Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Just because we might believe ourselves to be done with ghosts doesn't mean the ghosts are done with us.” 

— Ed Simon, Who’s There?: Every Story Is a Ghost Story

—

The retching is an ugly, violent sound, though Shota isn’t fazed. At least, he tries not to be. He’s heard much worse than this over the years, the sounds of bones snapping and flesh squelching. Children crying. But it’s different, this time. 

He scrubs a steel-toed boot against the dirt-caked floor, the belt around his hips digging uncomfortably into his skin as he leans into the sink counter. The stalls he’s facing are an ugly, dark color, hue bleached away by all the dirty things that have been smeared against them over the years. The door to the stall in front of him is open, had even been banged against the surrounding stall earlier in a rush. He can see the poor graffiti written on the inside of the stall, scruffing up once-white walls. And, maybe most importantly, the vigilante throwing up into the toilet inside. 

“Why do you do this to yourself?” He asks, not unpleasantly, when the coughing subsides.

The vigilante turns back, still grinning, the bottom of his mask pulled down hastily. His chin is covered in dark inkyness. “Who, me?” He replies, not unpleasantly, before coughing again.

“Who else would I be talking to?”

“I mean, you never know. You could be entering the early stages of psychosis, with the nasty blow to the head you took earlier. Or whatever,” he shrugs, before something overtakes him again and he’s back to vomiting up sticky something.

“...Seriously. You go past your limit every night. It isn't safe or rational. Look at the logistics, kid.”

“I’m sure the logistics say a lot of things, sir—“

His lilting voice is cut off by another round of sharp, wet vomiting.

“It’s getting worse,” is all Shota says.

It takes a while for the vigilante to reply.

Silence overtakes the two. It’s eerily quiet in the bathroom, for just a moment. Electricity buzzes above them, a sound Shota has grown accustomed to with stealth missions and stalkings. The heat had been unbearable today, and though it had cooled down as the night began, the room is still stuffy and damp with humidity. Shitty convenience store, Shota thinks, not for the first time. Shitty air conditioning.

“Sir, why do you do what you do?” The vigilante finally asks, breaking the silence with a hoarse, pained voice, but Shota can hear the smile reverberating against the black-covered porcelain.

“What, the heroics? My job, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“To save others. To rid the world of evil. To protect the innocent. Same reasons as you.”

He can see the shadow of the vigilante nodding. “Right. And when did you first decide to become a hero?”

Shota tries to think, but his headache is still fresh, and it hurts, though there isn't much blood matted against his dark hair. “I don’t know,” he says, used to the weird questions, but caught off guard by them every time. “It was just always there, even when people told me I couldn’t be one.”

“It was more of a calling to you than a choice, right?”

Shota nods—because he has nothing meaningful to say—though the vigilante can't see it. He’s become accustomed to just letting the kid speak, anyway.

“It’s the same for me. A lot of heroes, you know, when you ask them about their first time saving someone—they say that they ‘just moved’ without thinking,” he continues, folding toilet paper to wipe his mouth and the seat. Sure, Shota isn’t hunting him now, but there’s people who are. “It’s interesting, right?”

The fluorescent light above them flickers for a moment before turning off completely, shimmering against the cuffs along Shota’s belt and the gun in the kid’s back pocket. Not for the first time, Shota wonders how he got it. 

Not for the first time, he thinks he doesn’t want to know.

“My conclusion, anyways,” the kid stops again, suddenly stalling himself with his own nervously high-pitched laugh, like he’s scared of something Shota can’t place, “is that we’re chosen for this line of work.”

Tilting his head sends a pang of pain through Shota’s skull, but it’s not so bad as to be concerning. Well, maybe it is, and his growing pain tolerance deceives him. Shota can’t tell anymore, but he knows several sore spots along his body will blossom into bruises in the morning. He’s sure the kid will have some too. Shota doesn't reply, anyway, mostly because he doesn't know what’s so strange about this.

“By God, or fate, or just the force of the universe, I dunno. But whatever you want to think—we’re made for this purpose, you know?” The kid cranes his head back to look at Shota, still smiling, teeth stained with black. The cut on his cheek isn’t bleeding anymore, but he’s smeared the blood everywhere. Shota can’t count his freckles under the red. 

“Heroics is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, you know—if not the most.” When the overhead light flicks back on, turning the kid’s dark jacket warm, Shota can see a crack that’s spiderwebbed itself on his dark sunglasses.

“I guess what I’m saying, with all this, is that people like us, you and me?” The kid turns his whole body back, stumbling as he tries to stand. Shota thinks there’s not a thing that connects them, wants to say there is no us. 

“Well, we’re born to die,” the kid says. He finally stands, body fully turned towards Shota.

It’s silent for a moment.

“And how does that relate to you overusing your Quirk until your body has you bent over a convenience store toilet, throwing your guts up?”

“Well—” the vigilante starts, stutters to a stop, stumbling over his own words. “I mean, well, it’s just something to think about!”

All dramatics gone, Shota allows himself to smile, watching the kid throw his hands up in mock defense. He’s careful to hide it behind his scarf. “Right,” he replies. 

“Ugh,” the kid groans, throwing his head back, letting his hands fall to his sides. “You wouldn’t get it anyways.”

“No, sure, but what I do get is that frequent vomiting can cause damage to your teeth and esophagus. Don’t want to burn through your throat and rot your teeth with stomach acid, yeah?”

The kid shakes his head slowly, and for once Shota thinks he’s agreeing, but then he speaks. “Yeah, you really just don’t understand.”

“There’s a fundamental difference between us that prevents me from, I’d say.”

“And what’d that be?”

“Well,” Shota starts, folding his arms together, just to put some barrier between the two. “I’m a hero, and you never will be.”

The bathroom is quiet again. 

Then the kid is rushing back to the stall to vomit into the toilet.

—

They make their way out of the store, the bell above the door chiming loudly at their exit. The kid half-steps uneasily out from below the low overhang. “It’s raining,” he says, like Shota isn't witnessing it. Like he isn’t getting splattered with water. It comes down in little sheets, not slow but not heavy, spluttering out in awkward globs. It’s noisy, the rain, and the night is swirling black. The half-working OPEN 24 HOURS sign on the store illuminates the street in an ugly yellow, drowning in the dark puddles.

“You gonna have trouble getting home?” Shota asks, for a reason, though he’s hesitant to admit it. It’s late, he thinks, but doesn't say.

“Mm, no,” the kid says, pulling his windbreaker close, hood high on his head. His broken sunglasses had been discarded, an equally as inexpensive pair having been purchased before they left the store. Shota wonders how he fights in the late hours with those on. 

“I can help you,” Shota’s voice rises to be heard over the rain, falling louder by the second. 

“I can walk home by myself, promise,” the kid laughs. It isn’t really about walking home. He faces the other direction anyway, and Shota lets him.

“Don’t follow me!” He shouts, not turning back to look at Shota, before disappearing into the rain.

Chapter Text

The American-styled restaurant is something Shota can only describe as dramatic, with bright overhead lights and oversaturated colors. They’re sitting in one of the red booth tables next to a window, too-large plates scattered around the white surface. 

The kid’s shoveling messy hashbrowns into his mouth, ketchup splattered on the plate. His still-hot pancakes, stacked high, are half-finished and drenched in syrup. He hasn’t started picking at his side of scrambled eggs yet. The kid is crass in every way, Shota notes, even the way he eats. Like it’s his last meal, he thinks, with some amusement.

“This place is great, sir,” he starts, speaking while covering his mouth, half-chewed food not yet swallowed. “I mean, it just opened, but I’ve been here, like, five times! It’s crazy.”

Shota hums a reply. The kid stuffs slabs of toast with blood-red jam slathered over into his mouth without a care in the world. Shota doesn’t know how he has this much energy so early in the morning.

“You should try more than just tar-black coffee next time,” he sips at his coke, and though his hood is high on his head and his sunglasses are propped over his eyes, Shota knows the kid is staring down at his untouched coffee.

The sun is just peeking through into the city. It’s around five, maybe five-thirty, Shota figures. It had rained much earlier in the morning, and the kid doesn't look like he’d been caught in a storm, so it’s probable he’d just rolled out of bed to meet Shota.

At least you haven’t been out all night, Shota thinks, before asking, “how are you up this early? Don’t you have some sleep you need to get?”

“I have all day to sleep,” the kid answers instantly, too quick. “It’s summer break, sir.”

“No, it’s not,” Shota replies, just as fast. For most schools, summer break would begin next month. For UA, it’s the same. Shota had almost forgotten, considering he’d expelled his whole class on the first day.

The kid licks his lips and smiles, like he knows he’s been caught. “I have a headache,” he says, before raising a pancake-filled fork into his mouth.

Bad liar, Shota thinks, not for the first time.

“Anyways, back to what we’re actually here to talk about.”

“And what’s that?” Shota asks, only half genuinely wanting to know. Sure, the kid only called for important things, but Shota didn't like getting woken up by a call from a pay phone at four in the morning. On one of his only break nights.

The most important thing on his mind right now, at least, is the fact that he still hasn’t figured out how the kid got his number.

“Well, rumor got passed down the grapevine to me,” he laughs, the same unbearable little giggle he does before he vomits, as he finally cuts into his eggs, “that there’s a new villain group. Gang. Thing.”

He shrugs, giving up on finding the right words. The sun’s rays finally pass through the windows, warming the table like heat off a lighter. Summer’s heat is starting to break through the early morning chill, something Shota only feels vaguely upset about. “They’re called the League. They haven't really done much, just looking for recruits. Apparently they have a lot of money, though, and a really strange backer. Interesting, right?”

Shota takes a second to process. A new threat would need to be carefully considered, but if there wasn't much information and no immediate plan to harm the public…

“Wait. They're called the League?”

“Yep.”

“Just the League?”

“Uh… Yeah. Could be, like, the League of Evildoers. Or the League of Law-Abiding Tax-Payers, I dunno. But I think it’s just the League.”

“Huh,” Shota acknowledges. When he looks down, the kid’s plates have almost been completely cleared. “Wow, kid,” with a note of surprise, “that was a lot of food.”

The kid laughs, physically says “ha!” out loud, a dry sound unlike his usual joy. “I have something I want to show you. Just let me go to the bathroom and we can get out of here.”

“What, going to throw up again?” Shota’s joking, sure, but really he can never be too careful.

“Yep,” the kid replies, no lilt in his voice as he makes his way to the bathrooms, a response that makes Shota blink. The vomiting usually happens directly after an overuse of the Quirk—whatever it is, Shota still isn't sure—and the kid doesn't look drained from Quirk usage; he doesn't even look like he’s been fighting. The sliver of his skin that Shota can see still holds his tan color, not sheet-white as he is directly before he vomits. 

He’s just joking, Shota thinks, stacking the plates uneasily.

When the kid returns, sliding into the seat quickly, the first thing that comes out of his mouth is, “bad news.” 

This fills Shota with dread, as it always does.

“You blew up the bathroom?”

“No.”

“You set a fire in the toilet?”

“No.”

“You let a wildly invasive and destructive intrusion of cockroaches loose in the stall and now they’re going to infect everyone in this city with a brain-eating amoeba?”

“That was the other—No!” He exclaims, throwing his head back as he always does. Shota can see a smattering of freckles along a sliver of exposed neck, just before it disappears under his dark turtleneck. How many people with this many freckles do I know? He thinks. How many do I see on the daily?

The answer is, of course, none.

He must've been exposed to hundreds of the kid's features, his little ticks and quirks, his mannerisms—Hell, he even knows how the Quirk presents. But putting them all together? In his mind?

All that he sees is a blank canvas. 

He tries to imagine the kid in a home, laughing with his parents, at the grocery store, in school. All different ages, the kid working an office job, a preschooler, graduating, studying for finals—

—And there's nothing.

He sees something vaguely-boy shaped, something with a blurred out face and a muffled voice. No family, or a family that is ever-shifting, a home that is always evolving or devolving, friends to no friends to friends again. Three to eight to twenty-five to seventeen to thirty-four to nine.

Nothing.

“Well, the actual bad news is, I forgot to bring money,” the kid groans, a sound that brings Shota back to him. “So, I’m gonna have to dine and dash. Whatever.”

It’s silent. Like he’s waiting for something.

“I’ll pay.” Shota gives in like a door to a battering ram. Fuck.

“Sir, I’d die without you!” He exclaims, loud enough that the lone waiter stares, and Shota thanks whatever’s above that there aren't any other customers here so early.

“No, you wouldn't,” he waves the waiter over for the check. “You’re too capable, unfortunately.”

“But who else would put up with me like this?”

“Oh, no one.”

—

The warehouse is stuffy, humidity and dust hanging heavy in the air. The kid is wrapped in all All Might zip-up instead of his windbreaker now, something he pulled out of the messenger bag Shota is being forced to carry. It’s a heavy bag, and he tries not to be too curious about what's in it. He wonders how the kid can handle the weather, but doesn't question it out loud; they're both wearing all black otherwise and Shota isn't going to be the first to complain either. Seeing the kid’s shock of curly black hair is enough to squelch any complaints. He adds it to the list of features.

They had entered through the back door, Shota assumes; the man guarding the entrance greeting them with, “hey, Lariat. Haven't seen you around in a while. What are you doing here so early?”

“Oh, just got some stuff to grab from the room,” the kid had said, pulling at the faux-gold chain around his neck as the guard nodded them in. “Thanks.”

“Lariat?” Shota asks when the door closes behind them. The kid walks down the new, empty hallway at a brisk pace. It’s narrow, gray, with high ceilings and white panels of light clicking on and off. There are no windows. At the end, the hallway splits into two.

“Just a codename. You can never be too careful, you know? Haha. It's whatever,” he answers, too quick again.

They pass through a door, taking lefts and rights quickly. Shota doesn't know where they are—not really, just some old warehouse littered area in a part of the city he isn’t familiar with—and he gets the feeling the kid isn't going to tell him. It’s a storage facility of some sort, which honestly can’t mean good things. Not in his realm of the world, anyway. 

“Where'd you get the hoodie?” Really, he’s just trying to make conversation, so the kid will drop something, anything. He’s a chronic oversharer, anyways, so Shota figures it won't be too hard.

“Mom’s closet,” is all the kid replies with, voice distracted as they pass through gray hallways, going any which way, seemingly at random. There’s nobody else in the warehouse, at least nobody who’s been seen. 

“Oh.”

“Mhm. Smells like her.”

Shota figures it must, because he can smell lilacs wafting in the air, though the smell is faint. Maybe she hadn't worn it in a while, or stopped using a certain perfume. 

The kid takes a golden coin out of the coat pocket, peels back the wrapping, and nibbles on the chocolate. The worst case scenario to this would be that she's dead, which is both plausible and is a reasonable explanation for unsupervised criminal activity. 

It's hard to hide being a vigilante from a parent, especially one that cares about you—which Shota would assume she does (or did), if the kid is comforted by her scent.

Not for the first time, Shota wonders what the kid’s parents are like. He figures he won't be getting an answer.

They step into a hallway, the same bland suffocating gray as all the others. The kid moves towards a dark storage door and leans down to start picking the lock.

“Why are we breaking into someone’s storage unit?” Shota asks, not stopping him.

“Oh, no, it’s mine.”

Shota sighs, mostly out of exasperation, the jingling of the lock beckoning against the empty stone walls. “Why do you not have the key to your own storage unit?”

“I have it, I just don’t carry it around with me. So people can’t steal it?”

“You know other people can pick locks, right?”

“Okay, maybe I lost it.”

“Of course you did.”

The lock opens with a click, and the door is pulled  open by gloved hands. The storage unit is moderately sized, full of stray furniture, books and knick knacks. Dark brown loveseats and antique coffee tables, bookshelves high to the ceilings with books and photo albums and CDs. A small wooden rabbit statuette, carved with its eyes wide open and frozen like it’s staring into the face of a predator, stares Shota down on a shiny redwood side table. The kid picks it up, and though Shota can’t see it under the mask, he feels the grin.

“My dad made this for me,” he says. “Cute?”

“Very,” Shota replies. It comes out more as a question.

The kid weaves through bookshelves and folded quilt blankets, making his way to the back. Shota follows loosely, preferring to stall and study what he finds. He supposes the kid does act a bit like a rabbit, all sharp and quick-moving, writhing to get away. He’s a slippery thing, one the police were never able to catch, when they were looking. 

They come upon a rickety desk, set against the back concrete wall, old books surrounding it in mountainous piles. An old laptop is set on it,  something that makes Shota just a little anxious because of how unsteady the desk really is. The kid doesn't seem to care, just dusts it off (hasn’t been used in a while, strangely, Shota thinks) and logs in. There's no chair to sit in, which he loudly complains about, and Shota doesn't really bother to listen. 

“—And I know there's, like, fifty chairs in here, but none of them really work for this desk and, like, the, you know, aesthetics don't mix, and then like, the woods don't match, and it's just—”

The kid types fast on the laptop. Shota watches his fingers move quick, black gloves ghosting over white keys. I want to know who you are, Shota thinks, not for the first time.

“I mean, like, the cushion’s fine with that one, but it's the height, and then the one over there has the perfect length but, it's just the, you know, cushion- like it has none and it hurts sitting on it and I have, like, work to do—“

Shota blinks, inhales too much dust, coughs. 

“And, really, this thing is, like, atrocious, like really bad, like I need to get rid of it or sell it but I can’t because—“

I need to know who you are, Shota thinks again, with more force.

“Well, anyways, found it. Look at this!”

Shota looks down at the screen. It's just some website, all dark-toned, some forum posts where internet freaks message each other. He looks closer, sees what the kid is focusing on.

It's an advertisement for an organized attack on hero society, with hundreds of replies.

Chapter Text

“Well, no, I wouldn't say it’s, like, super serious or anything, it’s just, like, a few hundred replies-”

“Over three thousand passionate vows to end hero society as we know it.”

“Yeah, but, like, at least half of these have to be from guys who, I dunno, still live in their mom’s basements or something-”

They’re sitting in a dark bar, the low lights illuminating them in red, quietly tucked into a corner on a hot Sunday night. He’d been arguing with the kid for some time, though now he considers it a nightly occurrence; there’d been instances where Shota had to physically shut the kid’s mouth to keep him from being too loud. There aren’t too many people frequenting the bar, but he could never be too sure. 

“I don’t see why you even brought it up if you didn't think it was a credible threat,” Shota whispers, voice low and serious. The situation is laughable, really, but if his voice so much as cracks with amusement, the kid will act as if he’s won. They’re familiar enough with each other to know.

“It wasn't the replies I was focused on, it was the first post!” He says, as if that’s any sort of defense. The kid is leaning back in the booth, arms laid out across the top of the seat. He seems casual, worriedly unbothered by the whole situation in his windbreaker. But he's right about one thing.

The original forum post had been nigh incomprehensible, all babbling nonsense about the corruption of hero society. Thoughts, sentences, words barely connected to each other, a half-baked philosophy that could only attract other crazies. But it did, and fast, which was the issue.

“I was looking into the forums more, and the guy’s, like, really passionate about the whole thing. Like, come on, man, it’s an MMORPG game forum, stay on topic, right? But he is getting the attention he wants, so I can’t fault him, I guess,” he shrugs, expressionless behind the sunglasses and the black surgical mask. “Credit where it’s due, and all, right? Oh, here.”

He pulls out a manilla folder from the messenger bag by his side, sliding it across the dark oak table towards Shota. “Here’s some more posts by the same username that I found. The guy’s totally delusional.”

“Just like you,” Shota replies dryly. He doesn’t mean it to be rude, just means it to be the truth. He begins to flip through the folder. It’s kind of funny to him that the kid actually printed these out, but he doesn’t say it. 

“We’re almost completely identical, sir, I agree!”

The kid goes quiet for a moment, and as the loud men playing darts in the corner begin to trickle out of the bar, Shota starts to really read the pages.

The ramblings that have been printed on the papers are snapshots of violent, ill little fantasies, mostly about All Might (no surprises there, he thinks, though he regrets it). Sentences that end where they shouldn't about graphic torture, descriptions of hot blood, broken bone and carved fat. To a lesser man, they would have been stomach-curdling. Shota feels nothing but silent dread.

“Creepy, right? I mean, it was really creative, to be honest,” the kid comments, fingers jittering softly at his sides like he’s playing the piano. The red lights glint along the sharp leather wrapped around his hands. Shota wonders why, vaguely. Nervous tic, maybe. Reminiscing about an old hobby, possibly.

“So, yeah, that’s there. What do you want to do about it?”

“I’ll make an official report,” Shota answers immediately. It’s not as if there aren’t millions of other violent anti-hero freaks on the internet, but some guy in the early stages of starting an online hero-hating cult raises more than enough red flags. Something like this could incite violence across the country if it got popular enough. “I know a detective, a good one. He’ll trust my instincts on this. We just need to figure out if this guy’s actually planning anything serious.”

“Woah, woah,” the kid puts a hand up, pulling a stop to the growing crescendo of Shota’s mind as he thinks. He’s always so panicked, so unnecessary.

“The police, already? We don't even know if it's that serious.” His voice is whiny, so teenage in quality that it makes Shota huff in annoyance. Stupid of him to think he could get rid of this voice if he just got rid of his class. “And don't you mean we investigate? Come on, the little guy wants to be included, too. I'm the little guy, by the way. If you couldn't tell. Haha.”

The response ticks something strange in Shota’s mind, as most things about the kid do. He trusts Shota enough to report something like this to him, but he doesn't want the police involved. And of course he wants to be involved in every part of the process. 

We aren't hunting you anymore, Shota wants to say, but he knows they're both well aware. 

The music in the bar changes as late-night visitors come in and out, classical music drifting through the smoke-filled air. Men and women move frequently along the red barstools, never staying for too long. They're smoking cigarettes, stretching long limbs playing pool, high-value suits and tattered clothing alike mixing around. Shota wonders just what kind of bar they're really in. He never suggests the places—it’s always where the kid wants to meet. And, funnily enough, never anywhere Shota’s ever heard of.

“What do you suggest we do about it, then?” He asks instead. It’s better off that way.

“I think,” and the kid almost interrupts him when he says this, so quick, a bit too enthusiastically, “that we should just let me be a spy, you know? I’ll, like, message him, make friends with the guy as a serious supporter. Get in on his plans, and if something serious is actually, plausibly going to happen, I’ll tell you. It’s really simple, right? You’ll let me?”

Shota doesn't answer for a moment. The TV in the corner crackles to life, late night news recited by a monotonous woman with a cat’s head. Burglaries and increased rents and new villains and old villains and murderous babies, whatever. Same old junk. Same thing, new thing, every day, forever. Never peace. 

He doesn't pay much mind to it, not when it's just going to be the same thing tomorrow. Ignores the growing apathy in his chest the way the rest of society ignores the growing gap in the system. He’s learned to focus on the present.

“Are you insane?” His voice is stern beneath his scarf when he speaks, finally forming an actual response. “That's too dangerous. You'd get found out in two seconds, because you can’t be secretive to save your life, and who knows how powerful this… League is.”

“Aww, come on, sir!” Arms thrown up, tone exasperated, like Shota’s being the unreasonable one here. Oh, yeah, sorry I don’t want you getting involved with some violent, probably pedophilic freak over the internet—is that what he wants him to say?

“No. You’re a kid. You probably have semester finals you need to be studying for right now,” Shota keeps his voice harsh, even, just like when he’s disciplining a student. He still has personal responsibility, after all. “I’m not letting you get hurt like this.”

“Come on, sir,” the kid says again, head tilting curiously to the side, and his voice isn't whiny anymore; the playful, lilting tone is slithering it’s way back with a recovering quickness. “You really think anyone can hurt me so bad?”

And Shota considers. Images of black tar flash across his mind, sticky, ropey curtains of darkness, against porcelain, running along walls, restraining and holding. And choking, mostly. Always choking.

He really is a rabbit.

“Maybe,” he begins, because they both know the answer to the kid’s question, “I could see how this benefits us. But wait. There are more factors that need to be considered. We don’t know the risks. Remember the risks, kid.”

“Yes!” The devil, the kid, the vigilante, shouts, pumping his fists in the air and alerting the bartender. Shota doesn’t smile.

—

When they step outside of the bar, it’s raining again. The city lamps are burning yellow holes in the puddles, and the streets are deserted. The kid has no shame, this time, and walks right out into the cold water. He spins in the dead street, letting the icy diamonds bounce off his dark curls. 

“Careful,” Shota says, like he’ll listen, “you might catch a cold.”

The kid just laughs like he always does. The moon hangs high in the mourning sky as it cries, like one pale eye watching. 

“Remember when we met?” He asks, though he’s making his way down the street, not glancing to make sure Shota’s following, “really met. In December?”

Shota follows along. “What about it?”

Of course he remembers. Most days, it's hard to forget. 

“Well,” he’s getting drenched in the rain, but it takes him a few seconds to bring the umbrella out of his bag anyways. “You never answered my question.”

Shota inhales. The kid opens his umbrella, designed all yellow and blue and red and white. All Might’s smile bares down on him under the light like a watchful guardian angel. Shota looks into the man’s blue eyes and thinks that there was no life left in him when the picture was taken, even before everything happened. The number one’s eyes are black voids of emotion. Still, his smile is so large it looks like it’d break his cheek tissue, and Shota can’t blame him for keeping up a narrative. He’s many things, but not a hypocrite.

He looks back at the kid soon enough, because staring at All Might fills him with a certain uneasiness. Like staring at a corpse, or a wax statue from someone centuries past. 

“There were… Developments. Bigger priorities to focus on rather than some kid pretending to be a hero.”

The kid stops walking, though the umbrella is still twirling in his hand. His red shoes are dirtied with mud. “Right.”

“I think it’s time for you to go home now,” Shota says, because there is nothing else to say.

And the kid listens.

