at a feverish rate.

Izuku is vaguely interested that his control extends to non-verbal commands, but he’s having a hard time appreciating the finer details whilst raging about someone poking through his files and worrying about who else is coming.

Minion #1 finally lets go of his hair, only to sluggishly pull out his firearm and aim it at his face.

Izuku is certain that this new threat should be worse, but he still breathes a tiny sigh of relief. He’s not being held in one spot anymore, and it further reinforces his belief that minion physical reaction time to a given command is shit.