—

It was the center of winter then. The snow had settled overnight, dusting over the streets a sheet of white. He’d almost gotten caught in an ice storm. The cold had come with it, seeping into the buildings all around the city. He wraps his scarf thickly around himself, willing his winter suit to soak up some of the warmth before he steps back outside. The early morning sun would begin to melt the snow before he finished his coffee. 

He hopes.

The door opens with a chime suddenly, sending a rush of frosty air in, and though he shivers he pays it no mind.

Someone laughs, a sound so familiar, though he can’t place it. Vaguely, he wonders from where he’d first heard it.

—

It’s late afternoon when he enters the station. He hasn’t slept.

He walks into the cold office silently, boots quiet against the floor. He’s always been careful like that, a skittish little thing even as a child. The door clicks closed behind him. They’ve got the AC up, it seems, to combat the heat from the late sun. At least it's not raining, he thinks, though he honestly prefers it when it is. The natural light flowing from the windows makes his tired eyes burn, but not as much as the bright fluorescent ones in the hallways.

The detective at the desk looks up from his papers, eyeing him above his computer. “Hello, Eraser,” Tsukauchi greets.

Shota sits with little contemplation. This has become routine. “Hello, Tsukauchi,” he returns the greeting. Tsukauchi smiles, but he knows this more than likely isn't time for pleasantries.

“There's been a development in the One For All case.”

It never is, when they're talking about the vigilante. Not when he was the last person to see All Might alive. 

—

The barrel of the gun presses hard against his knee. He can recognize the cold metal anywhere, even through condensed cloth. He swallows.

The vigilante is leaning forward in the booth seat of the cafe to press it into Shota’s leg, wordlessly staring into him behind pitch black sunglasses. The parka is too big for him, zipped half up, scruffy knotted fur lining his hood. Always trying to seem bigger than he is.

“You’re not looking for me anymore,” he says, voice soft, almost pleading in the early morning light. “Why?”

Chapter Text

The neon lights, bright with all sorts of colors, flashing and shifting like fish, illuminate the surrounding drab streets. Shota breathes a puff of humid night air. He loathes summer break— though it’s usually a quiet out from a class he can barely stand, teenagers temporarily free from their studies are now also free to roam the streets after dark. Like little cockroaches.

And he doesn't even have a class to be free of this year.

I hate children, he thinks, as a passing group of teenagers push into him along the street while they walk, not for the first time.

Children are uncaring and have no regard for the people around them, and teenagers are worse.

The childish arcade and its many neon signs beckons him inside anyways.

The wide glass door swings closed behind him, and immediately he heads for the dark booths along the walls, ignoring the crowded, bright machines and the large tables. Though the seats are decorated with quirky designs like a bowling alley’s carpet, most of the surface is plain black, and the table’s empty. It’s familiar to him, really. 

Can’t stand bar stools, the kid had said months ago. I hate uncushioned chairs. I love booths.

“Course you do,” Shota replies, quietly, to no one.

He waits for a bit—it’s late, but not as late as they usually meet, and young pimpled teenagers are still running around; playing promiscuous videogames and making out around corners. The music is bumping loud, some modern techno whatever made by a college dropout or something. Shota huffs a sigh of annoyance, wishes for an ibuprofen or two to combat the incoming migraine he’s about to get. The flashing red and yellow lights shining down on the skating rink in the middle of the floor don’t help. 

It’d been a long month. They hadn't seen each other since that last meeting in June, where they’d concocted their plan; then the kid had gone off in the rain, seemingly forever. The only thing Shota got was loose, sparsely timed calls, only hey sir, there's been a development, well, no, nevermind, but I’ll recap when we meet—which um, we have to reschedule, again, sorry, and oh, by the way, I went ahead and did that thing you told me not to do, but, you know, things came up, and I met the guy anyways, he’s very passionate about, um, well, everything, well, sorry someone's calling me gottagobye!

There’d been multiple of these calls, from a payphone—various different ones—over the course of the month, where Shota would barely get a word in. And every time it’d ignite a new kind of anger in him.

At least he’s alive, he reminds himself, not for the first time.

There were no nightly sightings of the vigilante anymore, the first break in his usual cycle of most, if not every night for months, which made things all the worse and sometimes all the better. No Musutafu Angel, no Swinging Rabbit, no Shizuoka Vigilante, no whatever other stupid names the media had given him.

The Musutafu Angel, the crowds called him, the favored name. Shota was always partial to that one, too, when there was no one around who knew the name One For All. Disappearing from their corner of the earth for a month with the steadily rising crime rate wasn't his best decision. Especially when, on those first few nights where he was gone and no calls came, Shota’s gut had twisted in some invisible sickness. 

“Eraser!” Someone sings, his name coming out in a low whistle. 

The kid falls limply into the seat in front of him, limbs flying around like a ragdoll. He smells, Shota realizes, like cigarette smoke; something that Shota wants to be surprised by but isn't. 

“Hey,” the kid says, in a voice so uncharacteristically light, “it’s so stuffy in this damn booth. Wanna play some video games?”

—

“The guy’s completely insane,” the kid says, shooting pixelated dinosaurs on a screen with a neon orange gun. He hits every single one. “It’s honestly impressive how removed from reality he is.”

Shota stands beside him, an uneasy figure. I probably look like a pedophile, he thinks, all bundled up in black and surrounded by teenagers, and tries to make himself look more removed from the situation.

“His name’s Shigaraki Tomura,” the kid continues, and his voice sounds oddly hollow, a sudden drop in personality and a raise in apathy. He doesn't sound right. It strikes Shota as odd—though, everything the kid has done is striking Shota in the same way. He’s too unshifting, too still to be normal. Usually, the kid’s full of stutters and jitters. Undiagnosed ADHD stuffed in a five foot frame.

Now it's different.

“Also, you look like a pedophile, by the way. Might wanna back up a little bit,” he snorts. Shota backs up.

His tone is annoyingly cool, all frosty, too much winter for the middle of July. The fingers around the gun, large enough to need two hands but only grasped by one, are steady. Every target is a bullseye, a headstrike steadily adding to a new high score. His medical mask is the plain paper blue kind this time, crinkled with focus.

Now that Shota notices, every part of his outfit is different, too.

“So, apparently, he has this plan to attack hero society and put an end to it all, you know, everything All Might built,” the kid, who Shota knows is not his kid, continues. “The thing is, though,” and he has a hint of amusement in his tone when he says this, though no high-pitched laugh comes as it should, “that he has no idea what he actually wants to do.”

“What do you mean?” Shota asks. He’s leaning against the back of some other arcade game along the rows. A loud middle schooler has just stopped hitting it in uncontained rage, so it doesn't hurt to put his head against it anymore. He stares at the back of the kid, illuminated in wild green light, at the ratty white hoodie he’s picked out, at the plastic blue gloves, the lopsided sunglasses. 

“I mean that he doesn't know the first step to destroying the society he hates. He talks like a bigshot, but when I ask about his plans it’s all, ‘I should have an idea by the next year,’” he quotes the guy in a mocking sort of tone, scratchy and almost pre-pubescent. “Next year?! Why do all that online if you're postponing your domestic terrorism to next year? It just doesn't make any sense.”

“He probably doesn't trust you,” and Shota hates it, he decides, hates whoever this is, but he doesn't say it. “That's what happens when you jump in without instruction.”

“You're acting like I had a choice.”

It's a mumble, but Shota can hear it, even over the blaring music. He tilts his head, but doesn't say anything.

“No, he trusts me,” the kid acts as if he didn't mumble anything before. It's almost predictable. “I play video games with him twenty-four-seven. He trusts me more than his babysitter, he’s just not smart enough to come up with anything. He lives in a bar, Eraserhead. He's nothing.”

Shota’s mouth is dry. The kid does not call him Eraserhead. His kid does not discount anyone as nothing.

“Who are you?” Shota asks.

“Your friendly neighborhood vigilante, duh.” 

The screen flashes bright with the words NEW HIGH SCORE! and the name H3R0 at the top of the board. Tickets spill out of a slot, piling onto the dirty floor in a mountain. The vigilante crouches down to retrieve them. “You got any extra yen? I'm looking to play another round.”

—

This is not his kid, Shota knows, but he gives him extra money and walks out of the door onto the empty street with him anyways. It’s not raining tonight, so Shota can hear clearly the little sigh of relief that leaves the vigilante when they exit. “That place was starting to make me claustrophobic. They have the games all boxed in together super weird.”

“You picked the place.”

He shrugs offly, “I guess I did.” He walks down the street, wandering like a stray. The only reason they even left was because the arcade was about to close, Shota knows. Why didn't you just ask for us to leave earlier? 

“Walk me to the comic book store?” The kid asks, turning back, staring at Shota with sharp black shades. 

Shota pauses.

“You don't normally ask me to walk you anywhere.”

“It's not normally such a dark night.”

So Shota walks him.

The night is as dark as most nights in July are, but Shota can still see the kid’s blinding white sweatshirt without the street lamps.

“Why white?” He asks, out of curiosity, and maybe something else, he isn't sure. “You usually wear something… Darker. Or at least different.”

“I've always been a fan of lighter colors.”

“Two months ago you told me your favorite color was dark red.”

The vigilante stops along the deserted streets. Gone are the partying crowds of the late night, tucked away in bars or 24-hour cafes, seedy hotels and apartments. 

He laughs, an empty little sound, half-hungry. He doesn't glance back at Shota. “I'm a different person sometimes.”

A cloud passes over the moon, making the street even darker. Shota can't see where he's stepping without the luminescence of the lamps.

They continue walking.

“Shigaraki’s not a threat,” the kid whispers, low under the yellow light. “He could be, in a year, but not right now. There's not anything that needs to be done currently, but I’ll keep watch over him for a bit. Just to make sure.”

Shota watches him, the kid who isn't his, the white hood high on his head, almost-black curls peeking out in wild tangles. He walks like a wisp, a lone coyote in the night.

Not a rabbit, he thinks. Not this one.

“So no one else needs to be involved in all this?”

“No, just you and me, like always.”

“It's getting a bit repetitive, just you and me.”

“The world’s built for two.”

They walk into the comic store then, still open, but deserted of customers. The lights above them are stark white, panels of no color, and the cashier to the side pays them no mind. The vigilante wanders along the shelves. 

“What about the backer that you mentioned? Do they have any say in this?”

“What backer?”

Shota watches him flip through colorful pages. “The backer you mentioned.”

“I don't remember mentioning anything like that,” the boy that is not his answers, not too quick, though Shota knows he’s lying.

Shota inhales. “Sure,” he says anyway.

Best not to push your luck, he thinks, but he knows he already has.

They leave quietly, stacks of comics carried towards the counter in slippy hands and thrown haphazardly into a plastic baggie. The comic store is the only shop along the road that is still open, white lights pouring into the street from the large windows. The rest of the world is almost pitch black, apart from the lamps.

Pushing out into the blue dark, the kid settles into a brisk pace on scuffed white sneakers. They aren't red this time; another thought that makes Shota feel all sorts of wrong.

“So this was nothing?”

“The investigation?” The unfamiliar ghost looks back, just to make sure Shota is following, surely. “Yeah. Nothing to worry about.”

“You're being very uncaring.”

“I can afford to be, Eraserhead. Don’t you know? The villain always loses in the end.”

Shota stands in the middle of the dead street, just before the tall lamp the ghost is under. “You're not usually so optimistic.”

“It's all these comics. They're getting to me,” the ghost replies, body turned towards him, and Shota can hear the smile in his voice. He spreads his arms wide suddenly under the light, plastic handle around one thin wrist. 

“We’re friends, but you stand so far away. That’s funny. Hug before I’m off for the night?”

The kid does not hug him. His kid barely even touches him. 

Shota leans in anyways.

—

It’s two AM. Not an unusual time for Shota to be awake, since he usually patrols after dusk. But he's home. 

The map of the city stares back at him, an odd thing full of scraps of sticky notes and red paper tacks. He’s stuck in a tack where every payphone that the kid has used is placed. In the early days, the chilly hours of October and November, he’d tried to outline the kid’s usual routine, but found that it was.. completely random.

The payphones are scattered all over the city. The routine is inconsistent. It's like the kid lives everywhere.

Well, nowhere would be more accurate.

But still. Even homeless would guarantee some home range, some consistent patrolling ground for at least two days.

With school breaks, Shota knows, come longer hours, the vigilante’s time bleeding more into early mornings and short dusks. So he clearly has somewhere to be during the school days.

Homeless, but in the school system? Not impossible, but not likely, either.

It would require resources a homeless kid might not have. Money to pay for electronic devices, which he’d need for registering, and everything he’d have to fake. Juggling a job with school, studying, and being a vigilante? 

That's assuming he’s passing his classes, Shota thinks, a thought that makes him smirk in amusement. But not passing would invite unwanted attention that a homeless kid wouldn't need. So he'd have to be passing, surely.

The kid, who was not his kid, was a whole other mystery—same build, same height, same hair, same voice. Different tone, different demeanor, different style. A slightly more confident and touchy twin? 

If he has a twin, which one is the evil one? 

He almost laughs out loud at that. Both of them, surely.

Back to the money, though, he redirects, mostly because he doesn't want to think about the kid who isn’t the kid.

Shota pays for mostly everything when they meet, and every time they see each other at a cafe, the kid eats like it’s his last meal. And, sure, the kid has some pocket money, but Shota's pretty sure he gets that from civilians he’s saved who throw money at him as thanks. And the kid refuses, but usually ends up pocketing it anyways. Shota knows, he’s seen it. 

The kid’s ‘vigilante outfit’ is mostly just random clothes, too. No kevlar, no goggles, no tech. Nothing special to protect himself. If the kid wasn't so capable, Shota would be much more focused on that than he really is.

But his hoodie, his All Might hoodie, he thinks, suddenly. From his mother’s closet.

It could've been a lie, but the kid’s not very good at those. And there's a million reasons why a homeless kid would have that hoodie.

And then there's the issue of the gun.

He sighs, but it comes out as more of a groan. Finally, picking at the tacks, he places more on the map, this time blue in color.

Before he goes out, he takes one more look at the map, counting all the blue-tacked internet cafes he’s labelled. 

Chapter Text

There is a burn on the side of the kid’s arm.

Shota makes no comment, not at first. It isn't the time, not really.

They're sitting in the same American-styled diner as they’d been in June. Shota had tried it himself over the summer break when the kid was gone, but it just hadn't felt the same.

But now the kid’s back to normal.

“Super sorry for taking a break the rest of the summer, sir. No more days off, promise,” the kid says, tone as almost-not-quite-nervous as it usually is, sitting across from him, fingers dancing. “It's hard to get the League freaks off after they've latched on, haha, I guess.”

“They liked you?”

“Shigaraki liked playing video games with me, I guess. I think it's mostly because I let him win. Didn't want him to disintegrate me, you know,” he laughs, the sing-song tone that Shota’s familiar with, and looks down at his menu.

He much prefers this laugh to the cold winter amusement.

They're fresh off their first shared patrol in a while. The kid had caught Shota five blocks away from his apartment at ten PM, a dangerous sort of thing that Shota elected to ignore until later (like most things about the kid). They'd stayed together for the majority of the night.

It’s September now, something that Shota’s grateful for. With the weather becoming more temperate, he can wear his regular outfit, not the breathable, lightweight, heat-resistant, water-resistant, a-million-other-things-resistant suit that isn't dark enough. And his scarf doesn't make him sweat around the collar as much anymore, which is the real plus.

Shota glances back at the kid, really looks at him.

Looks at his eyes, mostly.

He’d worn dark gray sunglasses instead of pure black tonight. Dark doll eyes staring at Shota throughout the night, a calculating gaze from ever-shifting irises. The kid doesn't acknowledge the change. 

You trust me now, Shota thinks. I've done something right and you trust me.

You'll regret it, Shota also thinks, but he doesn't dwell on it. 

He smells like cigarettes again, has the whole night, but Shota hasn't brought that up yet either. All he's looking at is the unnursed burn mark between the kid’s puffy jacket sleeve and black gloves. It's red and fresh, though not completely new; Shota could guess at least a few hours have passed.

“What's with the burn?” The question overtakes him. It's still not the right time. 

“What burn?”

“The one on your wrist.”

The kid looks down at his arm, and Shota follows his eyes, for the first time. “Oh, it's just from that, you know, one guy. You know, the mugger with like, the girl, and everything?”

It's a lie. They both know it. The kid looks back down at his menu. “I think I'm gonna get the French toast.”

“Did you clean it, at least? Let's go to the bathroom and get it wrapped up.”

“I like the bacon here. French toast and bacon, I think.”

“Just let me—“

“And a hot chocolate. It's finally cooling down, so it's hot chocolate season.”

“—Disinfect it for you.”

“Do you think if I tell them it's my birthday they'll let me eat for free? Or maybe they'll give me a cake.”

“It's your birthday?” He should've been more delicate.

“Well, not anymore. Have you heard of, like, lying? It's in with the kids. Thought you would know about it by now, being a teacher and all.”

“I expelled my whole class.”

“Oh, yeah. Forgot about that.”

The conversation tapers off. Their orders come quickly—French toast, bacon, hot chocolate, black coffee. It helps that there's no other customers this early in the morning. The sun is starting to rise.

“So what's the plan for next year? Gonna expel that one too?”

“Not if they have potential,” and he’s still thinking about it, about how he should have been softer. The burn isn't going away no matter how hard he stares. I'm not a very soft person, he reasons, but he knows he can be.

“I take it, with your standards, you’ll have another empty class.”

“Probably.”

“Not if I get in, though,” the kid jokes, oddly sure of himself. Shota can feel his grin, while he’s cutting his French toast quickly into tiny bits like a child.

“You'd be expelled immediately.”

“Haha,” the kid physically says, voice empty. He puts his knife down a little too hard; it clings against the edge of the plate. “Yeah, yeah, no heroics for me. UA’s too hard to get into anyways.”

“Really? Too tough for you?” Shota sips at his coffee. It burns going down. Should've been more delicate.

“Entirely. I mean, I know you're a teacher there, but have you seen your acceptance rates?”

“We only accept the best.”

The kid laughs, actually laughs this time, though something about it sounds scathing. “Yeah, and then you expel the best.”

Shota takes a longer sip from his drink. Bitter, he thinks, though he's not sure if he's talking about the drink or the kid. Could always be more delicate.

“It's fine, though. I wouldn't survive in your class, you know? I can't handle all that criticism, I’m sensitive,” he shrugs, both with his shoulders and his dark brows, puffy jacket engulfing him. Shota can hear his foot rabbit-beat against the floor.

“You can handle my criticism on patrol, but not in class?”

“Hey, I’m not saying you're good for me here, either.”

Shota looks up at him. The kid shoves a million bites of French toast into his mouth under his mask. It’s an awkward little thing, having to pull the bottom of his mask out just to eat. It almost makes Shota laugh.

If I could just picture you, he thinks, if I could just put your features together, you’d be done for.

Shota doesn't find it very funny anymore.

The kid doesn't take his time today. He eats with a quickness, but surprisingly doesn't make a mess. He has half the plate cleared before Shota notices.

“You have somewhere to be?” Shota knows the answer is probably school, preparing for school, something like that. School doesn't usually begin until 8:30, though, and the sun is only just crawling into the sixth hour.

“Something like that,” the kid doesn't look at him. It's interesting, how his eyes never directly meet Shota’s. He would figure it's the fear of his Quirk if the kid wasn't so interested in it.

His thoughts catch on that. He peers down to the kid’s side, past the table, the seat where he knows the messenger bag rests. The notebooks tucked deep inside had scared him at first, when the vigilante was still a squirming, new thing. A villain, mostly.

Well, they still scare Shota. But now he’s, like, eighty-five percent sure they won't be used against anyone. At least not him.

“I got All Might to sign one of the pages in this one,” the kid had said, flipping through one of the books with Shota, one late night in early January, unaware of his growing unsettlement.

“Before he went missing, I mean.”

He breathes slow. There isn't anything that could help him in those books, he knows, but a part of him just wants to make sure. 

The vigilante pushes his almost-clean plate away, then. “I feel like I need to hibernate now. Like a bear.” He leans back, face to the sky, though his hood doesn't fall off his head. Shota tsks. A stray piece of hair, and this could be over. 

But it wouldn't be, not really. He just likes to think like that. He’d almost call himself an optimist in moments like these.

The vigilante stands, red sneakers scuffing the ground, puffy jacket pooling around him. “I'm going to the bathroom real quick.”

“Sure.”

The kid shoots off. It takes a few moments for the wrong in Shota’s stomach to settle, while the kid’s gone. It's not unfamiliar, just confusing.

Ever since this started, I always feel like something’s wrong. It's like he hasn't felt peace since last October.

I haven't felt peace since I was born, he corrects, as he slides out of the seat and to the bathroom.

—

The bathroom is nicer than the sloppy convenience store that they used to spend their time in, painted all fresh white and red. The stall walls are still clean, though the signs of dirtier things—dirt caked in the tile grooves—are becoming ever more present.

The sound that spills through the walls is familiar. Shota hates it.

“Kid?” He murmurs as the sound of vomit echoes around the room. There's another sound, like a choke, and then a mumble. 

Shota finds him in one of the middle stalls, door unlocked. He’s on his knees, hands pressed against the porcelain, one ungloved palm—and Shota memorizes the thin fingers, bruised knuckles, bleeding knuckles, two fingers slick with something—moving to wipe itself against his pant leg.

“Don't look at me,” it comes out as almost a yell, a pleading sound, and Shota averts his eyes, knowing.

He looks at the toilet instead as the kid leans away, face unknown. There is no tar-black substance in the toilet.

There's a shuffling of fabric, of paper, a wiping at the mouth. When the kid looks back up, the mask is tight on his face, and his eyes are smiling, though puffy and red. “Hey, sir.”

His voice is quiet, bruised, scratchy.

“Hi, kid.”

He stands up. Moves. The toilet is flushed. Hands are washed. “Wanna go to the convenience store with me before I head home?”

“Sure.”

“Awesome,” the kid takes one last look at himself in the mirror, and then he walks out.

Shota stands still for a few seconds, staring into the empty toilet, thinking about half-digested French toast and red-raw knuckles.

—

They're mumbling along the shelves, sensitive eyes assaulted by sterile white, listening to the hum of the overhead lights. Shota picks out nothing, because he has food at home (takeout from two nights ago) and because he’s tired of wasting money (he’s overworked, sure, but not overpaid). The kid makes no comment about this, just wanders mindlessly around in the half-awake daze that tends to reach him at the end of the night.

Shota doesn't mind. He wants to mind, in a way. To mind so much that he follows the kid home, just to be safe, and he finds out something crucial. Something important. Something invigorating.

He won't, though. It's too dangerous, after all. A whole night of patrolling and the kid doesn't have a scratch on him.

Except the burn.

You've already messed that up, he thinks. And you looked away when he had his mask down. Can't change it now. Better not to pry.

They stand in front of the drinks, now. Shota stares at his own reflection in the fridge glass as the kid picks out a diet Mountain Dew.

The kid staggers still for a few more seconds, bottle dangling from loose fingers, sighing numbingly; looking at his own reflection just like the pro. “Why diet?” Shota asks, because there are only so many mistakes he can make in one day before he just gives up. “Why not just the regular?”

The kid looks at him, really looks at him, gray-tinted eyes meeting his for the first time, crinkled in smiling mirth. Ready for another lie? They ask.

Yes, Shota thinks in a silent reply, and he isn't surprised when the kid forces out, “I just like the taste of diet better.”

They make their way up to the front counter almost silently. They kid greets the cashier with a hey, Asahi, to which he grunts in half-reply. The small TV hooked to the corner is turned on to the early morning news, though it's silent.

“Oh, it's that reporter lady. My mom loves her,” the kid says, staring at the blond news lady in all pink attire. Wordlessly, Asahi turns the sound up.

“...o new findings in the case of the number one, All Might. With no recent developments or announcements from the Hero Commission, the public continues to ask…”

“God,” Asahi speaks for the first time, voice early-shift cranky as he scans the Mountain Dew. “You'd think they'd just announce a new number one by now, at least. We all know it's Endeavor.”

“The protests are going to be wild today, I can feel it,” the vigilante replies, amusement embedded in his voice like a blood-sucking tick.

“People need to stop freaking out. If you ask me, the guy was overrated, anyways.”

The kid laughs at that. Shota doesn't.

Chapter Text

“Carrying mother on my back / Just for a joke. / Three steps: then weeping— / She’s so light.”

- Ishikawa Takuboku, Carrying Mother on my Back

—

The metal of the payphone is cold against his ear. He rubs at his cheeks just for some warmth, though he knows they're already dusted rosey-red under the freckles from the temperature.

His hair is wind-tustled, curls knotting around his head, above his eyes. It isn't that chilly outside, even, he’d just been rushing around, leaving the apartment without a coat on. It's always been a bad habit, his rushing.

Oh, my Izuzu, his mother sung one morning, some years ago. You always have somewhere to be, don't you.

He smiles at her teasing tone. The payphone still buzzes against his ear. He sniffles, waiting for his hero to pick up. “Come on, man,” he mumbles, stuffing his free hand deep into his uniform pocket. He can't stand out here forever, he knows.

Stupid, he thinks. To go home and not even grab a jacket on the way out. 

Someone could see him out here, recognize his loose black uniform. He didn't even change.

But then his hero picks up. Izuku smiles.

“What are you doing?” The tone is stern, accusatory. It catches Izuku off guard, though he doesn't know why. It's always like this, he knows. He's always doing something wrong.

“Supergluing bread to the payphone stand,” he replies automatically, just to relieve the stress building up in his shoulders. It’s a funny thing he says, though he doesn’t really know why he says it. He’s not a funny person, just a nervous one. He’s tired of this new thing he’s doing, this trying-to-be-funny thing. 

“It’s the middle of the afternoon. I only have so many hours of free time to sleep, kid.”

Izuku hates that. Hates the word kid, always said so condescendingly, like he isn't Eraserhead’s equal in every way but one.

You're not, someone familiar in his mind whispers, but Izuku knows he is. 

“Okay, sure, but it's kind of, um, important,” and he tries, tries so hard not to mumble, to be confident, because if he mumbles it's over, Aizawa’s never ever going to take him seriously ever again. 

“The last time you said something was important, you disappeared for a month and then told me it wasn't actually a big deal.”

Izuku winces. He wants to argue, wants to say, that wasn't me, I swear it wasn't me, but then there's more questions than answers, and then it's a whole different conversation and—

Who does he think he is, speaking to us like that? Someone in his brain sneers, and Izuku focuses back on the matter at hand, because he feels anger spike inside him like a rose thorn.

“Okay, well, it's different this time. It's about the yakuza. You know, the ones your detective friend is so worried about?”

Yeah, who do you think you are?

Aizawa doesn't speak for a moment. The line grows silent. Izuku feels regret. 

He doesn't like this, talking like this. But he has to.

“You know about Tsukauchi’s interest in the yakuza.”

Hook, line, and sinker, a winter-white voice in his head says.

“I guess so, huh?” he replies, all fake bravado and false confidence. There are only so many ways to get things done, and sometimes the heroic option isn't one of them. Izuku tries not to let it make him sad.

“Anyways, we have to talk. Meet me at your apartment in, like, an hour?” He asks, but he tries to make it seem more like an order. You have to sell this, he thinks, so before he hangs up, he adds, “and don't worry, I already know your address.”

He leaves the phone hanging from the wire.

As he walks down the streets, round some random alleyways before heading home to make sure no one’s following him, Izuku lets his thoughts consume him. 

Not very heroic, someone says, a quiet little voice. 

Sometimes justice comes the hard way, the cold voice argues. Izuku smiles, though warily.

Your sense of justice used to be stronger.

Don't be so hard with Yoichi, a feminine voice interrupts. We’re working with what we have. It's gotten much better over the years.

Thank you, Nana, the ice-cold voice, Yoichi, agrees. We’re making the best out of a bad situation.

I hate when you guys talk about my life like this, Izuku says, as he pushes through the afternoon crowd and heads towards his home.

Oh, sorry, kid!

We didn't mean it like that.

You're being as heroic as you can be, promise.

…

You guys suck.

It's whatever, though, he doesn't mind. He makes his way to the apartment complex steadily, only half paying attention, half in his head. They don't usually talk like this, too disconnected in their own little worlds, so it's nice.

Well, not really nice, but better than communicating by notes and diary entries. Having to decipher Yoichi’s chicken-scratch handwriting is such a pain. Nana’s is actually quite nice, though, and there’s always fresh pastries in the kitchen after she's done.

Izuku breathes a sigh as he makes his way up the stairs with still-aching joints, bruises bothered by shifting fabric. He fumbles for the keys in his pocket as he reaches his door.

He drops his keys.

“I’m actually going to do something violent,” he remarks blandly, bending down to pick them up. It upsets a burn on his shoulder, sending the pain flaring, and he drops them again. 

This day is only getting worse, Yoichi says.

“Yeah,” Izuku agrees. He unlocks the front door.

The door slams shut behind him, blocking out the cool fall wind, consuming Izuku with air conditioned warmth. He shuffles down the hall and into his living room. The place isn't the most wellkept, sure, but he does his best to make it livable.

His living room is crammed with books. Books stacked in piles around the couch, covering the carpet, sprawled half-finished on the coffee table. The TV is still on from this morning—in a rush to get to school on time, he’d forgotten to turn it off—but the volume’s quiet, so the noise doesn't bother him. He liked to have hero shows playing quietly in the background before school, while he looked over case files, made coffee, got a good thirty minutes of sleep.

The kitchen is connected to the living room, separated only by the dining room table that Izuku had found on the side of the road and decided to drag it into his apartment on the third floor. Completely by himself.

The thing has two completely mismatched seats, facing each other. Izuku has always used the one on the left. The right chair sits there, collecting dust. He doesn’t know who he’s expecting.

The table itself is covered with notebooks and manilla folders, diagrams and loose papers. His old laptop sits at the edge, right in front of the left chair. It’s not the laptop he keeps in the storage room—that’s his dad’s. He uses that for looking at anything potentially incriminating, just to have some made-up barrier in his mind.

The kitchen just passed that is covered in books, too, all along the counters. Dirty dishes litter the sink, though they don't pile very high, something he’s grateful for. His fridge is covered with notes, lists, reminders, calendars. It's dangerous to forget, especially in a life like this.

He ducks into his room quietly, the first door in the hall to the right with the All Might nameplate. He almost laughs when he sees it, but he doesn't have the time to sit and stare and giggle like a child.

The walk from the payphone to his apartment is five minutes, which means he has around fifty-five minutes left. He doesn't know how long it takes to get to Aizawa’s apartment, because he hasn't put the address into Google maps yet, so he has no idea how much time he has to get ready.

He’d called Aizawa at exactly four PM. Izuku opens his phone, looks at the time. It's four-ten.

“Oh my God,” he whispers. He’s five minutes off. The world is ending. He only has fifty minutes. He wants to die.

Izuku rushes around the room, throwing his closet door open, rummaging through it to find something good. T-shirts, undershirts, shorts, thin zip-up hoodies, an old All Might costume two years too small. He has barely any clean clothes for the fall weather, much less for keeping a low profile as a vigilante.

He'd forgotten to wash anything. Because of course he did.

He almost shouts, but he doesn't.

He looks back at the edge of his bed, pressed up against the wall, next to the door. His pile of dirty clothes rests there, tumbling over its own weight. He grabs at random pieces of cloth that don't smell like blood or sweat.

It takes a second, but then he's dressed. A gray, long-sleeved undershirt, a white T-shirt that says ‘pants,’ his black parka, and black cargo pants. He ties the laces on his red sneakers and rushes out his door, hastily grabbing at random sunglasses and a paper mask. 

He doesn't bother bringing the gun, of course. Not so early in the day. Not even to scare Aizawa.

Grabbing the messenger bag left on the hallway floor, he makes his way out the door, finally pulling up Aizawa’s address on Google maps.

And of course he’s only a twenty-minute train ride away.

—

As he steps through the crowd of people onto the train, Izuku wonders, vaguely, if he's ruined everything.

No, I wouldn't say that, Nana’s soothing voice assures. 

I totally have.

He's one of the first people on the train, so he gets to sit, which is good, because having conversations in his mind tends to leave him.. unfocused. 

He has to protect himself, of course. Remind Aizawa just what kind of a person he is. The Musutafu Angel isn't so benevolent behind closed doors. Pulling at one of his cards was the best move. Not playing, but making everyone involved in the game aware of his hand. It was the safest bet.

After all, Izuku wasn't threatening Tsukauchi. Just giving Aizawa a little nudge in the right direction.

That's all it was. A little nudge.

Just to make sure Aizawa doesn't go blabbering about things he wasn't meant to see, start up another investigation because he's oh so concerned. They'd been getting close, maybe, too close.

You know, going this far because of a burn and him finding out about just one of your neuroticisms is new. Even I’m surprised.

Izuku isn't sure who's voice that is. He doesn't really care.

The last thing I need the police thinking is that I’m more unstable than I seem.

Trust me, they already know you're plenty unstable.

Izuku snorts. He barely even said anything. It didn't even count as a threat, just a word of acknowledgement of something that was thought to be unknown to him. The only thing Aizawa could be mildly fearful about is—

“And don't worry, I already know your address.”

—Ah.

Izuku swallows. Stills.

He'd said that, hadn't he?

“Well, that's not very good,” he mumbles out loud, suddenly scared out of his mind. Does that count as a threat? The implications? 

Fear grips at his heart with leathery vines, but the train has already pulled to his stop.

—

The world outside of the train is a bright mass, the sun a shimmering overhead light. Izuku fake-gags, much more used to the darkness, even with his sunglasses on. He pushes passed people on the street with a certain unease, as if he's floating, a ghost amongst men. 

The apartments he stops in front of are all gray-bland, pavement around them burning in the sun despite the chill. He makes his way to Aizawa’s complex in a daze. Something in his mind just disconnects when he’s not right, he knows. A switch is flipped, and he's just not there.

He's trying very hard to be there.

It's hard to remember how, at this point.

Stumbling up the stairs, only sort of remembering the apartment number, more focused on trying not to slip and fall, his mind endlessly wanders.

The number he’s in front of, rather suddenly, is 217. He's not entirely sure it's the correct number. Oh well, he figures. He knocks, looking around slowly, at all the gray concrete making up the building. The door feels sharp against his knuckles. Jeez, even his door is antagonistic.

That makes him laugh, a breezy little thing, high-pitched, as the door opens. Eraserhead stares down at him, a dark figure, and it occurs to Izuku how terrifying he really is. Red glints around the edge of his dark irises.

“You're early,” Aizawa grunts, and opens the door further to let Izuku in.

—

Aizawa’s apartment is just how Izuku expects it to be. Boring.

Izuku sits in the living room, hands stuffed in his pockets, leaning back in one of the stiff chairs around the coffee table. It's dark, no lights flickered on, curtains drawn over the windows. Still, rays of sun peek through. 

He's antsy, foot tap-tap-tapping, but disconnected, somewhere far away. 

He waits for something to happen. Aizawa is in the kitchen. They aren't separated by anything other than the counter. It is silent. Aizawa is making coffee.

“Have you eaten anything today?”

Izuku can hear himself breathing through the haze. His face feels hot, suddenly. “What?” He asks, hoping he's heard wrong.

“Are you hungry?”

“No,” he replies, automatically, because he knows what's happening even when he's a world away.

“Are you sure?”

“I know where you live now.”

“...Okay.”

Aizawa sits next to him. Their chairs are facing the same direction, but slightly tilted in towards each other. 

It's nice. It's terrible.

Izuku’s leg is still bouncing against the ground. A mug full of coffee is on the table, but he doesn't remember it being placed there. He's sitting in the chair closest to the exit. This fact does not bring him comfort.

“So… The thing you wanted to talk about?”

“Oh, right!” Izuku exclaims, too loudly, too quickly. He brings his hands out of his pockets, and when he goes to open his messenger bag, he realizes his hands are ungloved.

He laughs. He knows it's a harsh noise, though it sounds to him like it's underwater. He can feel Aizawa staring at him. 

Izuku is still for a second, tan hands hovering in the air, fluttering like feathers.

In a rush of something—adrenaline, maybe—he moves to rub at his face, still nervously laughing under his breath. “Hold- hold on,” he stutters, because he knows Aizawa is watching. “Sorry, I just, I need to go to the bathroom.”

“...Sure. Right down the hall. On the left.”

He feels himself standing, knows he's walking, tries to be normal. “You can just, uh, grab the files. They're in the bag. The folder.”

Absently, he pulls his sleeves up over his fingers as he reaches the door, pulls it open. Fingerprints are a luxury he can't afford to leave, even if he’s sure he’s not in any systems.

He knows his hands are covered, but he can't feel the warmth.

The bathroom door closes with a slam, a sound that reverberates uneasily in his skull. He sighs, looks around the white bathroom, the black shower curtain pushed to one side, the striking tile. His breathing grows harsh.

He's standing in front of the sink, staring at himself, rectangular mirror peering down at him. 

“This is insane,” he breathes, just loud enough to hear. “I'm insane.”

And then he changes.

—

His head hurts.

It's a familiar sort of pain, one he's adjusted to, can work around. The stabbing in the back of his head is a dull drum.

He looks down. There's a situation—well, there's always a situation when he's around, but this one is rather unique, because his hands are ungloved, hovering over the sink. They aren't really his hands, but they might as well be, because now they're his responsibility. They're an issue.

“I wouldn't have forgotten gloves,” he speaks quietly, because he has a kind-of-sort-of understanding of where he is, and his kind-of-sort-of understanding doesn't lead to good things. “Who would forget those?”

Well, whatever. There's too many issues here to spend time on this. He figures he's on a time limit.

He pulls out his phone, only knowing where it is because it's been in the same spot every day for the past few years (his back right pocket), trying to remember the password. Resorts to just guessing.

He gets it right. 

On the second time.

Swiping through notes, online calendars, reminders, entries, he finds his answers to the basic questions; who, what, when, why, where. He hums in vague recollection. Okay, he can do this.

The danger warnings in his head lessen. There's a time limit, of course; staying in this bathroom forever isn't an option, not when Eraserhead is waiting. 

He drops to the ground, on his knees, opens the sink cabinet. There is no bleach. That's okay, that's fine, as long as he's an optimist about this. Even the dumbest in his little mind world would know not to leave fingerprints everywhere.

(He's a pessimist. The world is on fire and his life is ending.)

Rushing will do him no good, anyways. He grabs at the towel hung on the rack with one fabric-covered palm, wets it with water and soap, and begins to wipe down the sink.

Of course there's no bleach in this bathroom. Why would there be cleaning supplies in a place that most needs cleaning? That's so stupid. Of course there's no bleach.

Pros these days, he thinks with some humor, scrubbing at metal-gray handles, don't know how to clean up after a good murder.

It’s just a little joke—nobody’s stupid enough to use bleach to clean up. He’s on his hands and knees now, wiping down the floor tiles, just in case. Who knows what they could have left on the floor. Spit, tears. Anything. There are many things that need to get done, and he doesn't have much time.

But Eraserhead can wait, just a little.

Once he's finished, sleeves raw-wet from the cleaning, he throws the damp towel into the sink, looks around and climbs into the shower to check for cameras (and he knows it's unlikely, but just in case). And then he steps out and looks into the mirror again.

He readjusts the paper mask. He's always wanted a real one, something more tangible, characteristic. Mostly something that won't be so easily ripped off.

Looking at his hands makes his headache worse, so he just doesn't. It's time to face the music anyways. There's nothing more he can do.

He opens the door with a cloth-hidden hand and steps out, an action that makes his headache split, twice as terrible. He makes his way back to the living room without a second thought.

“Eraserhead,” Hikage begins, voice as precise and monotone as it's been his entire life, “we have a lot to talk about.”

Chapter Text

Hikage is a meticulous man.

This is not to say he is a perfectionist, no, but in many ways (if not all), things can be perfect. He likes to think he can fulfill many of these ways. So he is familiar with being detailed, has been for as long as he can remember (which, he recalls, is not very far back. 

And though he is meticulous, he does not worry about this. He remembers as much as he needs to.)

This is also not to say that Hikage is paranoid, a worry-wart, particularly afflicted with anxiety, or any such words. He denounces nonsense like that, insecurity of any sort, because he is perfectly aware of how much danger he is in at any point in time.

This does not stop him from sifting through all his clothes for a tracker long after he has left Eraserhead’s apartment. 

Their talk was productive, calm, civilized, but that does not mean he trusts. The last person he trusted was his mother.

And then the voices in his head, but that is all him.

The talk, anyways, goes like this: Hikage speaks, Eraserhead listens. This is the most Hikage asks for and the least Eraserhead can do, something they both know but don't care to admit. Eraserhead stares as if he's seen a ghost. Hikage doesn't blame him. He has no doubt he'd been acting different just minutes ago, though he can't remember. He does not dwell on this. 

The yakuza, a dying breed currently sighing its last breaths in the underground heart of Musutafu, has been doing something strange, and Hikage reports this. Documents, photos, purchases are stuffed in one folder, logs of medical supplies, scientific tools, bullet shells bought. This would normally be considered a last-minute attempt to stay alive, a burst of mid-death thrashing, but the idea twists and turns in his mind rather awkwardly as Hikage tries to figure out what they're doing. 

He does not run his theories through Eraserhead. This is the last thing he finds himself wanting to do, possibly partly because Hikage can go days without speaking at all. 

Least of all to Eraserhead.

He finds himself instead thinking of this new operation while he stretches out his clothes, this experiment undoubtedly unfolding. The thought of it rings warning bells in Hikage’s mind. He considers Eraserhead, too, in this time.

Aizawa Shouta is not as intimidating a figure as he wishes he were. He's capable, sure, and Hikage had kept his hands firmly in their pockets for the entirety of their talk, because he isn't stupid. But he is not as capable as he used to be. Not like back in his mid-twenties, before the teaching had caught him, when death still burned as his determination.

It's something in the way he carries himself, Hikage decides, the way he is so sluggish and yet denies himself comfort. Still, he regards the hero with a deep sort of respect. 

Eraserhead is still dangerous, just not dangerous enough.

He's thinking about this still, as he moves around his own apartment, dirty and unkempt as it is. They're on a tight schedule, he knows, but he figures keeping the place relatively pest-free is the least everybody can do.

He washes the dishes, throws out the trash and rotten food, takes care of a chunk of the dirty clothes, makes a grocery list (there is nothing in the fridge except two day old pizza and some water bottles. This usually upsets him, but this time he's too tired to think about it), and thinks we need a bookshelf for the fiftieth time this month.

Eraserhead is respectable, heroic, good, but not a threat. Hikage folds clean clothes on his bed, writes the day's events in their notebook, and with this conclusion, finally falls asleep.

—

Izuku gasps awake, hands grasping at hot covers, a startling consciousness full of adrenaline. He sits up uneasily, chasing a nightmare he can't remember.

He falls back. His upper back is pressed uncomfortably against his headboard. The All Might comforter glares up at him, smile strained and entirely empty. Izuku is itchy, damp, sweat sticking his hair against his scalp, squirming under the blankets like an ugly bug.

The alarm is beating against his eardrums. All Might's theme song had been his favorite instrumental once, but now he can't bare the sound.

He grabs at his phone with shaky fingers, and it almost slips between sweaty palms. It's like that rule, don't meet your heroes, he suddenly thinks, and though maybe his heart is racing he almost laughs. Except it's ‘don't make your favorite song your wake-up alarm.’

He knows how true both of these rules are. He figures he needs a new alarm and a new hero.

Izuku opens his phone to shut the alarm up and check the time, and then he's stumbling out of bed, panicking at it all—it's ten PM, not nine like usual. He'd slept through his first alarm. His limbs get tangled in the damp blanket in his sudden struggle, almost tripping him up and over. 

You needed the extra sleep anyways, he reassures himself, though maybe it's not him. A change of schedule can be good. 

It has to be, especially when the League is getting antsy.

This is good for him. This has to be good for him.

A shower is tempting suddenly, with the way his shirt clings to his frame, but it'd just be a waste of time. He'd have to take another one in the morning before school, and that'd be a waste of water, too.

He doesn't even have the energy for a shower, either, so he just has to change and hope for the best. 

Piles of clean, folded clothes on the edge of his bed are picked through as he decides on an outfit, careful to not disturb something he won't wear (to not waste another's work, though Izuku doesn't yet know who he should thank), and carefully, he dresses.

And he makes sure not to forget anything this time. The leather gloves are tight, firm against his skin.

He leaves the messenger bag tonight. There will be no Aizawa for some time, so he has no need.

When he's finished—black parka overshadowing him, mini notebook secured, gun in his back pocket— he opens his bathroom window, feels the cool autumn air on tiny slivers of exposed skin, and climbs out onto his fire escape.

—

He doesn't think about the dream until long after that. 

The night is slow. Izuku is thankful for that, in a way. There are no heroes, no police cars, especially no criminals, giving him ample time to get caught up on the events of the day he'd missed.

He'd guessed Nana; she likes to take care of things, has that motherly attribute about her, would fold their clothes and assign chores. But it hadn't been.

Izuku’s not sure if he wants to thank Hikage, really, because Hikage never makes an effort to act like him. Of course, he took control of things just like Nana would, had the hard conversations, but with less… care. For at least acting normal. 

And if Aizawa knows they're like this…

Anyways.

Because of it being a rather low-income area, full of apartments and small shops, heroes rarely patrolled the place Izuku lives, even before everything happened. Now, though, heroes are almost nonexistent, resources spread too thin. Izuku assumes they at least trust him to take care of this.

The fall of All Might really was something. The heroes are treating Izuku like an equal .

Well, all except one, Izuku reminds himself.

The word kid is sneered in his mind, and he hisses at empty air. 

The hours bleed together. Ten turns to eleven turns to twelve turns to one. Izuku swings from apartment building to apartment building, black rope-like vines carrying him across open air. He likes this. It's a rush; the wind in his ears, around him, stinging at his eyes and whistling in high tones. The feeling of flying. He swears, if he could do this all day, he would.

The swing entices him, the outstretch of his arm, the fling of his wrist, the whip shooting out; it's rhythmatic. And when he jumps from one building to another, as the rope moves to pull him—

The dream comes back to him with a start, and suddenly the feeling of flying becomes the feeling of falling.

—

Aizawa catches him, because of course he does.

Izuku gasps into the sudden shock of fabric, weaving around him in soft winds, upright and sideways and all around. His arms whip against the constraints instinctively, his legs kicking. I’m safe, he thinks, I’m safe, because he knows what this is, but his head is pounding anyways.

He can hear Aizawa’s voice, low murmuring bordering on annoyance, annoyance bordering on concern, but Izuku can't make out the specifics; too busy trying to breathe. His throat closes as the scarf constricts around him. 

“Let me out,” he gasps, trying to keep from yelling, “let me out-”

The scarf drops him. He falls to the ground roughly, right on his side, scrambling away backwards quickly on his wobbly limbs. He coughs, knocks the back of his head against a sudden wall, coughs again.

He'd fallen between two closely-packed apartments; dropped in a small alley between them, dragged by Aizawa’s scarf into it's depths, where the street lights don't reach. This alone makes him more fearful than usual.

“Kid,” he hears, Aizawa’s gruff voice clear now, in a way his father’s never was. Izuku sucks in a breath quickly, air coming through his mask damp. “Kid,” again, and he can see Aizawa’s silhouette, knows it's Aizawa, but he swears it's someone else.

“ Dad, ” he mumbles in response, mouth dry, back pressing against cold stone, face hot, Aizawa in his peripherals.

“What?”

Izuku groans, face suddenly pressed into his hands. There's too much going on, really, and if he can't see anything at all then nothing can hurt him.

“It's just me, kid.”

This is a childish way of acting, someone that maybe isn't him says. This is a childish way of thinking, too.

He hears movement, feels a hand press against his shoulder suddenly, jumps at the contact. It's just Aizawa.

But Aizawa is still danger, just not the danger he fears right now.

But you can't see the danger.

Izuku uncurls himself with a force, then, shrugging Aizawa’s hand off. He feels, well, bad , seeing him, but maybe good too. There is too much conflict. 

Aizawa is to his side, crouching on one knee, watching him. His vision is fuzzy, but too clear, and he realizes his sunglasses are gone. Somehow, this is the worst thing to happen to him. He immediately chokes back a scream, maybe, or a sob. He hopes Aizawa hasn't heard.

“I was tailing you,” Aizawa speaks, like he really hasn't, and this makes everything worse. “Why’d you fall?”

Izuku files this information away for later as his eyes blink away sudden wetness. It's not unlike Aizawa to reveal information that he perhaps doesn't need to in times of crisis. This is useful, always has been, since they first worked together that night in December.

For someone so preaching of logic, Eraserhead is so emotional.

“I—I got, you know, surprised—”

“By what?”

“By—by stuff, Eraserhead, just stuff. Why do you care?”

He doesn't usually give Aizawa so much attitude. But, as his heart is rabbit-thumping in his chest, he figures this could be useful. 

Aizawa's always been partial to flighty strays, anyway.

“If I wasn't here—” Aizawa’s replying, but Izuku's already tuning him out. “If I didn't catch you— ”

Izuku looks everywhere but at Aizawa, eyes flittering around like lost butterflies. He's not exactly fearful of the pro, not right now, even if he's threatening, more just looking for every possible exit. Izuku's sure he looks scared, though.

And he is, just of something he knows isn't here.

“ Kid ,” Aizawa says again, voice now soft and pleading instead of scolding. 

I win, Izuku thinks, rather suddenly. He's not sure why.

He likes escaping Aizawa’s anger. Something about it makes him feel special, in a way Aizawa's students are not. Even the future heroes of the next generation can't compare to him. 

Maybe I just miss Dad, Izuku thinks. He does not linger on this thought.

Instead, he looks into Aizawa’s eyes, sees something unusual, and immediately bursts into tears.

—

He visits his mother the next day.

I should have come by ages ago, he thinks. Maybe that's why the nightmares started again.

Abandoning her has never brought up happy things, now that he thinks about it. Good thing he's never been good at it. Co-dependant , she’d called them. 

He never understood what was wrong with that.

The cemetery has a heavy air about it. Some self-contained bubble of trapped space. There is no wind here to shake the trees or scratch his face. Everything is frozen, halted in some way. 

Izuku hates being the only thing alive.

He makes his way across the path in the middle of the field. The cemetery is not rolling hills and endless stone pieces, could never be something like that, out of a movie. It is a small yellow-grass pocket, stone graves lined up neatly on flat land of the dead, the outstretch of prairie hidden behind mottled-white buildings.

Her grave is simple, because they couldn't afford much else.

The upturned block looks up at him from along the path. He can recognize hers anywhere, even among identical gray, even among all the same. Only a few feet away, he turns down to her macabre aisle and drags his feet.

Izuku swears he hears her singing. He figures it's the wind, though there is none.

He tredges up, looks down at her, name engraved clearly. MIDORIYA INKO, LOVED BY ALL.

Izuku can not name one person who loved her except for him. It should say loved all, and yet no one came to the funeral , he thinks, and he means it as a joke, but it makes him sad anyways.

He doesn't say anything, looking down at her. All the people in the movies who monologue to their deceased loved ones- Izuku figures that isn't him. He does not ask rhetorical questions, does not recount his day.

If he told her about his life, he knows she'd be upset. It's better to keep his mouth shut.

Instead, he just stands and thinks. It's not that her grave is neglected—the stone isn't chipped, or covered with dirt or dust or moss—but he can't help but fear that it is lonely.

Maybe you should visit more, then.

Guilt builds up in him like an ugly tidal wave, right at the bottom of his throat. He hums, his mouth pulling itself into a frown. “I need,” he starts, swallows, stops.

“ You, ” he finishes, uneasily. He doesn't like to talk over her grave. It's just another way of looking down on her.

There's no remedy for the sickness that abides itself in him. He knows this. There is something wrong with him that no one can fix. 

Mom was—Mom was good at it, good at little things, good at biding their time, but she was a temporary solution to a permanent problem. 

He imagines going to the beach— her beach, her favorite beach—lying in her ocean, sitting in her sand. But Takoba is old, abandoned, covered with trash, not the beach she knows. Not the beach he wants to remember her by.

His memory is already clouded enough.

“Every time I close my eyes, I see you,” he says, because he can't stop himself when he has nothing else. Always so impulsive, Aizawa would scold.

Always so quick! He hears his mother’s familiar praise.

“You won't leave my head,” Izuku confesses. No monologuing, he'd told himself. But he has to confess something. Her grave should have some sort of religion attached to it, and this is the closest Izuku is going to get.

He hates that she has a sinner for a son.

“You're in my dreams again, Mom.” It's the same thing he told Aizawa. He regrets it, but it'd been a moment of weakness, impermanent. He's sure Aizawa hadn't even heard him over the blubbering mumbles. “You're infecting my sleep.”

Izuku remembers it, the dream that'd come back to him mid-swing. He sees her hands, plump porcelain doll’s, white compared to his tan; grabbing onto him, long nails cutting at his arms.

And then he remembers Aizawa, strong black-clothed arms wrapped around him, engulfing him, and for some reason this thought makes him shudder more than the thought of his mother’s.

He huffs. “Get out of my brain, Mom. Please,” he asks, face flushed, and then he turns to the direction of Takoba Beach.

Chapter Text

……..

…..

Access granted.

.

.

.

Notebook #58

Diary entry 2,004

Probable Author : Midoriya Izuku

[Unconfirmed]

JUNE 29TH, 2XXX

So it's done.

I sent a hook out with Shigaraki as bait, and Aizawa latched on immediately and went to go tell Tsukauchi. I just showed him one of the storage rooms and a few forum posts. He takes things SO seriously. And I really had hope, too. I should have listened to Nana. 

He really can't be trusted, which hurts. I can't trust anyone the way I trusted Toshinori. I guess there's no one like All Might after all. 

Shigaraki's still safe, so no worries on that end. They're not going to find anything on him from a few forum posts, especially with that IP set up thing he has. I never got technology like that, the way I get heroes. Can someone get better at that? I'm not in the mood to learn coding. But anyways, now Aizawa wants to seriously investigate, and not even with me. With his policemen who want us dead. 

 It's okay, though. I'll clean up my mess.

—

“They have us forking away so much money, I swear the streets should be paved with gold by now,” his father grumbles, body hunched over on the rickety couch. The TV is blaring loud, one of the only lights among the shuttered-in room, the news blaring a million different noises.

His father’s voice lowers to soft murmurs to himself. Izuku starts to color again, boosted on the dining table chair, the paper below him scribbled with blues and yellows.

Most of the windows are drawn closed, dark curtains pulled over them. The door is locked tight. 

The smell of smoke is filling the room. Izuku just keeps coloring. He is eight, and a part of him likes to pretend that he does not know the truth yet. A single window is cracked open just so, the fire alarms stopped working months ago, and he is safe. This is as close to the truth as he is going to get.

“It's all those damages,” his father says again, smoke snorting out of his mouth like a fat snake. It's a repeated mantra, has been for years. Izuku can hear something clattering against his father’s shifting feet. “From the heroes. Those—those limelights . Always wreckin’ shit. Makin’ us pay for their—their damages. The people pay for those, you know?”

The air is filled with dust. The dining table is cluttered with his books, all bright colors and big words. They're old, from when he was younger. He is the best reader in his grade. Kacchan likes to pretend he isn’t jealous.

“And what's that stupid fucking organization doing about it all? That… That Hero… That Safety Commission.. Whatever it is.”

Izuku sniffs at the air. He sneezes, coughs. Then he adds some red to his drawing. The smoke floats above him like a rainy cloud.

“You never see the, the, what are they called, Izuku?”

“The what?” 

His own voice is croaky, unfamiliar to even himself. His throat is scratchy, like he hasn't spoken. Maybe he hasn't.

“The night heroes. The, uh, the ones you like.”

“Underground heroes?”

“Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You never see those fuckers acting like—causing, causing this damage… You never see…”

The dragon trails off. Izuku signs his name in the silence in red, right by All Might’s painted smile, and grins down back at him. Izuku is eight years old, and nothing bad has happened to him. This is his truth.

“I'm gonna… I’m gonna get rid of ‘em. I'm gonna get rid of 'em all, Izuku.”

—

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“The kid looks, like, six years old, man. He's not even gonna last five more weeks as a vigilante.”

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“No. He's too capable. If we don't catch him now—”

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“One day he's gonna come up on someone too intimidating to mess with, and he's gonna chicken out before it even matters.”

The chattering through the station follows him like an ugly ghost. He sits in one of the old waiting chairs, one pale finger tap-tap-tapping on the wooden armrest, the chill from the outside still worming it's way out of his jumpsuit and into the heat. 

The station is alight with action, even in the late hours of the night, bumbling and buzzling, coffee poured and files printed. Aizawa hates it, hates the office environment, hates the innocent worker bees that they form. All one conjoined mind, no singular thought. He supposes that's why he chose this life instead; in the action, a lone wolf among pack dogs. 

(Because they were never sheep, though he often wanted them to be.)

“Are you done just sitting there, brooding?”

His head whips up, black strands falling around his face in great shadowy swoops. Briefly, he thinks that he needs a bit of a haircut. He thought that last month, and the month before, though. So he can go another. 

Tsukauchi is standing above him, a pleasant smile on his face, sort of friendly as he always is; though they both really only see each other in passing and Aizawa knows he can make the detective uncomfortable. They're both in their mid thirties, though, and avoiding each other like teenagers is a hobby they're long passed. 

Aizawa supposes he's glad, though. He couldn't handle having to get used to another detective. 

“You called. I came.”

Tsukauchi smiles wider at that, and something about the way his eyes crinkle makes it seem genuine.

They walk to Tsukauchi’s office, wordlessly. Aizawa is not one for pleasantries and Tsukauchi is not one for forcefulness. They both know half the things that would come out of Aizawa’s mouth would have been lies anyway.

The call had been sudden, unexpected. Sure, the vigilante had been making his rounds since the earliest days of October, but Aizawa had expected them to quiet down, quit while they were ahead.

Not because that was what other vigilantes had done, of course—they’d all gone and gone and gone until they were caught or killed—but because the new one is little, probably just a kid, not strong enough. Easy to scare off from the world of crime fighting for a long time, or at least easy to catch.

But the new one, over the course of the month, had proved neither easy to scare off or easy to catch.

“I know that you've worked with vigilantes in the past, and that you've caught twice as many. Since this case features a… Pesky one, I figure your input could be helpful on this,” Tsukauchi begins, sitting in his old office chair, desk clattered with paper coffee cups and files, sticky notes and pens. “So what do you know?” 

Aizawa isn't completely uninformed—he never is when someone new crawls up onto the underground playing field—but he perhaps hasn't been watching as closely as he could be. 

Mostly because the guy’s just a kid .

Which might have been a mistake on his part, because if they could be underestimated like a kid they’d have been caught already.

“Just basics. He's a teenager, probably a male, short, fast, no signature outfit, but smart enough to wear gloves and a mask. Statistics point to lower class. He's a strategic fighter, just doesn't have a lot of strength. Signs of Quirk usage proved inconclusive, but the theorists are leaning towards emitter instead of transformation or mutant. As they usually are.”

Tsukauchi nods, a neutral force as he always is. “So what's your take on it? With so early in the game and really no interaction from our side or his, we don't have a psychological profile.”

“Just a guess? I'd say he wants to keep a low profile right now. He's got no outfit, no name, no calling card. I don't think he has anything to prove yet.”

“So?”

“So he wants to be a hero. Not for the fame, but to save people.”

A chuckle ripples out of Tsukauchi’s mouth like a tide, running a hand through his cropped dark hair. “Those are always the worst ones.”

“They do tend to go down swinging.”

“No, not like that. I meant that it’s hard to put a man in cuffs when he's standing for the exact same thing that you are.”

—

Izuku is twelve years old and something bad is happening to him.

He is not Izuku. He is still running as if he is, though—he can hear their scratchy voices behind him, can hear them yelling out Deku, knows instinctively that's me.

But it is not him.

He leaps over the chainlink fence and beats his oversized sneakers into the ground anyways.

Almost smacking clear into a stone wall, he turns, runs down a busy street, pushes past every startled body, doesn't even know where he's going.

Just away, he thinks. Just go away.

It is not him who thinks this. He does not realize.

The world is a cacophany of senses, cars rolling past, honking and blinking and turning, lights flickering, people talking and moving, fabric shifting around his aching joints, and he turns too soon.

He smacks his face right into the shiny window of a clothing shop.

He does not register this pain, just keeps moving, jumps over his own feet, stumbles into the store hoping no one noticed. All at once the air-conditioned cold hits him, but his face is still hot, flushed, heat building in his cheeks and his forehead, vision fuzzy. The shop is as bright as the outside world, shining fluorescents and shimmering sequins, every color laughing at him.

An audible sound leaves his mouth. He doesn't even realize the monotone “a-aaah,” until an employee looks over at him from a clothing rack. “Hello, welcome!” She greets, smiling, but when he does not move to make the same expression she falters. “Can I… Help you with anything?”

“...Do you have a bathroom?”

“Um, sure. In the right corner.”

He leaves for the bathroom quickly, walks in, locks the door behind him. It's a single, just one slightly too-large room with a terrible smell and smudgy brown tile. He looks right into the mirror.

It is not him.

“No,” he says. “That can’t be true.”

It does not feel like him, but neither does his name. The scratchy, burned school uniform that he can't remember does nothing to help. It occurs to him quietly that he does not like to speak.

He is not tanned skin and freckles and wild hair. His eyes are unfamiliar, dark pools of green. He is not Izuku.

“Who,” he murmurs emptily, eyes fixating and squinting and widening, watching himself like a hawk, “am I?”

He does not find an answer to this.

Eventually, he leaves the bathroom, but only when an employee knocks on the door and says he's been in there much too long, and if he's going to loiter around the store like this he might as well at least buy something.

Nervously, under the employee’s judging eye, the Izuku who is not Izuku picks out a black parka, much too big for him, and leaves.

—

The first time Aizawa hears of it, he’s in one of his most frequented bars, sitting across from one of his most chatty informants, the one who’d be found dead in not even three months. Currently, he feels nothing about this person except for pliant annoyance; he does not sense the impending destruction that will come. This is true for many situations involving Aizawa, not just the informant’s demise.

The man’s voice is a grainy background noise of a sound, cigarette-ruined but understandable, scratchy and dry. Aizawa is not paying much attention to his words, to be entirely truthful.

“-And of course there's the business with that vigilante running around. What's his name? The Swinging Rabbit? Ough , he's got a million.” 

Aizawa perks up at this. The bar is a seedy old thing, with uncomfortable seats and even more unpleasant company, and he'd felt his attention thrown out the window thirty minutes ago. The October chill is being combated by an overworked heater. It's too hot.

“What business?” He asks. “With the vigilante.”

“Caught your attention, I see. Speaking of the brat, you know, you’re always so curious about him, and yet there's never any new information to tell. It's really sad. But it's your lucky day today, mister! Isn't that exciting?”

“Get to the point.”

The informant’s expression wavers, all pinched in false charm, painfully tense. It's always difficult for characters like these to deal with Aizawa. His sharp blue eyes flicker like an old television, searching for the next best thing. “Well, his Quirk. There's finally some information about it.”

Aizawa falters.

It's not like it wasn't going to show up, unless it was invisible , he thinks, but still, it feels… Strange. So early in the game. Most vigilantes (except for the really, really dumb ones) hid their Quirks as long as they could, but eventually it'd come out in some extremely dangerous situation, or it appeared by accident; some reflex they'd learned from having it all their life, unused to hiding it. 

It was one of the easiest things to identify a suspect with, and eventually, it led to most of their captures. Not just in Japan, but in many other countries—this was how it was done.

But it makes Aizawa feel a certain sense of uneasiness. This can't be it. 

The thing is, the only special feature about the vigilante is that he’s just almost too smart. That's just how it is. He's there and then gone, no fingerprints left on the victims (which were criminals, of course, but still victims in their own right), no DNA. Blood is never spilled—at least not his—and a hair is never out of place. 

His voice isn't even distinct. Nor his height, his build, his clothing isn't specially fabricated to accomodate for any mutation present. Sure, he's a bit clever, but that's all he's got. Almost nothing about him is exceptional. He is a plain midnight assailant. There is nothing special about him. 

But still, his Quirk couldn't end his mission so soon. He's too smart to give it up this quick. He's too quick-witted, too sharp. This is all the Rabbit has going for him. This can't be it, he thinks again. This can't be it.

But the informant is already talking, and Aizawa figures it must be. 

—

Izuku is thirteen years old, and apart from his mother's death, nothing bad has happened to him.

Well, something bad has happened, but he is just the Izuku who remembers. One of them, at least.

“I’m gonna get rid of ‘em all,” his father is mumbling, in the living room where he always is, smoke filling the apartment in big brushes. There is a window cracked open. Izuku is about to make katsudon. This is his truth.

“Who first?” Izuku asks, like he always does, just to see what the answer is today. He is in the kitchen, thick black socks almost slipping against the wooden floor, preparing rice. His voice has that lilt that it always does when he's not taking something very serious, but something about it isn't really him.

“ Endeavor. All those… All that property damage they have us paying for cause of him..”

“I thought he was gonna be the last? You know, so you could warm up.”

It's silent for a second. Izuku considers humming, but that is something his mother used to do, and his father does not like to be reminded of his mother. It sends pangs of grief through both of them.

“Oh, you're right. You know, you're always remembering things for me. You're smart, Izuku. Like a fox.” He repeats these last few words, again and again. 

“Like a fox…. Like a fox . My Izuku, so smart, like a fox….”

Izuku who remembers says “thank you,” and the room goes silent again. The only sound is the news, overwhelmingly loud, on the TV.

“Izuku, can you get me another drink?”

He smiles. Izuku is thirteen years old, and nothing bad has happened to him. This is his truth.

—

“This can't be it,” Tsukauchi breathes, voice coming out in that low sort-of-frustrated sigh he does, when he honestly wasn't expecting a lead to work but he's still surprised when it really doesn't. Aizawa almost laughs. He would if he weren't upset too.

“Guess it couldn't be that obvious. He's too smart to give up his Quirk this quick. It's only been, what, a few weeks?”

There's no one that fits the profile. No adolescent in the city with a Quirk like this, at least not one this specific. 

Aizawa leans back in one of Tsukauchi’s dusty office chairs, not pleased but not furious. This is how it is sometimes, especially with criminals. Not usually vigilantes, though—previously law-abiding citizens had their Quirks registered. Only people who are born into the life of crime don't.

“I thought it was too specific, like maybe we were searching for someone who was just using a broader Quirk to make these ropes,” Tsukauchi mutters. Aizawa’s content to let him talk, even though he can probably guess where their failures lie. “But there are only a couple people in the city that have Quirk residue similar to his, and they aren't matching in consistency, color, or stickiness.”

“All that means is that he didn't get his Quirk registered. That's fine, we’ll find him some other way,” he replies. It's not the biggest deal in the world, but it's early November now and the public is starting to actually like the guy. 

It's hard to capture someone you stand with. It's even harder to capture someone that everybody loves.

“What about DNA? You get any from the residue?”

“No. At least, not any that fits someone in the system. Even then, Quirk cells are iffy on DNA anyways.”

Aizawa nods. “It doesn't matter. We’ll get him.”

Tsukauchi snorts, like he finds the prospect of this possibility funny. Even though it's more serious now, the idea of arresting some rebellious middle schooler is humorous to Aizawa, too. Though, previously, he’d just be suffering a few years of juvenile detention at most. But it's different now.

“You should probably be leaving, almost time for your patrol, I think,” Tsukauchi says, nodding his head towards the door. “I’d hate to bore you with all our recent failures when you have a job to do.”

Aizawa hums, doesn't reply, but gets up and walks to the door anyways.

Before he closes it on his way out, he turns back to Tsukauchi. “Oh, and since we want to discourage the public… adoration for him—to make the arrest easier—you should leak the camera footage. Let everybody know their beloved rabbit almost murders petty criminals with strangulation via his Quirk. I think that'll put a nice damper on things for now.”

And then Aizawa shuts the door and sees his way out.

—

Midoriya Izuku is fifteen years old, and something bad is happening to him.

Not yet, though. It's much too calm for that. They're sitting in an old black car, parked along the gray pavement street in the middle of the afternoon, the heater barely working and the October chill seeping through. His mouth itches, burns, maybe, for a cigarette or something like that, but this is business so he just stuffs his mouth with sugar-free cinnamon gum and hopes for the best. 

He's in the passenger seat, elbow propped along the door, staring out the window. There is nothing to look at except the flat sky and the gray buildings, gray people, gray plants. The whole world is gray and the street is almost deserted.

The first snow hasn't fallen yet, being only October, which upsets him but also makes him smile. Fall is taking its time, which is bad for his happiness but good for his heating bill. Crime usually speeds up in the summertime, and fall and winter is where he can plan his breaks. 

Good, because being out in a midnight snow storm probably would have killed him already.

Despite the situation, he feels.. rejuvenated, at least today. Aizawa is scowling in the front seat, arms crossed, gaze fierce, but all Izuku can feel is the sweet and saccharine that fills his gums and carries through his body. He's dizzy, but not nauseous, and when he doesn't eat for just long enough he can feel like he's out of his head, at least for a little bit. 

The car is silent. Izuku cranes his neck to look at Aizawa—an action that feels slow and unusual—who isn't looking back at him. They're waiting for something, always waiting, always anticipating, in Aizawa’s old little car that creaks and clutters and probably isn't even safe to be in. If Izuku focuses on the clouds filling his head, soft and cottony and almost hungry, he can forget about the anxiety buzzing under his skin for just a few seconds. His gum smacks against his molars. 

Suddenly tired of the quiet, smelling only impending doom, he turns on the radio and swings the volume up. 

The sound shoots out immediately. Doo-doo doo-doo, doo-doo doo-doo, a woman sings. Izuku stretches his neck, blows the cold sweet air out of his mouth right back in to his mask, settles again.

I am sitting in the morning at the diner on the corner

I am waiting at the counter for the man to pour the coffee

“Oh, my mom loves this song,” Izuku comments, smiley and happy and trying to ignore everything that this situation is. Aizawa doesn't reply.

And he fills it only halfway, and before I even argue

He is looking out the window at somebody coming in

“Good ol’ American dream that brought us this one, yeah?”

Aizawa doesn't reply. He just keeps staring at the window, as if he's expecting the sky to rain if he just glares hard enough. All the time and Izuku still doesn't know what they're waiting for, doesn't know what will happen.

Doo-doo doo-doo, doo-doo doo-doo

Doo-doo doo-doo, doo-doo doo-doo

Something in Izuku feels, perhaps, scorned by this. The dismissal. But there are bigger things to worry about, always bigger things to focus on. This is important, whatever this is, and he's probably not going to be in police custody by the end of it.

Probably. 

“It is always nice to see you,” says the man behind the counter

To the woman who has come in, she is shaking her umbrella

And I look the other way as they are kissing their hellos

And I’m pretending not to see them, and instead I pour the milk

Doo-doo doo-doo, doo-doo doo-doo

Doo-doo doo-doo, doo-doo doo-doo

Chapter Text

“You know, you kind of remind me of my uncle. Before the acid, I mean.”

“The wh—”

“Anyways.”

Izuku smiles, though he knows they can't see it from under the mask. His body is twisted rather awkwardly in the stiff black seat, trying to fully face Tsukauchi in the back, but he still sticks his hand out to shake. The detective just sort of stares, glances towards Aizawa, blinks when Aizawa doesn't help.

“I’m—I’m not a poison dart frog, sir, I’m not gonna kill you.”

He jitters his hand around a little to attract the attention back, tries to seem welcoming, ignores the panic that's building at the bottom of his throat. Swallows past it. Dry cinnamon is all that he tastes.

Tsukauchi finally takes the bait, grasps his hand firmly. Maybe relaxes a bit, maybe an act, Izuku's unsure, too anxious to care. He pulls his arm back maybe a little too swiftly after they seperate, wipes his hand against the door, checks for any planted bugs. 

The detective has a firm grip, professional even when surprised. Speaking of surprise, Izuku thinks.

“I’m sure you weren't expecting him to be here, detective. I just figure it's… Easier for everyone if you were all familiar with each other. So information could be passed smoother along.”

Good call, Izuku thinks. Aizawa should know to stop keeping so many things from him now. But now that he's finally opened his mouth…

Well, he seems irritated. Has been since Izuku met up with him that afternoon, all bundled up in black in broad daylight. It was hard, especially because Izuku was someone with… Fans, and an apparently easily recognizable large parka. And maybe Aizawa’s mood is worse now, probably because of Izuku, and the nonsense he’d spewed as soon as Tsukauchi opened the back door.

But he can't blame Izuku either. He has to know that. Izuku's out of his mind, isn't eating like he should be, is too ditzy and dizzy to focus on anything serious like whatever business Aizawa and the detective have in a car with him.

This isn't an arrest, he figures, because he’s still holding up his end of the deal and the contract said they'd notify him before terminations, so he could get his things in order and decide if he really wanted to continue being a criminal.

And they'd never terminate, not with how the city is right now. Izuku's grateful for that, at least.

So he has no idea what this is, not really. It can't be just an introduction. The only reason he agreed to meet Aizawa so early—twelve PM was early for them—was because he thought they'd be going to a little cafe or some kiddie arcade, where Aizawa would ask for urgent information and Izuku could blow all his cash. 

Not to the car .

But he was fritzy that morning in the sunlight, couldn't stand too long without his head spinning, so he got in the passenger seat anyway and let the cranky heater mask the frost in his bones. And before he knew it, they were sliding onto the road. 

I can still fight everyone off if things go bad, he thinks. Even still, the thought reassures him. He is cracked but not shattered.

Aizawa’s talking now, but for a second, Izuku knocks his head back, closes his eyes and forgets to listen. It's hard to focus regularly, harder like this; when his mind floats and his vision swims if he moves too fast. He hears their voices, doesn't care.

The radio had been turned down when Tsukauchi stepped in, but the song had already changed to one Mom actually hated, so he doesn't care. He can feel the low whisper of the tune still, all mellow and rushed and mismatched. He huffs a bit in annoyance. He wishes he was at the beach. 

Suddenly, something shakes at his shoulder. Izuku looks down at the pale hand, snapped out of his temporary frigidity. “Are you paying attention?” Aizawa is asking, voice broad, annoyed and uncaring, unwelcoming as it always is. Izuku feels his throat go dry. He's used to it, but it still hurts.

“Ah—I mean, yes, yessir. Very much yes.”

“What are we talking about?”

Izuku is silent. He feels Aizawa’s eyes beating down on him, some thundercloud hanging low above his head. He wants to go home and drink all the beer in his neighbor’s fridge. It's not top-shelf liquor, but it'd do, always in moments like this. 

He'd skipped school for this. Falling behind on his studies is not something he’d ever meant to do, especially with UA so close in his horizon. Not even like this. Not having to work (at least, not technically) means school is his top priority. UA is his top priority. 

But he's here, half-freezing, half-burning up in some old car with his enemies. For a long moment, Izuku feels stupid.

“ Of course you aren't paying attention. This is your issue. You think just because we aren't chasing you down now means you can do whatever you want.”

He swallows. Making Aizawa upset is always one of the worst things, really. Izuku does not have a problem lying to anybody but himself.

“We have a very strict deal, kid. The commission keeps you around not because they think you're a good person, or a hero, but because you're neither and they need resources anyways.”

And Izuku is saying nothing, just looking up at him with wide eyes behind sheer-black sunglasses, a lump in his throat and worry growing in his collarbones. He feels the faintness beating in the back of his skull. 

I'm dying for this job and you don't know it, he almost says. I'm dying right now and you don't know it.

But he doesn't speak, even when electricity starts to bubble under his skin, all white and green. Something inside him shifts when he realizes they're in front of an audience, though, in front of someone he really can't seem weak around. 

There’s nothing wrong with bluffing, he hears his mother say. It’s not lying if it’s to keep you safe.

“Oh, come on , man,” he hears himself groaning, shrugging his stutter off quickly. He doesn't call Eraserhead man, not like this, but the words feel familiar to his tongue so he says them anyways. It's a disarming sort of speech, one he can pull off quickly but can't hold, but if he can fool everyone for just a second he’ll be okay. “You're killing me here. I just spaced out for a second. Calm down. You're not my dad. ”

For some reason, this sounds more like an insult than he means it to.

Trying to seem open, he turns back to the detective, and smiles with his eyes. “Sorry, man, I thought this was big kid business. Guess I’m finally old enough to sit at the table after all. Anyways, what were you saying?”

He wants to die. He feels so dumb.

Tsukauchi takes a second before speaking again. He looks every part of the stereotypical detective; bundled up in his beige trenchcoat, hair cropped close to his scalp, tie tight around his neck. “It's… About the Shie Hassakai. They're a yakuza organization, and we think they're responsible for the experiments you've been reporting on.”

Izuku hums. Do they think he’s stupid ?

“Oh, really? Then we have people to arrest.”

Whatever. He can play dumb, he already feels the part anyway. 

“It’s not that simple,” Aizawa grumbles, like Izuku should know this already (and he does, but, well, ugh, it’s complicated, can’t he see). He’s such a frightening force to sit next to some days—most days—but it’s a little easier when he’s quiet. Or maybe harder. Izuku doesn’t know. “They’re yakuza, kid. Arrests aren’t that easy to make here.”

He huffs. “What do I have to do then? What am I here for?” he asks, because to them he’s good at making arrests and not much else. Whatever. He’s not upset about it. He’s not. He wants this over with, is all. He wants to go to sleep. Something inside him is drained, aching, so he turns his head back forward even though it makes his vision swim and zips his black parka higher up his chest. 

“You don’t want background information before we make some semblance of a plan? I figure knowing what you’re dealing with could be very helpful.”

Oh, you don’t even know, he wants to say. “There’s nothing I can’t find out from some underground friends,” Izuku says instead, and tries to put something like a smile in his voice.

“You think you’re so charming, huh?” He can hear Aizawa’s grating voice, annoyingly clear. 

“Yessir!” He replies, and for once doesn’t stutter. 

—

Before Izuku travels home, he has Aizawa drop him off on a random street, walks around a tad to make sure nobody’s following him, and catches a train to Kamino. 

Making his way to the station is difficult; there’s a small gathering, almost a protest—if they just yelled a little louder and actually had a cause—blocking one of the main streets, so he has to go around some office buildings and take a longer route. It’s not too cold, but it’s not warm either, and every time the wind blows he feels like he’s going to fall over. The moving train makes him nauseous, dizzy, and he realizes why all those harm-reduction websites tell you not to drive vehicles if you haven’t eaten. 

It’s almost not intentional, Izuku half-reasons, as people shift on and off the train quietly. He just doesn’t have the money, maybe, or he’s out of time. Between school and studying and patrolling and sleeping and whatever else he does (he honestly doesn’t even know), he just doesn’t have the time for groceries. Shopping is hard. 

But he can make enough time to buy sugar-free gum. The least he can get at the gas station on his slower nights is a breakfast sandwich. 

He laughs. That’s something Aizawa would say, if he were here. If he knew.

Aizawa does know, though. He has to. He’s a smart cookie, he can put two and two together; he just hasn’t said anything, because it’s awkward. And weird. And because it could jeopardize Izuku’s short career with the Commission. 

Or maybe he just doesn’t care. 

Izuku tries to redirect before he thinks about that possibility too long. 

The train isn’t as quick as he likes it to be, but he’s already off by three so he considers the whole thing a win anyways. He dislikes coming to Kamino, maybe because most of it seems frighteningly familiar. And it is familiar, always has been, because he’s walking the same steps, down the same streets, past the same buildings as he has a hundred times before. This is maybe his least favorite trait about himself. 

It’s funny, at least, because nobody recognizes him here. Or if they do, they don’t act like it. Not like in his city, where he's sort of famous. He’s just a regular guy in a black jacket going about his business, which is maybe-law-abiding and also maybe-terribly-nefarious. Just like every other guy in Kamino. 

He likes this fact, at least. It’s comfortable.

What’s not comfortable is the gravel growing under his feet, the stuff so jagged he can feel it past the soles of his old red sneakers. The wind is picking up, reddening his cheeks and rustling his curls (that he never brushes out anyways), and he’s eager to make his way inside. The ruined concrete street outside the bar is uncomfortable to stand on, and he rushes in without a second though. 

He opens the oak door with freezing fingers and takes the immediate burst of hot air in stride. He welcomes the dark wood floor, the low red light, if only for the warmth that it brings. The little jukebox in the corner is spinning some classical song, glasses are clinking in polishing wispy hands. Izuku breathes in the smoky oxygen, feeling finally returning to his body as the door shuts behind him. The cold had made his lips grow numb. 

Kurogiri looks his way first, ever the polite soul, from behind the counter with his row of top-shelf liquor, and Izuku doesn't miss the way his yellow eyes sharpen. His mouth feels annoyingly thirsty when he sees the row of bottles.

Shigaraki takes a second, though. He’s sitting at one of the bar stools, farthest away from the door, one empty glass grasped in four fingers. His white pinkie twitches down when he sees Izuku, and the glass disintegrates. 

“You guys will never guess the day I just had,” he tries to speak before anyone else does, because things are awfully awkward right now and he doesn't appreciate it. He feels a sense of relief noticing that Shigaraki isn't wearing his weird decaying hand-mask thing, because it always creeps him out. The heebie-jeebies, if you will. “Like, astronomical levels of crazy, you won't even be able to imagine—”

“Get out of my bar,” Shigaraki is speaking, all in his raspy broken voice, standing with his freaky fucking skeletal posture and his hands splayed on the table, pinkies quivering. Izuku tsk s with his tongue.

“ Come on, dude, ” he begins as if in reflex, throwing his arms up, maybe because he’s used to acting casually with people who want to kill him. As if Shigaraki hasn’t already tried it. Whatever. He didn’t succeed last time anyways, and Izuku’s learned what to expect by now. “I bring you good news! And neutral news! But not bad news! Starting with the fact that I got the cops off your ass!”

“You were the one who reported me in the first place. ”

“You tried to kill me! We’re business partners! You can’t kill your business partners, Shigaraki!”

“I can do whatever I want.”

“And that attitude is why the bar is always empty. you scare all the customers off.”

Izuku sits, finally, in one of the bar stools, swiveling just a little—because he wants to spin but immediately regrets it, the way his head starts to rush—to face Shigaraki again. “Can you, like, just sit down and listen to all the fun shit I’m about to say? It could help you.”

Shigaraki doesn't sit, because he’s weird and gangly and kind of a little freak, but he drops his weird spidery attack posture so Izuku considers it a win anyways. He pulls his jacket close to his chest, hands inside his pockets, because the cold isn't completely shaken off his bones. Shigaraki and him look very similar now, both in black clothing and red shoes, long pants and shirts. Izuku appreciates this. Shigaraki’s whole villainous-outfit-thing hasn't even been worn in public yet, and it already needs an upgrade. 

And maybe Izuku needs an upgrade too. 

“So I was talking to my guy and his guy, right?” He begins, laying one elbow on the table. No, it's fine, he's fine. Cheap clothes are hard to trace, easy to acquire, easy to replace . But he wouldn't have to repair or replace so much if he just had better gear. Something more official, like the real heroes. With padding and armor and whatever else. “And apparently these Shie Hassakai guys—you know, the yakuza—? Well, they're doing these weird experiments, and the Commission thinks they're doing some like, crazy dangerous stuff. So now everybody wants me on this raid thing they're gonna do. But apparently it's gonna take a long time to put together. Like a year. Crazy, right?”

He doesn't give Shigaraki an opportunity to reply. “Anywho, I got a question for you, dude.”

He wouldn't even understand how the shattering of the yakuza could help him get his footing in the underground, and Izuku’s not even here for that, anyways. And he doesn't need gear, or padding, or bullet-proof anything , because he's perfectly fine by himself. And if he did, he’d have to ask the Commission, and they'd think he needs help , and then everybody would know he's not cut out to be a hero. There goes his temporary license and all his missions and he's back to being a criminal. “So, like, speaking of time, and all. Why aren't you, like… Doing… Something? Like, you know, crime? Or at least building up to a crime?”

He's not a criminal, at least not anymore. It's fine. Izuku can ask for help. But maybe it's a test, too. Like if he can't do it in rags, he can't do it at all. Or something like that. 

“I’m waiting,” Shigaraki says, dry lips moving in a way that makes Izuku feel particularly perturbed, “until the successor of All Might reveals themselves. In UA, no doubt.”

Izuku shifts. Tangles his ankles together like the knot tightening in his stomach. “You think they're going to be in UA?”

“That's where All Might went, didn't he? Why not continue his legacy?” And he's scratching at his throat like he always does, crackly voice breaking in splinters, “they're somewhere in there, I know it. ”

“Your logic is a tiny bit frayed, but, uh, you know,” Izuku blinks up at him, at Shigaraki’s dry hair, at his drained cracked skin, considers his next words. Shigaraki isn't that dangerous, obviously. It's his backer that makes Izuku nauseous and dizzy and faint and —actually, maybe that's just the hunger. “Actually, um—tell you what, friend?”

Shigaraki freezes. Izuku figures he's never been referred to as a friend before. It’s kind of funny, because Izuku hasn't, either. 

“What if I’m like… Your insider man in UA, huh? Could be fun. And you wouldn't have to get someone else to do it!” He tries to smile with his voice, because Shigaraki can't see his face, but honestly he might be too socially inept to understand tone. Izuku can't tell yet.

“...On what conditions?”

Because there's always conditions. Izuku understands, because he's the one that makes them. What can he say? He's an opportunist.

“You pay for the tuition, silly!” He shrugs it off, like it's no big deal, like UA isn't crazy expensive without the scholarships. Even with the scholarships—which Izuku isn't getting unless they're pity ones for the Quirkless, regardless of his almost-perfect grades—it’s honestly pushing the limit. “And, um. Also. Get me a little upgrade. Outfit wise.”

It’s silent. 

“Is that…” Shigaraki stops. “…It?”

“Well, yeah, duh. If I actually get in and everything. Shit’s, like, crazy expensive, and hard to get accepted.” Izuku shrugs. Apparently people expect a little more. “And you don’t need to go crazy with the outfit. I just need it to be… more defensive, maybe. And just don’t make it ugly, yeah?” He wasn’t ever one to care about the looks of something, but his mother was, and he’d hate to disappoint.

He gets up, using his hands on the table to push himself up off the stool, because he’s kind of wobbly and dizzy and probably going to faint if he doesn’t get on the train soon. The cinnamon taste is still in his mouth, layered on his gums, down his throat, but he doesn’t mind. There are, honestly, worse ways to go out than dying from starvation with your teeth smelling sickly sweet. He’s about to start moving when—

“You have a tendency,” Kurogiri speaks, for the first time, ice cold voice making Izuku freeze. His wavering hands are holding a glass and a rag, but not moving. “To dig yourselves into situations you don’t really want to be in. Have you noticed?”

Izuku looks at him, eyes wide, mouth unmoving. He’s very chilly. “Yes sir! Or yes, uh, something. I’m like a badger!” 

It’s Kurogiri’s turn to blink, except he doesn’t, because his eyes are misty and yellow and not really eyes. He just looks. 

“What? A badger’s a good description! Don’t they have claws?”

They do, but Izuku thinks maybe he’s making a broad assumption that he has them, too.

Chapter Text

He’s in his civilian clothes, long dark cargo pants and an All Might sweatshirt, hood over his head, cold hands grasping the edges of the hot cup of coffee. He sits right next to the window, and even with the heater in the restaurant buzzing, he still shivers. Unfortunate, because he can’t help but love the booth seats. 

His hair is coy around his head, freshly washed because today's sort of important, in two vastly different ways. It's the anniversary of his first night as a vigilante, for starters.

The other important thing is forty-two minutes late.

It's not unusual, so he figures he can't get mad. Not really anyway. He’s used to making exceptions like this—Mom says it’s because of his kind heart. 

Other people may or may not call him a pushover. 

Aizawa’s never late, Izuku’s mind supplies, but the thought makes him feel whiny, a toddler spoiled with time. Aizawa doesn’t matter. He’s a government official, a watcher paid to make sure he doesn’t fly off the rails, because he’s crazy, or something like that. 

After this, Izuku can go out and celebrate. He’ll blow his latest Commission paycheck on katsudon and a giant slice of cake, and he’s going to eat all of it, and drink all the beer he can find, and smoke all of his cigarettes. 

And then he’s going to go to the beach.  

He doesn’t care that it’s October. Aizawa would understand if he had to call in sick for a few days.

Actually, no he wouldn’t. He’d probably be like wah wah irresponsible kid wah wah how dare you. Seriously, fuck that guy. He doesn’t understand how getting hypothermia from laying in ice cold salty seawater is important for Izuku’s individual growth. 

Izuku can be a realist about certain things, especially adults. It’s not like any of the men he knows are worth a million dollars anyways. Not even the one who pays his rent.

Who’s also now forty-nine minutes late. Okay. He’s not upset, it’s expected. 

But Aizawa is never late.

It’s funny, because he could be anywhere else right now. It’s eight PM, the sun freshly to sleep, the city bathed with white and yellow electric light. He could be in some cool club, celebrating something arguably more important than his birthday (which he’d spent in bed, sweating off the heat of summer), but he’s in here in the stupid American restaurant that nobody but him likes. But no, instead, he’s waiting for dear old Dad to acknowledge him.

Whatever. He’s only here for the money.

Fifty-two minutes late.

Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck my life. I could really go for some sunflower seeds right now.

Sunflower seeds? What? That’s the most random craving he’s ever had. He’s insane.

It’s Saturday, thank God, so he got to sleep in until one and spend time finishing all of his homework and all his missing English work—a class he’s becoming sort of, kind of, really behind in. He tries not to let the guilt get to him. 

Even so, it feels good to turn in missing assignments, finally cross something off his list. He even had time to shower off the grease from last night’s patrol, pack curl cream into his hair, get dressed to go out. 

He doesn’t have anywhere to be but here. He doesn’t even have an obligation to patrol tonight—even though usually, he does. 

Izuku looks out the window, to the night sky empty of stars, and when he hears the warning bell ringing and feels the sudden gasp of warmth he knows his father is here. 

It’s like basking in the sun. At least, it used to be. It used to make Izuku feel seen, safe, calm in the light. It’s different now. 

He looks up at the door, the little ringing bell, and sees him. 

He’s tan, always has been, unlike his snow-pale mother. Wearing a suit, pitch black, but it’s old and warm so Izuku doesn’t feel too jealous over the money. The silhouette is so vaguely familiar, reminiscent of something, and it takes a second for Izuku to realize that it’s what his dad must have worn to Mom’s funeral.

Mom had grown up Christian. Izuku can’t help but think that his father has the shadow of the devil. 

Izuku sniffles. He’s barely 5’1 now, almost an inch taller than his mother. They used to joke about that—Izuku looked like the spitting image of Mom, same baby face and hair color, same bony structure and honey soft voice—of course he would never take on his father’s height. 

He’s always found himself lucky, though. One of the only things he shares with Hisashi is the burning temper. 

They get it from his father’s father. 

He watches Hisashi look around, soft black brows rising in slight confusion under his head of curly hair. Izuku lets him writhe for a second before he raises a hand, only a shade lighter than his father’s. “Dad,” he says—can’t help it even when the word seems unfamiliar—“over here.”

His mom was always the one with the sense of direction.

Dad leans towards the voice, brows finally relaxed as if comforted.

(Izuku sounds so much like his mother.)

Izuku blinks when he starts walking over, because his dad’s face looks oddly clear, full of light. Like a revelation has been made. Izuku’s not sure he’s keen on hearing it. The last time, it was move to America with me.

His dad sits, kind of awkwardly, broad chested but always small in mannerism. The exact opposite of Mom. She was always bigger in spirit than both of them.

Hisashi sniffles, brings his hands together on the table. His eyes are curled in joy, but his smile is subdued like he’s scared of something. 

“Izuku,” Dad says his name like it’s God’s. “Um, it’s good to see you.”

Jesus. His father sounds like a little boy. Poor guy. He’s only, what, thirty-six? His parents had Izuku young. Just kids themselves, practically.

He breathes. “Yeah, Dad. You wanted to talk about something?”

His father nods, almost frantically. Izuku studies him, hates what he finds. Crow’s feet have started forming at the corner of his father’s eyes. 

He’s just a kid. Fuck, he’s just a kid.

“Yes! Yeah, but let’s, you know, talk about you first. How’s—how’s school? Keeping up?”

It’s a broad question. No specifics, Izuku knows, because he doesn’t do well at remembering a lot.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Passing all my classes“—well, he will be once all his missing English grades get put in—“and, uh, getting volunteer hours from extracurriculars. And stuff.”

He’s not in any extracurriculars. He doesn’t have any friends. He volunteers at the animal shelter sometimes.

“What’s your favorite class?”

Izuku blinks. His father has never asked him this question. Well, as far as he remembers. 

“Um, I guess probably art. It’s nice.”

It’s the easiest to pass, and the easiest to skip. He slips out right after lunch. 

“That’s—it’s good. You’ve always been so creative, you know?”

Izuku does not know, but there’s boxes and boxes full of old crayon drawings in the back of his moms closet, so he figures it must be true. 

“So, uh. Any girls coming around?”

He swallows. All of the saliva has left his mouth. Dad has never asked a question like this ever. That’s for sure. 

“ Or uh, boys! You know. That’s okay too.”

Oh my God, get me out of here.

“No, uh, not really, Dad.”

Kill me. Kill me now.

For a second they just stare at each other. They share the same homegrown awkwardness—Mom was nervous around new people, but she was emotionally intuitive, knew how to talk to Izuku when it mattered. 

Izuku and Hisashi could charm a whole city, but they could never connect with anybody in private. Still can’t. 

Forgive him. He learned it from his father.

Dad exhales loudly. Izuku never calls him Dad in his head, mostly just Hisashi now. 

He watches him, waits for the big bang. What is it, man? You’re not sending me money anymore? You got a new random lady pregnant? What?

“Izuku, I’m getting sober.”

His world stops.

Feels the muscles in his face slacken, his numbingly tight grip on the table releases like something automatic. He doesn’t register it, really, not mentally. Physically, it crashes.

It’s not that he’s confused, or doesn’t want it, or something like that. It’s just that they’ve never really used the words addicted, or sober, or alcoholic or drunk or any of those words that mean anything about anything. There are no words to describe his father and his drink, because describing his father and his drink would be like trying to describe his father and him. 

Everybody has their vices. His father has his. 

“I’ve technically been sober. For over thirty days. As soon as I got my thirty date chip—uh, they give chips there—I, you know, called you. I booked a flight back to Japan right after.”

Izuku breathes slowly, every movement conscious, quiet. 

“It’s just, being in America changed me. I—I’m trying to start a new chapter of my life now.”

So was it Mom keeping you back, or just the son you abandoned? Did flying away set you free?

He doesn’t say that. He never will.

“I’m not going to, uh. I’m not going to try to cross any boundaries. I’m not asking you to forgive me for all the… things that have happened. I’m just— you know —trying to change.”

Izuku nods. He has nothing to say. His breath tastes like cinnamon. 

“I’ve also been meaning to tell you that I got a promotion. At the office, yeah?”

“Oh that—that’s nice,” Izuku says, blandly, reeling. He doesn’t feel it. He doesn’t feel anything. “That’s good, Dad.”

His father smiles down at him and for once it doesn’t feel as condescending as it used to. “It’s going to give me a lot more freedom, okay? More money for you, and, uh, I’ll be able to come back to Japan every once in a while.”

Jesus. Fuck. It’s too much. His father is looking at him, half-grinning, expectant of something. 

His cup is cold. Black coffee swirls, beans grinded into tiny infinitesimal little specks of nothing. He doesn’t like the taste, just the smell, because it reminds him of something. Izuku sniffs.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” he says, doesn’t wait for a response, just stands. His father seems kind of surprised, but nods. Izuku looks down at his nose, strong, authoritative. Izuku inherited his mother’s soft, curved nose. He’s thankful it hasn’t been broken yet—it makes his face look slimmer. 

He swings open the bathroom door, ducks into one of the red stalls, drops to his knees like he’s praying. Two fingers down his throat is plenty comfortable now, even when the scabs on his knuckles jostle with pain. Scrapes the back of his throat and it all starts to come up like lava. 

It burns. He hasn’t eaten anything since yesterday morning. Stomach acid tastes like shit.

Fuck. Fuck me.

He coughs into the toilet. Fuck, this is gross. His throat scorches, his vision blurry as he spits down into the porcelain.

Izuku has the same stutter as his father. They get it from Izuku’s grandpa.

The smell in his mouth is hot, teeth coated in something delirious. Nothing even came up. Izuku stands, brushes his knees off, wipes his fingers clean. Flushes.

Fuck this.

He goes out. Sees his dad.

“Come home with me.”

“What?”

“To the apartment.”

The hold his father has on his own two hands tightens. His eyes are wide when he looks up at Izuku. “I just… I’m not trying to cross any boundaries, Izuku. You don’t have to pity—“

“I feel sick. I need a father. Someone needs to take me home.”

“…Okay.” 

His father has always given in easily. It’s his vice.

—

His father ends up having a car, which is nice. It’s already warm when they get inside, small and compact, and the interior is all dark leather. His dad has always loved black, says it makes things sleek, clean. Izuku can’t deny it. 

He ends up being sort of sheep-herded into the car from the restaurant door, Dad sticking close to him, letting Izuku feel the fire burning in his dad’s chest. It always gets hotter when he’s nervous.

Izuku gets put in the backseat like a baby. Dad even puts his seatbelt on for him. 

“You drive now?” Izuku croaks. His throat feels sore.

When he was a kid, the entire family would take the train anywhere they needed to go. Izuku still does, like the majority of people he knows. He didn’t even know his dad could drive until right now.

“Yeah. It’s, uh, different in America.”

Everything seems different in America.

His father closes the door. 

—

Dad doesn’t say anything when they get inside. 

He’s used to the books—should be, at least—but they’ve accumulated with a quickness over the years that even Mom would be appalled at. 

Yoichi likes comic books; buys stacks and stacks with all the bills he can scrounge up. Nana likes cook books, Russian lit. Izuku’s a fan of the sciences, likes biology. Quirk biology. He’s sure there’s old art books around here, too, collectors editions. Anatomical studies.

It’s just… he can’t give any away, especially the old ones. Not Mom’s. Never Mom’s.

So he piles them up. Moves all the furniture that takes up too much room out into the storage unit. Leaves only the essentials. The books have the room to flourish. He doesn’t. 

Dad opens his room door, the All Might frame swinging with the movement. Izuku lifts the covers up off the bed, fumbles his way in. His dad huffs, fixes his blankets up. Tucks him in.

Izuku finds him fine. It probably won’t last for long. Rule number one about Dad: he makes false promises.

“Um,” his dad looks down at him, curious but almost frightened. “I like your hair,” he says. “Did you dye it yourself?”

“…No. I had a friend do it for me.” He’s not sure why he lies like that. He dyed his hair by himself after crying so bad last September that he threw up, completely involuntarily; a rare occasion now. It proved useful for vigilante work—the dye, not the vomit—so he just kept doing it.

“Oh. That’s nice, Izuku.” Dad smiles like he’s glad; maybe pleasantly surprised. Izuku figures he probably comes off like the type of kid who has no friends. 

What you see is what you get with the Midoriyas.

“Do you want anything to eat?”

He doesn’t miss the way his dad is glancing around the room. The hero posters along the walls, the biology books in the corner, the light brown desk with his notebooks and his laptop and some files.

Oh, fuck. He has everything out just on his dining room table. “Uh, no, Dad. I’m okay. I’m just nauseous right now.” He tries to sit up, but Dad pushes him back down, gently, with one hand. 

“No, it’s okay. Just lie down. I’ll—I’ll leave you alone if you want. I have a hotel room.”

“Um,” fuck his whole life. “I—I don’t want to kick you out—“

“No, it’s okay, really.”

“It’s just, the place isn’t really, uh, meant for company right now—“

“It’s okay. It’s okay .”

Izuku breathes, shaky. 

“You uh, you just sleep, okay? Text me if you need anything? I’ll just come over in the morning to see how you’re doing, yeah?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

His dad leaves. Shuts the door quietly. Izuku doesn’t breathe until he hears the front door close, too.

—

He leaves at eleven.

Izuku had sweat off his hoodie earlier, so he just puts his parka over his undershirt and goes. He had lied to his father about being sick, at least physically, but now he has a chill. Karma for him, he guesses. He doesn’t tie his shoes, just slips them on, walks out the door, barely closes it; almost forgets to lock.

The train that night is almost empty. He stands even though it makes him dizzy, hangs on to the railing with a vice grip. If he faints right now, there won’t be anyone to pick him back up.

He likes this.

When he gets off the train, the weather is cold, dry, bites at his nose and into his cheeks. He’s shivering, eyes weary.

Takoba Beach is barely even sandy now. It’s covered in black, like death. The sea is even darker. The sky is clear this night, and with the full moon he can see the glittery black scales of the trash bags floating in the wind. 

He catches one out of the air, almost trips down the stairs among the mountainous trash piles.

He starts cleaning. 

Chapter Text

“Extensive knowledge of or close association with someone or something leads to a loss of respect for them or it.”

- proverb dictionary, familiarity breeds contempt

—

“I didn’t tell him about any of this.”

“Then how does he know? ”

So Shota stops. Breathes. Thinks. Swallows. They’re sitting in Tsukauchi’s office again, in the dusty chairs and under the blinking overhead light. The sun is beginning to let the light in. The office has good heating, but October hasn’t gotten too cold yet, so it’s more stifling than Shota’s used to. For a second he wishes it were summer again. 

“I don’t know,” Shota says, unhelpfully. The Shie Hassakai raid was never supposed to make it out of Commission meetings. The Rabbit doesn’t mess with yakuza; he’s all petty criminals and helping cats out of trees. He handles gas station robberies and lost kids trying to find their parents. Shota knows, because he’s with the kid almost every night. 

Clearly, it’s not enough.

Tsukauchi sits in front of him, notebook in hand, pen in vice grip. His coat lying along the back of his sweaty black office chair.

“We’re supposed to be keeping track of this stuff. All of his connections, all of his resources, Aizawa. How he evolves, how he devolves, ” Tsukauchi is saying but Shota’s not listening, not really. Barely even looks at his face over his monitor. “I just—who’s he meeting with to get this information? Not even the cops here know about the raid.”

Not even the cops here know we’re still building a case against him. They don’t even know you’re on it, Tsukauchi. Nobody does. 

Shota hadn’t told anybody that either, not yet. He hadn’t told anybody about any of that phone call. Because the kid knows. And he’s not supposed to. Your detective friend, the kid said, but Shota knew. You know about Tsukauchi’s raid, you know his name, you know what he’s doing. It’s that simple. 

“So the kid knows more than we think. It doesn’t mean he’s a threat to you. He was fine when you met him, no?” He huffs, puts his hot hands in his pockets. Doesn’t look away from Tsukauchi’s eyes. 

“I never made a public appearance, Aizawa, when his case was still open. I never did an interview, never talked to him through the news—about him or the Shie Hassakai. The question isn’t even about the raid, it’s about how he knows I exist .”

Tsukauchi has written nothing on his fresh white page. “Maybe he saw you at one of the crime scenes.”

“You know him. He’s gone before anybody can even call for the police.”

Shota stares out the window. It’s early morning, not cold enough in October for the glass to frost over. Tsukauchi’s on the second floor, and the view’s nice; he can watch the sun rise if he comes in early, watch it fall if he stays late. Shota knows he does. 

They all do.

“We need to find whatever informant he’s using, whatever dirty professional or something . He can’t have whatever information he wants. What if he finds out about the case?”

Shota feels his heart beat rise, then focuses on it resting. Fixes his mouth into a fine line. 

Knows he smiles when he lies. 

“He won’t.”

Tsukauchi looks at him, stares through him, practically. Shota knows what he’s doing by the look in his eyes, that glazed over glare he has. 

“…Okay.”

Shota breathes. Tsukauchi leans back in his chair, lets out a long sigh, looks up at the ceiling. Shota knows he’s tired, has been since last October. God, it’s already October. Again. 

A year is all it takes for everything to change. Who knows where they’ll be next year—or even just by the summertime. 

“I’m sorry. It’s just that the kid stresses me out. I only met him once and he was such a headache I almost fainted.” He smiles at Shota, and he almost laughs. Lets out a sharp puff of air instead.

“I have to be around him all the time. How do you think I feel?”

Tsukauchi grins, and then—“Oh! About that—any developments?”

Fuck. “What?”

“The psychology. It’s been a month since our last visit to the profile, right?”

“...Right." Thinks about two fingers down a slick throat. "We already know he wants somebody to tell him he did well. But he’s not just desperate for it anymore." 

He thinks about how the kid let him hear it, even if he couldn’t watch. Thinks about washing his hands. 

“He’s insistent about it. He expects to hear it, gets upset when he doesn’t. Wants to show me.”

“So what? You don’t think we’re dealing with a struggling kid anymore?”

Tsukauchi’s always been good at finishing his sentences. 

“Exactly. We’re dealing with a high achiever. School, work, hobbies—everything. He’s used to being told good job. ”

—

There’s a noise complaint a few doors down.

Shota doesn’t usually go visit these neighborhoods, doesn’t usually go this far south, past the red light district, but he’s looking for someone (like he always is). The houses are small and compact, crushed in together, and he hears the music before he’s even down the block. It’s not a surprise when he gets the complaint over the radio against his belt.

The moon is bright enough, the sky clear, for him not to come off as a complete threat; he walks along the cold concrete sidewalk, between the tangled telephone wires and the cookie cutter houses. He doesn’t even need to listen to the address, just walks til the music gets louder. The houses all have the same tiny green front lawns, same blue-paned windows, same front door. 

This place is suburban hell. It makes him wonder who the hell would be alive enough to throw a party here.

The house is practically glowing, electric changing lights inside bursting out the window glass in a rainbow of colors. The music is so loud he thinks the thin roof and the white overhang are about to pop off. There are only a few people outside, lounging around the front lawn. Shota expected more—these houses are so small. 

There’s a neighbor, an older woman with a head of pink hair, waiting two houses down on the driveway. Shota reaches her, shows his license. He knows what he looks like, what energy he carries. 

Better safe than sorry. 

She says something he can’t hear over the rap music. Then, as if his empty nodding gave it away, she adds “they do this until the sun is up.”

He can’t tell if this is the music or the lights or just the partying in general or the—he steps closer and he smells weed in the air— that. The kids, can’t be more than seventeen or eighteen, don’t pay him any mind as he steps up the driveway and to the white door. It feels like the walls are vibrating, the speaker so loud. 

They’re just kids. 

Knocks on the door, doesn’t get an answer. Predictable. The door is unlocked, anyways, so he just opens it and heads in. 

He likes houses like this: they’re direct. It opens up into the living room, teens packed under the low ceiling, otherwise not much to look at. To the side is the kitchen—which he can only clearly tell because there’s a bunch of kids around a kitchen island, drinks piled around—and straight down is a hallway. The smell is stronger now. Suddenly Shota feels congested.

Someone notices him, some kid standing around the coffee table, back to the TV. He's got green hair and a heck of a smile, judging by how he's charming two girls. Honestly, though, they might just be all giggly because of the two red solo cups they're holding. Fuck, this is so highschool.

The kid walks up, right when someone calls “oh, shit! ” and the music gets turned down. Shota can almost hear his own thoughts now, wow.

“Uhh,” the kid murmurs, eyebrows quirked up like he's trying to be brave in his stupid blue sweatshirt and failing miserably, “what are you? Cop?”

Shota brings his license out again. “Got a noise complaint. What's going on here?”

It's bullshit. He knows what's going on here. Everybody else knows that he knows, too. You couldn't pay him to be a rent-a-cop like this if you tried.

“Just a friendly neighborhood party. It's all legal here, man.”

Translated: we all have fake IDs, so don't even think you're gonna get us on the alcohol, asshole .

He huffs. Nothing he can really do about this except give them all a scare. “Mind if I take a look around the place?”

“No problems here, sir. Have fun.” The kid’s voice is familiar, but it's so cold—not the warmth he's used to. 

What am I used to? He thinks. Shota’s not sure what he's referring to. What he's comparing this to.

He pushes past the boy. It's a cluster of colors in here, red and blue and yellow and purple, neon lights along the walls. That fucking migraine I’m going to get later. The stench is getting unbearable. He needs out. 

Just past the kitchen, there's a door with a window. Blinds. Shota barrels his way through, past the kids doing shots sort of awkwardly (wary of him, he figures), throws the door open.

It's the side of the house, so there's not a lot of walking space between the cold wall and the wooden fence separating the small yards. But the grass is green and the air is crisp and he thanks whatever god is out there that it’s October. The smell is still there, but he can drown it out with the scent of nature, and the light from the moon doesn't assault his eyes like the flashing colors. Shota heads to the right, around the house to the back. 

The backyards are almost as small as the front, but they've got nice white lawn chairs out on the patio, warm string lights lighting the black table that two kids are sitting around. One’s black haired, the other blonde. 

The dark haired boy is holding something in his hands, that horrible stench, and he smiles in the light at the blonde girl. Shota can tell with how the warmth shines on it that his hair color is unnatural. Dyed. The curls fall over his face, so Shota can't see his eyes, and his long dark pants and sweater cover his skin. His legs are closed. 

Someone introverted. Closed off to others, at least new people. He probably keeps his thoughts to himself.

But he's smiling, grinning, and maybe he’s just high. The girl definitely is, her high ponytail coming undone like pieces of golden yarn. She’s wearing a skirt, but her cheeks are rosy red, her nose dusted with pink. She’s cold. But she’s open, hands waving around excitedly, and when she talks her sharp canines gleam in the light.

She’s the talker. 

They seem to notice him at the same time. It's sort of creepy. They both turn their heads like little owls, fluffed up in their white seats, joint passed back in lithe fingers. The warm light casts hard, dark shadows across their faces. Their expressions twist into something amused, cheeks curling. Neither of them say anything.

Fuck, he hates kids like this. Makes him feel like he’s in high school again.

After a beat, the boy suddenly speaks. “Were you invited?”

The way he says it is so condescending, but there's something sweet and lilting and warm—Shota recognizes it. He blinks. Can’t bring up a memory. Doesn't toss it away, just saves it for later.

He brings out the license again , but barely lets them look at it. They don't even need to know, they don't care. 

“Hero business?” The boy says. It’s surprising that he’s the one talking, that the girl is only looking at Shota with a strange kind of hunger. “What? Investigating some illegal activity here?”

The drug you’re smoking is illegal, his first instinct is to say. He doesn't, knows it doesn't matter, knows he’s not making any arrests. And the kids know it too. “I'm responding to a noise complaint. You’re disrupting some of the neighbors.”

“ We are just, uh, smoking some of the wacky tobaccy, sir. I don't know what they're doing in the house.”

The girl kicks his calf with one black-booted foot. He yelps, laughs, shrugs it off. For some reason he knows Shota won't make an example out of them. And Shota’s all for teaching lessons, but this kid can’t be more than, what, fifteen?

There's no use trying to discipline the kids now before highschool. By then, there’ll be actual consequences for their actions.

He huffs. “What are your names?”

The boy’s expression does not change, head cocked like a coyote. “Eh.. Mikumo. Akatani.”

The girl smiles, this time with her mouth closed. Her lip gloss shines bright in the light and for a second Shota smells copper. “Just Himiko works.”

She’s overly friendly. He’s overly professional. They both have something to hide.

His hands are freezing in his pockets. “And how old are you two?”

“Eighteen,” they both say at the same time—as he expected them to—and they glance at each other like as soon as he leaves, they're going to burst out laughing. They both have baby fat still stuck on their faces.

“Right,” he says. A puff of smoke leaves the girl’s—Himiko’s—mouth. “And you both have rides home?”

“ Yes, sir, ” they say in unison.

He leaves it at that. Nothing good ever comes out of kids like that anyway.

—

I know where you live now.

He blinks. The voice resonates in his head, between his ears like a cotton cloud. The words are honey-sweet, but insistent, so warm it burns. 

Shota remembers it. Being in his kitchen, standing over his coffee pot (so frequently used), waiting for a tidal wave. The demon in the chair staring up at him blankly.

Thinks about meet me at your apartment. Thinks about I already know your address.

The Rabbit isn’t even supposed to know about Tsukauchi.

Here’s the thing: the Commission deal isn’t even very strict, if you think about it. They needed all the help they could get, and some way to control the kid. Something to keep him from living by his own law.

And so the kid gets a contract in December. All bets are called off—there is no hunting. No searching for his identity, no prying. There are no tricks and no privacy is broken. The kid says what he wants, when he wants. Understands the rules. 

But he has to help. And Shota has to be there with him. 

And throughout the almost-whole- year they’re working together, Shota says nothing. About the higher investigation into All Might, or One For All, or the kid. He never even says anything about the original investigation when they thought the kid was just, well, a kid . A reckless nobody vigilante. Tsukauchi is never mentioned.

So the question develops into this: how much does the Rabbit really know?

“What?”

Shota blinks. Looks up from the computer he’s been staring a hole in for the last hour and a half.

Hizashi is staring down at him over red-rimmed glasses, hair wrapped in a bun, holding a stack of papers in pale hands. It’s a teacher work day, so there’s no pressure to come in with all the hero get up. It really makes no difference for Shota since everything he owns is black. 

“You were mumbling to yourself, freaky friend,” Hizashi smiles. 

That’s embarrassing. He didn’t even realize he was doing it. Shota wonders where he got it from. 

“I’m thinking,” is all he says. Hizashi is familiar with short responses, and he isn’t surprised. It’s cold in the office, always is, since Nezu likes to keep the temperature crisp. Something about keeping the teachers in a slight state of panic at all times.

“About the fires?”

There’s been a string of suspicious small fires over the past week, mostly just in empty warehouses, some in overflowed trash cans. It’s only on Shota’s radar because they sometimes cross into his patrol area. It’s a classic build up to a bigger crime, but he’s not worried about a small-time arsonist yet. It’s not his top priority right now; he has bigger things. 

“It’s a work day. You don’t have essays to grade?”

“Not from your class, no!”

This again. Isn’t Hizashi tired of this? Shota had re-enrolled his class, it had just taken some time. They needed to be disciplined, learn to take it all seriously. It isn’t that difficult to understand. 

“Next year, I’ll consider changing my policy.”

“They’re behind in English, Shota!” And Hizashi is frowning like he always does, jostling his papers around like a freak. He hasn’t ever been able to scold anybody effectively, Shota doesn’t know why he still tries.

“You’re their teacher too, aren’t you?”

But Hizashi looks at him. Really looks at him. Shota doesn’t break, never will, but he feels a pang of guilt anyways.

“If they don’t pass English, they don’t pass. Period .”

“Then tell them that.”

Hizashi never bothers to act surprised anymore, which Shota doesn’t admit hurts. He just sighs, walks to his desk on the other side of the room, in the bright light near the window and surrounded by all the other desks. Shota’s is in the corner, where he’s comfortable.

Shota is not a lonely man.

He is silent, destitute. He has a routine. He is a homebody. But he is not lonely.

Teaching runs from Monday through Friday—he uses office hours exclusively for grading, filing, making notes, assignment planning. He does not bring school work home. Shota works shifts, sometimes starting at 7 PM, sometimes 1 AM, the longest on the weekends and through the summer. 

He gets off at 4 AM, sometimes at 6. Then he gets ready for the school day again. 

Spends the rest of his free time sleeping. 

Shota has never been a lonely man. He is just alone.

—

They're sitting on top of a roof, a closed shop right next to one of the internet cafes that Shota sat in for two weeks, just looking. The kid’s legs are swinging off the edge, the pale moonlight shining off his sunglasses. He's eating a breakfast sandwich, eggs and bacon and cheese. American. Shota sits next to him, watches him eat. Tries not to seem like he's staring. 

There's been a murder. There's been a few, actually, but the police aren't sure they're connected yet.

“I mean, all the blood got sucked out of them. What do you mean no connection? ”

“That's just what they're saying until they collect more information,” Shota replies, easily. He watches the kid’s legs swing, right, left, right, left. He's holding the sandwich inside the wrapper in one hand. The chewing is quiet, slow.

“But they have a suspect, right?”

“Obviously, but—”

“But they have no clue where she is, do they?”

They don't. 

Shota had first learned about it a few nights after the party, when the kid appeared on the news. The green-haired one that Shota had talked to that evening.

Last seen in his house, at the party.

Then found in an alley days later, blood drained, ice cold. And Shota had known.

Toga Himiko had been missing since last year after attacking a boy in her grade. Honestly, the police wouldn't have known she was still alive if not for the murders. 

“So it's safer if they pretend these are all disconnected crimes. The public tends to freak when they hear the words serial killer, you know,” the kid says, amused, as he crumples up the empty wrapper. Shota knows he needs to hear himself talk, explain it to himself to really get it through. “Though, honestly, I can't figure out why. Haha.”

“They’ll find her, kid.”

“Oh, I'm sure they will.”

If they’d made the connection the first night he was declared missing, they might have caught her. Toga is transient, on the move, but she needs somewhere to keep her victims for a few days—she couldn't have gotten too far in a night. Now, she can be anywhere in the city.

“And with that Hero Killer running around, too, what's the priority going to be?”

The kid is looking for a specific answer, and he's going to get it, one way or another. Shota knows that, too.

“It's never going to be the civilians, you know. Always going to be the heroes, Eraser.”

When Shota gets home that night, when the sun is rising again, he calls Tsukauchi to look up files on someone. 

He doesn't find it surprising when Tsukauchi tells him that Mikumo Akatani never existed.

—

Here’s the thing about bulimics: they are perfectionists.

Shota knows it well. Pro-heroes are supposed to take yearly mental wellness training programs with their offices, for all the jumpers they see, and whatnot. Not everyone goes. Shota’s never missed a class.

This doesn’t make him as effective in the real situation as he wants to be. Nonetheless.

So bulimics are perfectionists. Anorexics, too, but if Shota had to make a guess he’d go with the big B. The kid wants control and takes it in any way he can and it bleeds into anything and everything; school (grades mostly As, but probably slipping; vigilantism doesn’t usually account for study time), work (if he even has one at his age, God), extracurriculars (best volleyball player in the district? Most talented piano player at his performing arts school?), even hobbies (and Shota has seen his notebooks).

And he knows his kid. The Rabbit is meticulous, calculated, even when he improvises. Especially when he improvises.

He’s a dangerous person, the kid. Shota doesn’t know why they call him the Rabbit. He’s much more predator than prey.  

But he thinks about this also—he thinks about the kid falling out of the sky like an angel. Thinks about cradling him in his arms like a bird with a broken wing. Hears the kid sobbing my mom, my mom.

He’d taken the kid to an all-night cafe. He didn’t speak. Shota didn’t expect him to. Shota didn’t expect him to do anything at all. 

So he wonders about control. Wonders why the kid needs it so bad he almost kills for it.

He starts looking into reports of abuse cases from last October.

Chapter Text

October’s passed like nothing.

It's not nothing, not really, but Shota’s not going to tell the kid congratulations for avoiding the law for a full year, and the kid doesn't mention it. 

He's surprised, honestly, that the kid isn't bragging about it. Shota expected it to be brought up at any and all opportunity. When he was bored. In the middle of a fight. On patrol. Right before he went home. Oh, and by the way, sir? Do you remember how I've evaded law enforcement for a full year now? How I've almost killed someone? How I was the last person to see All Might alive?

Shota blinks. Readjusts.

They're scoping out a club where Toga is said to frequent. It’s a big thing, with a dance floor basically the size of his apartment, the walls dark and the overhead lights flashing and bright. The people who come here are young, almost too young, but he’s not here to arrest anyone (with that annoying party music playing, it’s probably too loud to read anyone their rights). It’s sweltering in here with the curving bodies pushing past each other, writhing around to get to the bar to Shota’s left. He gets it, honestly. 

They’re standing right under an EXIT sign, against a wall. There is no door. 

The weather gets just a tad worse in early November, the air lacking in moisture now that typhoon season is over. Shota gets to wear the padded winter suit that feels like a weighted blanket in the evenings (not so much now, with the heater in this place no doubt cranked to the extremes). He even gets a hood, when usually he isn’t supposed to wear one. Something about him looking imposing.

Shota doesn’t know what they’re talking about. 

The kid honestly looks the same as ever, arms crossed, standing right next to him like a golden arrow. Puffy dark parka, old and ripped, stained black cargo pants a size too big, scuffed red sneakers. The only clean thing about him are the leather gloves. Those things, Shota is sure, have been around since the early October days of last year. They're expensive, he bets, and the only thing the kid seems to be taking care of. The lights from the club shine off the black, cracked texture. 

His head is pounding.

“We can leave right now, you know,” the kid says to his right, tone unsure, as if noticing Shota’s discomfort. It startles him out of his thoughts. That's impossible, honestly—if there's anything the kid isn't good at, it’s reading people. “We could go to one of those night cafes.”

“No,” Shota replies, because he needs to. He can barely hear the kid’s voice over the  songs and the screaming. He’s tired, gritting his teeth. But it isn't his job’s fault that his eyes are assaulted every time a color changes. “We have a job to do.” 

“You’re sure you’re okay?”

It's certainly not the kid’s fault, either.

“Yes.”

The music is blaring, but Shota swears he can hear the kid yell, “then keep up with me!” right before he darts forward into the crowd of sweating, dancing bodies on the dance floor. 

Fuck me, he thinks. Are you serious?

Does this kid have any sense? He asks, even when he knows the answer. 

Nonetheless, Shota follows, unafraid, shouldering past screaming girls and men with no concept of personal space. He’s not surprised to see kids here that are around the Rabbit’s age—they’re experts at sneaking around, this generation. 

No concept of consequences, not yet.

It smells like alcohol and sweat. There’s a drink spilled on him when he knocks against a woman, something fruity and intoxicating, and the only reason he can even follow the kid’s small darting form is because he leaves a trail of offended, slightly confused looks behind. 

It takes a time that feels both like five years and three seconds with his headache to get to the other side of the wading bodies. The far wall opens up like a maw, a carved out space with round tables surrounded by booth seats. They look like mini caves, these little cubbies, with small golden chandeliers hanging far over them, bathed in pink light. He squints, finds the kid sitting in the booth nearest to the entrance, two glass-paned doors glowing under the light. 

He’s tempted, Shota admits, but he slides into the seat across the kid anyway. A few glasses have been left on the table, some almost half-full. The kid grabs one, lifts his mask down with two fingers, and tips the brown liquid into his mouth. He doesn’t spill a drop. 

“Drinking on the job?” He says despite, and it comes out as more of a judgment than a question. He isn’t even sure what he’s really asking. Shota is judgemental, he figures, he’s just not sure of what. 

“You know me, sir,” the kid slips his paper mask right back on after licking his lips, doesn’t clarify what he means by this. He’s probably never clarified anything in his life. Shota wonders if the other people in the kid’s world are used to this, vague choppy sentences and unfinished thoughts. If they get asked rhetorical questions that want to be answered, if they ever know what he wants them to say when he asks. If they can ever figure out how to please him. 

Shota figures not. He hasn’t, anyway.

“It’s just Pabst Blue Ribbon anyway. Cheap shit.”

American brand, Shota guesses. Last time the kid consumed anything American, he vomited it up right after, so Shota’s not inclined to taste. The only thing that surprises him is that the kid can recognize the brand purely by flavor.

The lights change from flashing to fading, but his headache is getting worse. He’s pent up, strung around, temples bursting. Shota squints. It makes the pain sharper, like it does every time, so he’s not sure why he ever tries it.

The kid is strange today, still, but he doesn’t think it’s like the arcade—doesn’t think it’s like that at all. 

His hands are still, not fidgety; he leans forward and presses his chin on his knuckles, elbows propped on the table. Relaxation comes easy to him, not like he’s different, but like he’s not expecting anything. 

Doesn’t think that they’ll find her here, probably. He should know better than to be unprepared. 

“Is this a rich people club or a trashy club? I can’t tell. Terrible beer but cute chandeliers and all.”

Shota snorts. Leans back in his seat. The air is swimming with heat, but he tries to relax as he surveys the area. The people he’s looking for are younger men, darker haired. Open to going home with a girl at the end of the night. Those are the people she targets—well, usually.

“The chandeliers are cheap, trust me.”

These are the people she kills. They’re also similar to someone else. 

The kid starts to say something, but he knows it won’t be anything good, can’t even hear him over the music. Shota has no problem with interrupting. “I think,” he begins, almost yelling, “that she has an accomplice.”

He can’t see the kid’s expression, but he feels it’s stoney. The kid leans in ever closer, chest almost to the sticky stained table. 

“What do you mean?”

“When I saw her that night, she was with someone,” Shota recalls it — the scent in the air, his head exasperated, the two staring up at him with their owl’s eyes. Sharp teeth and smiles. “A boy. But not the one she killed.”

“Maybe they were just talking—“

“No. She had him incapacitated, high and probably drunk, and isolated from the rest of the party. But she didn’t kill him. Why?”

There’s something in the kid’s chest, the way it shakes. How his shoulders waver. The kid lets out a huff of air suddenly. 

“He got away—?”

“There would have been a police report. A hospital visit. Something.”

The kid tilts his head, as if considering. Looking into his sunglasses, Shota sees his own reflection staring back at him. 

“You know what I think we should do?” 

“What?”

“I think we should dance.”

This is the issue. Above all things, above all the good done and all the bad ridden, the child is a child. And a child cannot survive in this line of work, not like Shota can, not like Oboro would have.

“Are you serious?”

“I’m going to dance. Who knows, maybe we’ll see her on the dance floor,” the kid jokes, sliding out of his seat and gliding out between the crowds, girls with cocktails and guys with glasses, just passes between them like nothing was ever anything at all. He’s a cloud through the air, dissipating when someone pushes through him. 

He’s going to die, Shota thinks. He’s going to die just like Oboro has. 

Shota gets up, feels his feet moving, streamlined for the head of black hair. He seems so far ahead now, and he never glances back at Shota—never glances back at all. Doesn’t care, doesn’t want to care, maybe about Shota or maybe about his life in general. That’s what it seems like all the time, what all of it seems like. Shota knocks against people, strong and sturdy, all the way onto the glowing floor, just for the chance of reaching him. He catches up fast, vehemently, maybe because all Shota’s ever known how to do was chase. Because all he’s ever known how to do is be three steps behind quicker feet. 

Unthinking, always unthinking, and this is the thing that Shota always scolds him about–the way he grabs the kid’s arms, turning him roughly around, gripping his shoulders like steel against cloth. 

“What the hell—you’re hurting me,” Shota can barely hear his voice over the music, crushed between the moving waves of people, the two a still island among spinning whirlpools. He feels sick, then, like he’s by the sea, like he’s being held back, and he doesn’t even react when the kid pushes him away. Doesn’t let go.

“Get off me—”

“If you’re not going to take this seriously, why are you even here?”

“It was just for a few minutes, I just wanted to—”

“Do you remember what you asked me that night?” And he’s yelling, probably screaming over the music, over the people who continue on and on, unraveling around each other under the blaring speakers. Doesn’t budge when they fall into him, provides a steady wall between the kid and the rest of the world. “ When you asked me why I do what I do? ”

He remembers that night, too. The air hot and sticky around them, just like it is now, on that patrol; the days when the vomiting started, the days before it didn’t stop. Hears himself saying it’s getting worse. 

The kid is just staring at him, limp in his hands, complacent. “When you said to me,” Shota’s throat burns while he speaks, but he pushes past it, “when you told me you started because your feet just moved without thinking? Do you remember that? ” 

There is no reaction. Shota has half a mind to shake a nod out of him, a word, anything, but he doesn’t. 

“Well, I’m here to tell you that that doesn’t make the cut.” He grips tighter, feels the kid’s shoulders squirm under him. Ignores it for the better. He’s not used to silence that permeates this long. “That doesn’t make you a hero. And it never will.” 

“Being a hero takes discipline, and responsibility, and logic. ” There’s something inside of him twisting, curling into something sick, and he expels it out of his head just like he has a hundred other things, a hundred other moments, a hundred other feelings. “And it takes a million other things that don’t involve being a reckless, stupid, suicidal kid . It takes a lot more than having some powerful Quirk and no sense of fear. It takes a lot more than being sick in the head .”

He closes his mouth. Shota doesn’t mean it like that, not really, but everything gets so knotted inside his head that it’s like he can’t speak right, like he’s just swallowing past a big lump deep in his throat, and the lights are flashing down on him and he doesn’t know; really, he doesn’t. 

The kid is still under him, like a statue, unmoving and cold in the infatuated air. 

And Shota barely realizes it when the kid brings his fist back and punches him deep in the stomach. 

—

The kid’s in the bathroom, and Shota’s not sure what to do. 

He doesn’t follow, not like last time. He’s sure the kid wanted him to—wanted him to see. But he’s not going to give in, not now. Shota’s good at never giving the kid what he wants. Attention’s top of the list. 

But he wonders anyway.

He’s heard about people having heart attacks over toilet bowls, gums bleeding out of their mouths. Thinking about it brings his tongue up to lick the outside of his teeth. The kid shouldn’t be working like this. 

No. The kid shouldn’t be working at all. 

If the Commission is willing to employ a child like this, he’s not sure what they’ll do if they find out he’s sick. Not sure if they’ll do anything. 

Shota is standing outside the door, waiting. The bathrooms are down a hallway along the same wall as the entrance, but it’s dark and black-coated and Shota can barely see anything. Has to squint to see the men’s door. Can’t imagine how disgusting those bathrooms are.

He tells himself that if the kid takes too long, he’ll go in. 

He’s just not sure how long too long is. 

The music is at least a little muffled, and the lights aren’t cutting through the thick shadow of the lowered ceiling, but the pounding in his skull is only getting worse. His stomach aches and his lungs burn still — the kid hit his diaphragm, got a good punch in. Shota commends him, honestly. 

At least he’s learned something over the year.

He thinks back to the first night, then the second. Recalls watching the video cam footage  and the late evenings with Tsukauchi. Even remembers meeting the kid, unofficially — finding the same store robbery at the same time, and officially — a gun pressed to his knee, a hand shaking with anxiety, maybe rage. And he thinks about all the ensuing bathroom visits, in gas stations and diners, museums and antique stores. 

Something there. He feels a smell hit him, something from a past memory, just the skin of a tooth. Sniffs again, smells the butter, the cinnamon—french toast. The sounds of a fork scraping along a glass plate, the clink of metal. A black hand against stark porcelain. A smile before they both wash their hands of the scene, of the mess that they caused.

That was a lot of food. 

Shota blinks. Hearing his own voice, he looks towards the door. 

What, going to throw up again?

Something pangs in his stomach again, and he’s not sure if it's pain or emotion, because it all registers the same. It's ugly, rearing a head so violent that Shota tries to push it out just like everything else. 

So what if he’d said some things? So what if they hurt? 

Here's the thing: life hurts. Life is cruel and unjust, and though Shota works for justice, he is not compelled to shield everybody that crosses his path. Especially not a violent criminal. 

But he grabs the door knob before he even recognizes the taste of metal in his mouth and walks in. 

The bathroom smells. The lights tint the tile along the walls and floor a sickly yellow, and the air hangs stale. The mirror to his right is long, stained above the sinks. He doesn’t even look at the stalls, just hears the vomiting and knows. 

Above the trash can, there’s a sign warning for stray needles. 

Shota waits. Leans against the sink, back to the mirror, lets the counter press against him. He gets a sense of deja vu, allows it to waver in his head like a cloud. 

The door to the last stall swings open, black and otherworldly. The kid stands there, barely even glances at Shota before he jumps, a sudden flinch while he’s lifting his mask back over his mouth. 

“Fuck—you scared me!”

He knows it’s not true. Shota always knows when he’s faking.

“What were you doing?”

The kid smiles, bright. His teeth are stained, rimmed with black. His bottom lip quivers with it. His Quirk.

He isn’t wearing his red sneakers anymore, not in this weather. His brown boots are coated with dirt. 

“You’re not supposed to patrol this much without me,” Shota grunts. He thinks back to summer, misses it, when he could see the bruises, when he could tell that the kid had been fighting. When he would get tired and hot, take his jacket off, and Shota could see the scars crawling down his shoulder blades below his shirt collar. 

The stupid kid just shrugs. “I wasn’t.” Doesn’t even try to hide his lie. He mumbles his way to the sink, and all Shota can imagine is him staring blankly into his own sunglasses like he’s missing something he can’t envision. Shota has only seen his eyes once. He can’t remember the shape. 

His hood isn’t down, but he moves his hands under to fluff up his hair in the mirror, cards his gloved fingers through it, lets them glide. Readjusts his sweater collar. Taps his cheeks a few times—Shota watches them bloom red.

“You have somewhere to be?”

“We’re not finding her here. It’s, what, three?” He tilts his head, laughs a little, fixes something by his ear that Shota can’t see. “I mean, this is your job, but I’m a kid, right? Things to do, people to see.”

Shota feels something deep in his gut. He does not recognize it as jealousy.

“…Sleep to get, you know.” He figures the kid noticed his glare. But he can’t blame Shota—he’s too childish, too unserious. It’s just more fuel.

“I still have another place to check out,” Shota says, turns to the kid, blocks sight of the door with his body. 

“Well, I don’t.” The Rabbit turns back to him, leans his side against the sink exactly like Shota. He knows it’s digging into his ribs. He’s so short, only about 5’3, he has to be. Skinny, too, limbs long like snakes. He hasn’t ever seemed like a threat. 

But he is. 

“I thought you didn’t want me doing this at all?”

“You’re an asset.”

“I’m fifteen.”

Shota stops. He’s not supposed to be like this, he knows, but the Rabbit isn’t either. No, he’s supposed to be very different. 

So he walks past Shota like nothing. Not really nothing , but these days it’s like he’s between that and something , something so real and scratching and gnawing and violent it makes Shota sick. 

He would rather the kid stay nothing. 

When he walks past Shota, the smell of cigarette smoke follows him. It’s the only way Shota knows that he’s tangible.

—

The kid goes. Shota doesn’t fight it, maybe because he’s surprised, maybe because this is something he hasn’t recognized before. 

He’s desperate for work, always has been. He jumps from case to case faster than Shota, attention split into fine lines. The Rabbit wants to prove himself, wants Shota to tell him he did good. 

So he can’t just want to leave. Shota has profiled him, and reprofiled him, time and time again, and one thing’s sure—the vigilante is addicted to his work. He rarely breaks, never stops. He is annoyingly efficient. And annoyingly determined.

Something has to be wrong. 

So he follows him. Shota knows there are rules against this, boundaries not to be pushed. But it’s a matter of safety now, not privacy, and if he just happens to see where the kid sleeps—so what?

Shota won’t look. He tells himself that, anyway.

He waits a few beats as the kid steps out into the night. Doesn’t push his way out the door until the Rabbit is well down the street. Shota is quiet, though, and quick, and he catches up well enough in no time. He hangs back, sticks close to the shadowed walls, matches the sound of his footsteps with the kids. The sky is pitch black, or maybe it’s just the passing clouds—he doesn’t pay attention.

The kid passes under a street lamp. It illuminates his black hair like a firelight.

They walk a few blocks down, oddly slowly, and the kid only stops to pull something out of his jacket pocket. It glows obscenely in the velvet night. Shota hears him sigh, then sneeze—is he sick? Coming down with something? He can’t work if he’s sick. 

Shota hears something, then. The familiar rabble of a car against rocky street pavement. The streets down here are covered in pebbles. He glances behind him, watches the small car glide past, well below the speed limit. Light color, and when he looks — no plates. It’s not the worst thing he’s ever seen in the area, figures it’s fine. It’s for the cops to handle.

Only starts to panic when the car pulls up close and stops next to his kid. 

He stops in the street, steps further into the darkness like a shield. Watches the black window on the passenger side pull down with a familiar old-car creak. “Hi, hi, Bambi!” A voice calls from inside, female, energetic. Shallow and high. 

His kid leans into the window, resting his elbows on the inside of the door. “Hey,” he lowers his mask, familiar, Shota guesses, with her. 

“How was the club?”

“Oh, I’m never comin’ back,” and he smiles. The girl in the car giggles something sweet. His kid looks down into the passenger seat, picks something up with one hand. 

There’s the sound of glass clinking. “What’s this? Cherry schnapps?”

“Mhm. Good ones, too!”

“I’m not drinking on a school night.” He’s defensive, but weak. Shota recognizes that tone. He always uses it when he’s about to give in. A last-ditch attempt at saying no to something he wants. 

“It’s already three, you’re telling me you’re going? ”

“I have a project—“

“Just get in the car, gayboy!” 

His kid laughs, this stark sound that reverberates like ten thousand golden plates, like a coyote in the night, like something easy. “You can’t call me that—“

But he moves in anyway.  

—

It’s dark, and it’s cold, and it’s raining. 

November is usually a dry month, where the wind whips around Shota’s face fast enough to redden his nose and dry his eyes. He dislikes it like that, usually, with his eyes already pre-burning from the lack of moisture, but he’s beginning to prefer it over the harsh rainfall. It’s unusual this late in autumn, the rain, but the world’s all wrong and twisted now anyway. Shota doesn’t doubt that this weather will last until late December, and by then it’ll freeze over and all the drops will turn to hail. Even worse. 

To a certain extent, though, he favors the colder months. The crime rate usually spikes when the temperature does, so winters pass quieter than summers. He can focus more on his class. 

Usually, anyway. When the Rabbit appeared last autumn, as if carried in by the falling leaves and brittle air, things changed. Shota worked nights, tirelessly, just for the idea of tracking him down. Of meeting him.

He does the same now. 

The Rabbit prefers roofs to ground, likes working higher up, and so does Shota. Higher vantage points work well for them both—Shota because he relies on surprise, not pure strength, the Rabbit because he plain just isn’t good at fighting. He’s strong, and smart, but he’s got no technique. He throws his weight around and just happens to be fast enough to remain uninjured most of the time. 

That was one of the first things to go in the profile. An untrained, reckless vigilante does not usually make for a long-lasting vigilante. 

But the kid’s always been one of a kind. 

So Shota’s on the roof. 

And he knows what he’s watching. 

The kid breathes funny when he shoves the man against the wall. Shota knows, hears it in the way he gasps. He has no trouble pushing the man back into the brick of the bar, laughs when he does it, doesn’t care when the man’s head snaps back violently against the stone. 

He’s like this, they know. Always has been. It doesn’t make him feel better, though—somehow it’s worse.

Shota weighs his options. 

The man pushes at the kid weakly, a head taller than him but so much weaker. The muscle under his shirt isn’t helping, not with the paleness of his skin, white-hot and sweating. Poor guy, probably drunk, doesn’t even realize what’s happening. What he did. What the kid actually wants to do.

Quickly, before it worsens, Shota takes his moment in the rain—moves so fast his hood falls down, and he feels the water immediately, in his eyes, his hair, watches it ricochet off roof linings and splatter on the ground in front of him when he slides down the plaster onto the concrete. It doesn’t matter, the kid’s back is to him, he won’t see. He won’t care. 

He grabs the kid’s shoulder roughly, feels his fingertips burn against the cold, wet puffy sleeves. Pulls the kid back. 

The Rabbit jumps, moves on the offense—Shota sees it, predicted it, grabs at his raised black wrists and holds them. He yelps, missteps, trips into Shota. He holds the kid up by his forearms, lets him sigh, “Oh, hey Eraser,” with a smile in his voice like he’s trying not to act surprised. The man behind him falls almost immediately to the side, crushed under his own weight, a victim to gravity. His shirt is mussed, maybe bloody—Shota doesn’t look. He doesn’t want to. Goosebumps trail disturbingly up his arms as the rain clambers down on them, pattering through his hair to his scalp. The kid doesn’t like it when his hair gets wet—the strands stick to his face and his skin gets all itchy and dry. 

Instinctively, Shota raises one elbow over his head and blocks the rain from falling over the curls. 

The kid’s knees are still bent forward, head almost falling into the crease of Shota’s chest. He huffs, failing to catch his breath, and when Shota looks down at the black gloves he sees the shine of blood on the knuckles. 

“What the hell are you doing?” He yells, but he doesn’t mean to. Didn’t even catch himself. Regrets it immediately. 

The kid just sighs behind his mask. 

It’s bad, Shota realizes, when he drags the kid away, two blocks down, watching him stumble and trip over his own feet. He’s speaking in words, not sentences, saying “wait,” and “hold on,” like the Rabbit can't ever wait for anything in his life. 

He can’t even wait long enough to be a hero.

Chapter Text

“I wasn’t trying to kill him—”

“Then what the hell do you call that?”

The Rabbit leans back against the wall, muddied boots pressed hard against the dirty concrete ground of the overpass they’re standing in. The bridge covers them like a long dark tablecloth, layering them in shadow, blocking out the water droplets in swooping curtains. A single ray of moonlight through the rain brightens their way, lets Shota see him for what he really is. The temperature drops even quicker this time of night, and Shota is really starting to feel it—he knows the Rabbit does too. His arms are crossed tightly together, brown coat darkened in splatters by something Shota doesn’t want to consider. 

Shota shivers. He’s not sure if it’s the cold or something else. 

“He was a bad—a bad man,” the Rabbit says, voice shaking behind his crumpled black mask. His shoulders are raised in defense, a posture Shota is familiar with—he’s scolded many kids over the past years. But this isn’t scolding, no, this isn’t a disruption of class or a disrespect to his name. This is different. “A really bad guy, sir.”

“What was he doing that was so bad?”

There’s silence. A beat of something as the wind rushes past his ears, picks up quickly, carrying fallen leaves dressed in golden brown and bright orange. Shota likes those colors. You can’t see them at this time of night. He’s staring at this kid, this stupid kid, watching him squirm under the gaze, shiver under the moon. 

“...I can’t tell you.”

Of course. Of course he can’t. 

“You can’t tell me? ” And Shota has tried, really, to keep his voice even, to keep himself from being intimidating or frightening or words that Nedzu uttered and he wasn’t paying attention to. But there’s something about him, something about the way it all happened, that Shota can’t forgive. Not just this, not just months ago in June, but the way it all started—the day it began. 

When a loose push turned into a punch turned into we have a vigilante in the span of a week. But maybe it didn’t start there, no, maybe it started the day All Might disappeared. Maybe it started fifteen years ago when Oboro died and a mother gave birth. 

Maybe it started when Oboro moved without thinking and years after when the kid did the exact same thing. Maybe it started because Shota never did. 

“No, I can’t. And I’m—I’m sorry, I guess? I’m sorry.” There’s a certain desperation to his tone, but his body doesn’t carry the same frequency. Desperate to be forgiven, but there’s no remorse. “I went overboard. It was, uhm, irresponsible—”

“ Irresponsible? You could have killed him.”

“He was—come on, the EMTs said it wasn’t that bad.”

“They never said that. What they did say was that he had a concussion and three broken ribs .”

“We’ve all had a concussion. I had one like, three months ago, and I walked it off just fine, sir.”

Shota blinks. “What?”

That was never in his file. The Rabbit is supposed to report every injury he gets, if not get a small examination after every altercation, and he has been since the start of his contract. And even before that, the contract, all of this—they reviewed every crime he had stopped, spoke to the witnesses and the victims and the perpetrators, had seen the camera footage and the videos posted online. 

And there was never a sign that the kid could have been disoriented, had been concussed, had gotten knocked around like that in a fight. The only things that he’d reported in the last, what, six months, were light scratches and bruises—once a bruised rib. 

“It’s fine.”

“When the hell did you get a concussion? Were you walking around with it? Working with it?” He can’t help himself, steps closer. Shota wants something now, wants to examine every inch of his head in an effort to protect him from something long passed, but what good would it do now? 

“I told you, it’s fine—I took a few nights off,” the kid raises his arms as if in partition, as if there’s something he needs defending from, as if it’s Shota he needs to fight off.  He presses himself further into the wall as Shota steps closer, holds his hands out as if to stop everything else from closing in. The kid’s always been anxious, always had so much nervous energy that he can’t contain. They’ve never spoken about it, but Shota knows, because he watches the way his hands shake and his feet shift from side to side. “I took it easy for like, the whole month, I promise.”

He looks at the way his palms shake now. 

“You’re lying.”

Shota hates this. Hates this whole situation, hates the way he’s supposed to work with someone that needs to be in a juvenile detention center at the least , prison if the judge knows better. Hates the way he worked so long just for the Commission to stomp over it and tell him hey, we actually need this kid and why don’t you work with him, since you know him so well? Hates the way he knows every time the kid lies but apparently doesn’t know him at all, can’t even tell when he’s concussed, when he’s unwell. 

The rain beats harder onto the bridge above them, pounding like a thousand little bullets. There’s a boom, something so far away that you can only tell it’s so loud by the way it migrates across the earth. Thunder. They should get home. 

“I didn’t get it on the job! It’s not your fault—”

“You think I care about if it was my fault or not?” But Shota does, he really does, it’s just that that’s not all of it. That’s not the whole story. He knows what he looks like, knows how tight his face is; he can feel the wrinkles in his nose and the glare of his eyes. “What happened, then? And don’t lie to me.”

I can tell when you lie goes unsaid, like a million other things they both keep buried under the ground. 

The kid’s face is still damp from the rain, and for a second when a water droplet sings down his cheek Shota thinks he’s crying. But he knows better. 

“It was, uh… I got it at school. I was in a fight. With a guy.”

He says the words in choppy sentences, like it’s physically painful to say them. Like it burns his tongue. But there’s a certain finality to them, a truth unchallenged, and right then Shota knows that’s not it. 

A concussion from an altercation at school—that’s grounds for a police report. People would know, no matter what. His kid never tells him anything that he could use, not even when he’s pressured like this. Shota could scream at him for hours and he would never say anything that could be connected to his civilian identity. And he knows the Rabbit—when someone hits him, he hits back. Twice as hard. Hell, he was probably the one to start the whole fight. 

“Is that everything?” He was wrong the last time he pushed, but he’s sick of it all. He’s never going to learn anything if they keep running around in circles, throwing each other down again and again. And if the kid is beating people at his school, then that’s it. Shota needs to go to the Commission. 

The kid looks at him for a long time, something that feels like it goes on for hours. He utters something quiet. Shota barely realizes that he’s said anything at all.

“What?”

Louder, this time, more intelligible. “Um. I didn’t fight back.” 

Shota looks at his palms. They’re still in the air, frozen when the rest of him shakes from the cold. The kid doesn’t bundle up enough for the weather—he noticed it a year ago and he notices it again now. The giant parka with only a T-shirt under it, pajama pants and sneakers in the snow. They profiled him low-income because of that, and the size—too big jackets, too small underclothes. Thrift store picks. 

“What do you mean you didn’t fight back?”

“Um. It’s been going on for a long—uhm, a long time. I kind of just let him… you know. I mean, no one really does anything, I just—you know—” 

He gets tripped over his own words, does this when things get hard. His head shifts to the side, and at this angle Shota can tell he’s looking off to his right, desperate to escape Shota’s face. Sometimes, Shota catches him staring—mumbling, as if he’s talking to someone. 

“No one does anything?”

“Well—you have to understand, okay? He’s going to be a hero.”

It clicks, then, something that Shota couldn’t make sense of before. There’d always been some desperation he never understood—something so deeply entombed in the kid’s brain he could never decipher it for what it was. Look at me, love me, tell me I’m great because I know I am, he always thought that’s what it was, a petting of an ego much too big. But maybe it’s different.

He’s going to be a hero.

“And, I guess it’s fine, because he just gets angry sometimes and you know, he doesn’t know what to do with it all, and UA is so—uh, it’s really high stakes, right? So I forgive him if he just gets irritated sometimes, but I mean, really it’s a bit much, haha, but it’s fine, it’s really okay. I can take it, so it’s fine, because I mean if anyone can take it, it’s me, right?” 

Shota says nothing. 

“I guess you’d think it’s pretty stupid, huh? That’s—that’s okay, sir. I don’t expect you to, haha, it’s just, it’s really not what you think it is, okay?” He shrinks back into his jacket, palms steady as his defense lowers. “It’s really not what you think it is.”

For once it feels like Shota has almost nothing, no thoughts like a shark, no goal except one instinctive aspiration in mind. 

“What’s his name?”

The kid stares up at him, a void behind his sunglasses, head knocked back against the concrete wall. “You don’t need to know that.”

“I can get him banned from UA.”

“I’m not going to let this ruin his chances,” he feels the deep breath the kid takes, one of desperation, like if he’s not going to weasel out of this the easy way he knows a hard alternative. And Shota knows when it’s best to let go. Maybe that’s the thing Oboro and the kid never learned. 

He takes a step back despite his better judgment. God, he must have been crowding the kid. Shota’s uncomfortable whenever anyone's within five feet of him, who knows how that must have felt. 

The strike of lightning brightens them, another thing that’s too close for comfort as it flashes against his kid’s sunglasses, illuminatingly white. He huffs. 

“We should get you home.”

“Yeah. I think that’s best.”

—

“You seriously don’t have an umbrella?”

Shota’s about to lose it. “You’ve only pestered me about it fourty seven times. Are you seriously expecting my answer to change?”

They stand under the overlining of shops and restaurants, long closed in the dismal weather and the harsh night and sprint quickly when there are gaps between the roofs where the pouring rain can peek through. The kid laughs every time he does it, enjoys the rain, so Shota’s honestly not sure why he keeps asking if not just because he knows it pokes at Shota’s buttons. 

“I dunno, I just think it’s not very functional for you to be an underground hero in these months without one,” he practically has to yell over the drumming of the rain, cascading like diamonds down to plop on his curly hair. 

“We do get umbrellas,” Shota yells back, because who is he to deny a little curiosity, “from the offices, just not this early. It usually doesn’t rain like this in November.”

“You can’t bring your own? Surely your umbrella sticks to your color scheme. It’s not that hard to match black with black, right?” 

Down the broken sidewalk, the cracks in the ground march with water, and the kid fails to teeter around a thin pool. When his heavy boot comes down, the splash wets all up his left calf.

“I didn’t know it was going to rain like this either.”

“You didn’t check the weather forecast?”

“Did you?”

There’s silence as Shota makes his way from under Chinese restaurant protection to boutique shingles, albeit less messy.

“Fair enough, I guess.”

He’s surprised they’re not drenched yet, really. This isn’t an effective strategy for avoiding weather like this, with ice-cold rain sliding down the roofs of buildings and onto Shota’s back, the kid’s shoulders. But still, his kid’s hands and most of his arms and torso are surprisingly dry. Probably because he’s so quick. 

Shota’s always been larger, shoulders harsher in the bone, so he collects more and freezes over quicker. He dislikes this, but he never voices this complaint. If it was such a big deal, he should have picked a different job.

The only thing that lights their path is the moon, most of the street lamps buzzing out these days—autumn and winter are the harshest months for the poor lights—and Shota squints to see through the rain, glowing like crystals. 

He barely hears the kid when they stop suddenly at the end of the street. “It’s almost time for us to split,” he says, mask wrenched down with one finger. 

Shota almost has time to agree before they hear the noise. 

Someone, a masculine voice, yells over the rainfall. There’s another sound—of glass smashing, maybe, something hitting it hard. Their heads whip down the street like twin watchers, and faintly Shota can hear the kid’s steady hum.

“We should go check that out.”

The kid darts down the street before he can finish his sentence. Shota likes this part of it, even though he hates the rest. He follows without thinking.

They come upon the scene quickly, both fast on their feet, boots freezing in water. It’s loud, anyways, easily recognizable. There’s a break in down the street to their right, and they rush quickly, one half curiosity (the kid), one half genuine urgency (Shota). He can see two men at first—one at the front window, breaking the glass near the door with a crowbar, one fighting to crawl in. Not the most efficient strategy. They’re arguing, these two, the one with the crowbar obviously older, and for a second Shota gets a sense of deja vu. 

Shota neutralizes the obvious threat first. The man with the crowbar is pulled back, twisted until the crowbar is dropped out of sheer pain. It makes a harsh clanging noise against the ground. Out of the corner of his eye, Shota can see the man halfway through the window get pulled out by the kid, forearms shredded by broken glass. 

Not an efficient strategy, no. Not an efficient strategy at all. 

He pushes the older man face first into the brick wall, hears him yell. It’s annoying when they make noise like this, right in Shota’s ear. He manhandles the cuffs onto the man quicker, if only to escape the sounds. 

Shota looks to the side, one hand wrenching the man’s arm behind his back, one hand pushing him further into the wall. The other man is taken care of, almost predictable how easy. He’s face down on the ground, the Rabbit’s boots pressing down on his shoulder blades. Honestly, if the kid wasn’t so light, that would probably count as cruel and unusual punishment. 

It’s a wonder how he can ignore this rain. Shota feels it slick down his back, and it almost makes him shiver. 

“Will you call the precinct for me? Since your hands are free,” he says, and after a beat he realizes he’s famished. There’s a migraine looping in his head and he’s not sure if it’s from the hunger pangs or something worse. He turns back to the criminal in his hands. 

“Sure, and— oh shit turn around— ”

Shota whips around just fast enough to get stabbed in the side. He feels the pain immediately, the knife still lodged in, and he staggers back as if to escape it. He barely gets a glance of the person who’s attacked him. 

His last thought before he falls back and knocks his head against the wall is what’s the kid going to do?

—

Black milky spots like stars cloud his vision when he wakes up. For a second, he’s not keen on opening his eyes because he can tell they’re encoated in crust. 

The first thing he registers is that the air around him smells startlingly of vanilla and coconut as he forces his eyelids open. The warm orange-yellow light of a lamp is warm against his dry eyes when he rubs them. Comforting. 

He’s staring up at the ceiling, white popcorn and the ceiling light off. He’s never liked having the ceiling light on—he lives his life through different colored lamps. Shota likes it best this way. 

He’s almost pleased enough that it takes him a second to realize he has no clue where he is. 

He sits up in a rush, pushing up on his palms—and the dizziness that pumps to his head and the pain all through his torso sends him back down. He groans with the suddenness of it. Before he had been living in a cloud of unconsciousness. Now the knowledge pangs all through his body. 

Shota breathes in sharp, shaky. He doesn’t remember. He twists his head almost mechanically, shakes out his hands and feet. He isn’t chained, or otherwise unable to move except for the pain. At least there’s that. 

It’s a living room. He’s staring straight into the glare of a TV when he turns his head to the left, flat screened and stark black. It’s atop a walnut-wood brown TV stand, the long kind with little windowed-cabinets. Inside of them are books. Speaking of books—they’re everywhere. On top of the brown coffee table with curling engraved patterns, stacked on top of the plush red cushioned loveseat to his right, piling high up on along the warm yellow-wallpaper walls. Shota looks down, and he can barely see the fuzzy maroon carpet under the books balanced precariously against the dark cotton couch he’s laying on.

He tries to make out the titles—an assortment of mismatched ones, fiction and nonfiction, collections of essays—some are biology books, they have to be. The only book he recognizes by name is I Am A Cat by Natsume Soseki. 

Shota looks to the wall behind him and finds, behind a small rounded dining table and two chairs, a window against the dark night cracked open, the light green curtains pushed towards the sides. There’s a soft blow of wind coming through it, and it makes the curtains dance. That’s an interesting contrast, he thinks. Light green with dark red. He almost laughs about it, but he stops himself—there’s a voice past the dining table, the kitchen, down the hall. 

The words are muffled, but energetic, almost exasperated. They get louder–there’s the sound of the sliding of a door, the click of a lock, the growing footsteps. The words are clearer now. 

“And he still won’t finish the goddamn paper. It’s like, okay, you hate me, but— holy shit you’re awake. ”

The kid stares down at him. He’s still wearing his mask and sunglasses, and Shota is almost grateful. He’s taken off the rain-drenched jacket, though, and the rest of his dirty clothes— he wears dark blue pajama pants with salt-white star designs, a sweatshirt with Hawks’ winking face plastered to the front, and fuzzy red socks. And he’s standing there, holding something small, next to the dining table with the two ugly mismatched chairs. 

“Where am I?”

“Uhhh. My safehouse!”

This is one hell of a safehouse. All these damn books—he’d be surprised if there was a single canned good in any given cabinet. 

“This isn’t a safehouse.”

“Yes it is. It’s just a cheap one.”

He feels like shit. His migraine is getting worse. He needs to eat, and get some eye drops. And figure out where the fuck he is. And what the fuck happened. 

“You know, the safehouse—there’s a stupid, uh, Google Sheets page for it, right? And, like, I booked the whole week, but this fucking guy with a purple D profile picture—he doesn’t even have a profile picture! It’s the default! He erased all my fucking writing and booked himself for basically the whole month after this, so I actually have to be out in like, three days, isn’t that crazy? I emailed the fucking owner of the place, this fucking guy, because he doesn’t check the god damn spreadsheet at all, but no, no response even though he keeps writing over everybody else and—”

“If you don’t get me a bucket or something right now, I’m going to vomit on the carpet.”

The kid yelps, rushes into the kitchen cabinets—pulls out a big bowl, shiny steel. Waddles over to where Shota lays like a beached mermaid, pathetic really, over the couch. Puts it in his arms and Shota finally catches a glimpse of what he was holding when he walked in. He’s so distracted by it he isn’t even nauseous anymore. 

“Are you vaping ?”

“Oh my God, it’s Peach Rings leave me alone—okay, so, just listen. You remember what happened, right?”

Shota blinks. He thinks back—the last thing he remembers is watching the kid run forward in the rain, towards something he can’t place. He doesn’t speak.

“...Oh. Well, you got stabbed. Basically. And then you fell into a wall and hit your head and passed out. It was, um, really worrying but also kind of funny and also I got it on video so if you want to see—”

“Focus. What happened after that?” If he lets the kid mumble long enough to get completely off track again, Shota will never be able to recount the rest of the night. 

“Oh, well, I apprehended—” code word for beat the shit out of —”the guy, and I had already called the police and everything, but they got there faster than the ambulance did and I just decided my house— safehouse —was quicker, so. I. Took you.”

It’s completely silent. They only thought Shota is capable of forming against his weary head and disordered memory is what the fuck.

“And how am I still alive?”

“I stitched you up!”

Shota considers pondering this, having some critical thinking skills, but he doesn’t. Instead, he asks, “and how the hell do you know how to do that?”

“Oh! Well, I looked up a video on YouTube. They tell you everything on there, honestly, it’s a gold mine.”

This is the part he thinks through. Shota looks down at his body, finds himself scarfless and oddly shoeless—though he supposes it’s to prevent hypothermia, those parts being the most flattened in cold water. He pulls his black shirt up just enough to see the bandages against his pale skin, crawling to wrap around the wound on his left side, surprisingly not as dirtied and reddened as he’d expected. When he sees this, he envisions the effort it would take—to pull the knife out and the stitching through. All that blood. 

Then he looks up at the kid again.

“You stitched me up with a tutorial from YouTube ?”

“Umm, in hindsight, maybe not my best choice—but the bleeding stopped!” He wavers, waves his hands again in that familiar gesture of self defense, and Shota notices, not for the first time, that his hands are ungloved. 

He notices the scars then. They’re pale, winding all down his hands and forearms, down places Shota can’t even see with that big sweatshirt. Thick, jutting things, signs of a break or a brutal tear. 

Where did you get those from? Shota wonders, doesn’t say. He doesn’t even comment on the scabs along the kid’s knuckles when he goes to wipe his nose. 

“...I need food. Do you have anything?”

“I’m making chicken noodle soup. It’ll just be a second. Promise.”

—

They watch some shitty top fifties hero documentary while they eat. Shota appreciates the monotony, feels better with warm food in his stomach and eye drops in his eyes. His headache is almost gone, the burning in his pupils nonexistent. The kid, sitting in the red loveseat criss-cross, makes stupid comments while they watch, about the Quirk of the hero dressed in black and blue. She talks about how hard her life is, coming from an affluent family and just never meeting expectations. 

“You know, I don’t like heroes like this. Her life is so hard, yadda yadda. You’re one of the top fifty! In the limelight! I mean, how hard can it be?”

Shota doesn’t say anything. He places his bowl, eaten in a quick fervor, so quick he isn’t used to, on the coffee table. He makes a plan in his mind half-heartedly—maybe he’ll steal something, some little thing the kid had no doubt touched and wouldn’t immediately notice gone, try to scan for a fingerprint. 

“I hear most of our tax dollars go to fixing their damages. Buildings, roads, everything. Fuck, I mean, if your life is so hard, at least try to make everybody else’s a little easier, right?” He laughs. Shota’s not paying attention.

In fact, he’s not paying attention to anything. He blinks, slowly. As he settles, he feels like it’s not worth moving again, limbs heavy like rocks. It’s odd—he doesn’t usually get tired so quickly. 

Fuck. He thinks he knows this feeling. 

The kid says something again, quieter, and then Shota swears he can hear the sound of him laughing.

He goes to sleep. 

Chapter Text

Shota wakes up again. 

He knows it’s his bed this time because he can smell his apartment—coffee, dust. The same thing it’s smelled like for the last ten years. The pillow behind his head is plush, the bed under him soft, unlike the firm couch and the cold cushion of the kid’s safe house. When he opens his eyes, he’s immediately comforted by the white popcorn ceiling and dust particles hanging low in the air. He sits up, slowly this time, practiced and measured. There’s a weight pressing down on his body, just like before, but now it’s not so harsh. His limbs are lighter by the second. Every time he blinks, his eyes open easier. 

His black sheets, gray comforter; everything is so familiar. Everything is the same. 

The bedroom is untouched from the looks of it. The blinds to his right are drawn shut still, but from the light peeking through he knows it’s morning, or maybe afternoon. There’s no way to tell how time has passed without his phone, which he can’t feel in his back pocket. Shota stands carefully then, unsteadily plants his bootless feet onto the gray stained carpet, and looks down to find himself still in his uniform. Belt and all. So at least there’s that. 

Eyeing the long expanse of his bed, he finds no evidence of his capture weapon or phone. Not even plugged into his charger on the brown bedside table across from the side he’d been sleeping on. There’s no way the kid would take those, right? 

He doesn’t even have a reason, Shota’s sure. So he refuses to worry. 

The desk in the corner is unbothered, the computer still plugged and everything, so he wanders out the door into the main room. The twin chairs facing the TV are empty, and the lights are all off, just as he’d left them—at least, as far as he could remember—so he heads for the kitchen first. There’s no one waiting for him, at least there shouldn’t be, so Shota can afford to wander. After all, the police in his section can trace all of his movements with the tracker, and—

He feels along his belt. Finds nothing.

Dammit. The kid took his tracker. 

Probably threw it down the drain while he was dragging Shota to his safehouse, or crushed it into pieces under his boot. It could have just fallen off in the house, on that couch, but the kid’s too smart to just let that go unnoticed. 

God. Whatever. He stands in front of the coffee maker, places a half-empty cup from…two days ago, probably, in. The coffee maker does not produce any coffee. Messes around with it some, presses the buttons again. It doesn’t budge. 

Just kill me.

There’s no sign of his phone in the kitchen, either. He looks through the cabinets, pulls out the drawers, even opens his fridge. Because of course the kid would hide his phone in the fridge. 

But he hasn’t, and Shota can’t even get warm coffee, and now that he thinks about it he doesn’t know where his wallet is either. He feels in his pockets, the secret ones, too, and can’t find them. Or his keys. 

So everything is gone and he’s completely fucked. Probably doesn’t even have his ID or license on him either, since they stay firm in his wallet. The only option now is to make a run to the police station and pray Tsukauchi isn’t taking his lunch break because he doesn’t want to deal with any other officers asking him stupid questions like how could you let this happen. 

Shota crosses the apartment to his front door and finds that his boots are missing. His only pair, used for hero work and daily life, since one of his running sneakers ripped open comically three weeks ago. He’s so used to putting them right next to the door that he didn’t even consider that they would be missing too. 

He puts his hand around the doorknob and considers bashing his head against the wall. 

New plan, Shota decides, because he’s good at this: he’ll go on outside in the cold hoping that the rain from last night has dried away, just down the stairs and across the street in his socks, to reach the payphone in front of the mini mart. Then he’ll call Tsukauchi. They can drive around quick; get him a new pair of shoes, go to the bank and get all his cards closed. It’ll be fine even if his feet freeze over in the damp socks. It’ll be fine even if it’s terribly, terribly embarrassing. 

But then he’ll have to explain how his capture weapon and hero license got stolen, too. 

He lets his head thump against the metal door. It makes a loud thunk sound that he’s pretty sure his neighbors heard. Whatever. Shota can face the music, even with cold feet and a migraine and zero caffeine. He’ll be fine. 

The door opens, and the cold air hits him immediately, dry and dreary. It’ll only get worse further down the months—honestly, he’s lucky it isn’t snowing yet. He only lives on the second floor, so he doesn’t have to walk down flights of biting steel stairs, which he’s grateful for. The sky is clear and blue, no signs of rain. It has to be midday, at best. 

He takes a step forward and trips.

The door gives him something to grab onto so he doesn’t faceplant into the concrete walkway, and he lifts his body up by the doorknob steadily. His stomach churns uncomfortably, shaken and nauseous, like the drugs haven’t worn off. Shota looks down at whatever his foot has caught on and finds a cardboard box, mid-sized and taped shut, right in front of his door. A sheet of paper with the word “SORRY” in scratchy red handwriting is taped on. 

Of course. It’s just like the kid to drug him, take all his shit, and do… whatever this is. Of course. 

Shota rights himself slowly, carefully, before he bends down to slide the box onto the gray carpet of his apartment. It’s dizzying doing this now, as if all of his progress has backslid, but he reaches up again to slam the door closed. The cold air makes his nose twitch, makes his eyes blink once, twice. 

He sits suddenly—not as a conscious effort, really, but as if his body has decided to give up at the moment—beside the box and rights himself, criss-cross on the itchy carpeted floor. The paper is ripped off quickly, because who is Shota to take sorry for what it is, and he does the same with the tape closing the box. No use getting up and looking for scissors at this point. The kid probably took those too.

The first thing he sees inside the box is the tinted once-white of his capture weapon, folded up and crinkled in the confines of the cardboard, and when he starts to pull it out with two hands he notices the darkened parts, splattered with dried blood. The smell of it is still tangy in the air, but it must’ve been hours since it started drying.

Did he try to use this to stop the bleeding?

Shota feels his brows furrow, his mouth pulled down in some absorbent type of frown. He shouldn’t be displeased, not really. Sometimes he forgets, he knows, that he’s working with a child and not a seasoned professional. Sometimes he forgets the first moments of panic he’d felt, seeing a partner bloodied on the floor, seeing someone he knew unconscious. Sometimes he forgets Oboro. 

There’s no one to blame here, not really, for some panic. If the kid had tried to put some pressure on the wound, stop the bleeding, then he did the right thing. Shota decides it’s as easy as that. 

He pulls the ruined weapon onto a pile on the floor and thinks that he’ll commission a replacement. 

Inside the box he finds a collection of things that were hidden under the weapon—his wallet, black leather and small swirling engravings, and when he pulls it out he finds all of his cards, his ID, and a couple thousand yen still stuck inside. Even his hero license. The kid has some sense, he’ll give him that. 

His phone comes back undamaged—or at least not damaged in the battle, considering the large crack splitting the screen in half from three years ago—but dead, because of course it is. At the bottom are his boots, scarred and beat up from work, but otherwise untouched. He’s strangely thankful for this, as if he shouldn’t have been expecting these items to be returned unscathed. Still, it’s quite a feat for the kid to leave him, any part of him, unbothered. 

So he figures this is okay. 

Shota feels something wet, then, and can only feel confusion when he looks down and smells fresh blood. 

—

It’s hot, and he can’t see much through the blood, but he feels strangely calm. 

The overhead light in the bathroom beats down on his brow, and the room feels warm and stuffy and tight around him. Shota can’t keep his shirt out of the way, has to keep pulling it up and out of the wound—but taking it off, raising his arms, is too painful. He folds it inside, takes a deep breath, pulls it up again to tuck under his chin.

He’s half-laying in the bathtub, white streaked with red, holding his upper body up with his elbows along the edge, looking down at the wounds. The stitches had reopened at some point—maybe when he fell, or got up, or something—but he hadn’t felt it, maybe still drugged, maybe just the adrenaline. He takes a breath, deep, watches his stomach pulse and the blood stain his skin. He’s halfway through the second stitch, hands shaking and red, when he feels the buzz against the cool porcelain bath. 

His phone is on the edge of the bath, a little further down. He strains his neck up to see the screen with the unidentified number, careful not to drop the needle, and when he knows who it is he figures they can wait. 

The buzzing goes away after eight long rounds. He drags the stitch through again and the buzzing is back. 

Shota knocks his head against the back of the tub. He’s not going to stop calling unless you answer. He raises one hand, slaps it against the screen, and it gets blood everywhere and doesn’t even pick up the phone call. Pressing the screen again in a determined attempt takes more focus, and when it actually answers he has to press down again to put it on speaker. 

“Oh, sir! Haha, I was afraid after you didn’t pick up that you, like, died or something—”

I’m about to, Shota thinks, but doesn’t say. He runs the needle through again, breathes harshly, steadying his hands. The kid’s voice is melodic in his ears, familiar, something Shota can’t hate, but he can’t pay attention to either. It sounds far away, unfocused as he tries to keep the steady stitching pace.

“I just wanted to make sure you got home okay, you know, ‘cause I get worried and all that and—oh, did you get my package? It’d be funny if you hadn’t figured it out yet, but I don’t want you to be mad at me or something so—”

“I got the package,” he huffs out, jaw clenched tight as the pain comes back in a burst, quiet at first but in only a few seconds louder. He drags the needle out too fast then. 

“Oh, good! So, listen, I’m outside right now and—”

“Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“Umm, well it’s Saturday and also five PM, so no. Also please stop interrupting me when I’m trying to tell you something important or you can just go back to looking for me in those stupid internet cafes.”

Instinctually, Shota rolls his eyes. He’s finished with the sixth stitch, wiping blood on the wall of the tub when he pauses. He knew about that?

Just when he thinks this can’t get any worse, the kid has to barge in and surprise him. He knew about Tsukauchi, knew about the Shie Hassakai, knows Shota’s been looking for him. He hasn’t spent a lot of time thinking about it, but sometimes Shota wonders how far it goes. Sometimes Shota wonders what kind of game they’re playing. 

“Okay, well, anyway. They found another body today. Parking garage in the office district, late night working lady found him. Twenty-seven stab wounds and counting, blood sucked out, the whole thing. He was a college student from around, only nineteen I think? Poor guy.”

“When was he found?”

“Two, three AM, she can’t remember. Listen—she’s getting closer, coming back around to her middle school. I dunno if the police have noticed the pattern yet. Apparently he died at eleven PM? It doesn’t seem like much of a change but she’s starting to kill earlier in the night.”

The pain makes his whole body jerk for a second. A cough rips out of him. “So?”

“So I think it’s leading up to something. Or someone. Toga stabbed that girl because of a guy, right? But she’s not killing girls. She wants him . I’m telling you that right now and you should call whoever’s in charge of her case and tell his family to move, or go into witness protection, or something. Because she’s going to kill him. Or worse.”

His head is aching like a knocking boulder, halfway through his stitches and he can’t focus. Everything is hot and wet and bright, everything is fluorescent. “Okay,” he groans out, out of breath, “okay, I’ll get that to Tsukauchi.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line. 

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he says, and all the pressure has gone to his head and every time he blinks it feels like fireworks. “I’m redoing… my stitches. I’m redoing them.”

“You tore your stitches?!”

“I just fell.” He resists the urge to say I fell over your stupid box because you can’t just be a normal child and put my stuff where it should go, because starting a fight is really the last thing Shota should be doing right now. His hands shake.

“That’s not good. That’s actually like, really bad, like obscenely bad do you realize how bad that is—”

“I’m handling it—”

“I’m coming over. Don’t bleed out.”

—

The kid’s hands are gentler than he expected, nimble and quick even when he’s nervous, even when he’s freaking out. 

And he’s freaking out. 

“I literally don’t even know how you’re awake right now, like if I were you I’d—I don’t know how you got this far by yourself.”

He’s a shadow over Shota, blocking out the bright bulbed light, hovering like a bird. It eases the pressure on Shota’s eyes but doesn’t lessen the pressure in his chest. Everything seems tight with pain—whatever it was that was keeping him steady seems to have worn off. He finds it hard to focus now, even harder than before, his vision filled with black sparks like pinholes in his mind. Blinking is a weary task, but he can’t close his eyes. No, he can’t risk falling asleep. So Shota has to focus. Focus on his kid.

The kid seems to have rushed. His sunglasses are crooked, his black mask wrinkled. He’s in a sweatshirt, merch from The Late Night with Present Mic, the radio show Hizashi brags about to no end. The show is boisterous, loud, and dirty; Oboro would have loved it. Shota can’t stand it. Hizashi’s face, sharp and bright yellow, pops out below the collar, staring back at him with that grating smile. That damn smile. 

The white gloves, surgical things the kid’s wearing, don’t shake like the rest of his body when they glide through the stitching. 

“I slowed the bleeding before I started,” Shota breathes, harsh. 

“There’s blood everywhere. ” The kid’s voice is strained, as if he’s keeping from yelling. Or crying. Shota wouldn’t put either past him. 

“That was during the process, and—how did you get into my house?”

“I have a key, and—and shut up. I’m trying to work! This is much harder when you’re awake.”

The wound, as the thread is dragged up and through, feels numb, but his torso is pulsating, breath ragged. It’s as if the pain relocates into every other corner of his body. Shota tries not to move, to keep still, but his body can’t help but quiver. 

“Almost done?”

“You did most of the work yourself, so yeah, almost—Oh my God stop moving—”

“I was numb most of the time. It was easy.”

The hands, white stained red, still suddenly. “Huh. I guess I gave you too high a dosage, huh? I’ll remember that for next time.”

He feels a certain discomfort at the assumption that there will be a next time , to the point where Shota almost says something, but there’s a sudden sharp pain in his stomach that leaves his jaw snapping shut. He bites his tongue harsh and tastes a trickle of blood over his teeth. His hand comes over the outer edge of the tub and grips it tightly like it’ll be some kind of outlet. 

Great. Now he has to deal with that too. 

“Fuck. Okay. I’m going to get the bandages now.” The kid stands over Shota, long shadow wavering like a dark cloud, bloody hands lax at his sides. Shota watches him as he raises his head, neck curled up to look up as if he can find something on the popcorn ceiling.

“It’s done?” Shota doesn’t want to look.

“Yeah. It’s raining. Can you hear it?”

All Shota can hear is the pounding in his head and his own breathing, echoing in his ears like his skull is one big cave. He closes his eyes and steadies his breath, and for a second he can hear the faint pitter-patter of raindrops hitting the ground. 

—

The heat is on high in the apartment and the window is fogged when the kid walks into his room. Shota is careful not to move anymore, as careful as he should have been earlier. Still, he almost flinches in surprise when the kid flops onto the edge of his bed like a starfish. The jostling only stings a bit now, courtesy of the prescription painkillers he’d taken.

Well. They were prescribed a long time ago. It’s fine; they still work. 

The kid turns over, almost falls off the bed—rights himself at the last moment on the gray comforter. “Ow,” Shota hears. “I smacked the sunglasses right into my nose.”

“Serves you right.”

“I literally bandaged you up and dragged you out of a bathtub into your nice warm bed—not to mention I had to Uber over here, which is crazy expensive, and you know, midterms are coming up so I’m trying to study but you keep taking up all of my time with all this medical attention you need—”

“You couldn’t just drive me to the hospital?”

“I don’t have a car! You could have called an ambulance or one of your hero friends or something, but you didn’t.”

I don’t have any ‘hero friends,’ Shota thinks, but doesn’t say. “...I think we both like to handle things ourselves,” he mutters instead. It’s easier that way. It always is.

He looks out the window. The blinds are open now, glass steamed by rain. He’s not close enough to watch the water beads slide down the window, but he wishes he was. Last June, the kid had told him that he liked the rainy season the best, if only to watch the droplets slide down glass panes like little dancers. Shota does not understand the fascination. He wants to. 

“Listen,” he says, his throat feeling suddenly dry. “I’ll tell Tsukauchi what you think. But I don’t want you involving yourself in the Toga case.”

The kid, his feet dangling off the side of the bed—dirty red sneakers, one untied, little pen drawings etched onto the toes that Shota can’t make out—turns to face him, his hoodie wrinkling and twisting around his frame. “ What? Why?”

He takes a second to speak. He has to think about what he wants to say, has to be careful about it. 

“It’s… the case will be wrapped up soon enough. I think it’s better if you take a break anyways. You have finals coming up, and I have to take time to recover. I worry that, without me, some heroes might see you skulking around crime scenes and… misinterpret. Your purpose.”

Your purpose. Shota hates this. Really, he does.

“I’ve been studying for midterms just fine! I promise—”

“Oh, really? How are your grades right now?”

The silence in the room reigns heavy. Shota resigns himself to staring into the black, shiny shields of the kid’s sunglasses, like two translucent beetles looking back at him. For a second, he swears he can see the kid’s eyes, squinted in some emotion that could only be anger.

“...Okay. I guess I probably need time. You’re right.” 

Shota sighs. It might be relief, it might be something else. Either way, he’s used to the kid putting up more of a fight. 

But this is something Shota needs. There’s something he can’t trust, even after all this. Because no matter what, no matter how gentle his kid’s hands are, no matter how light, either way they’ll end up stained. Either way, Shota remembers the pictures of black tendrils, remembers the choking. 

I know exactly who you are. Really, Shota can’t help but think, I know exactly what you are. 

The kid flops down again, face up to the ceiling. Out of his hoodie pocket, he fishes out a notebook—small, black, compact—with a pencil attached. “Okay, well, can you help me out here? I need to practice conjugating verbs in English.” 

Shota sighs. He leans forward carefully, watches his kid scoot up to the other side of the bed, turning to Shota slowly as if not to disturb the stitching. He opens the book between them as the rain falls.

Chapter Text

In the beginning, he shows up in the red light district. 

Shota remembers the witness report, the security camera footage. Right away in those early October nights, they knew he was just a kid. He had a small frame, short and thin, but strong. They knew he was strong with a weapon, too, when they examined the bruises on the mugger—big, bright things, the color of exploding stars—and the broken arm. 

The first thing Shota wonders, but doesn’t voice, is what the kid is doing in this district at all. 

So he beats a mugger with a lead pipe in October.  Objectively, it’s a strange first crime—criminals, even vigilantes, usually start small. They don’t realize he’s a vigilante for a while, though, and this is why Shota’s only brought in weeks later. 

By then, he’d made almost all the mistakes he would. He wasn’t tough enough, but he became tough enough. He wasn’t quick enough, so quick he became. They miss the opportunity, when the Rabbit’s still fresh and clumsy, to capture him—by then, his head start in the race is so far ahead that Shota can’t pinpoint him in the distance. 

And nothing changes in November, either—until it does. 

Shota looks back at the photos, stuck in his bed with nothing else to do. They’re nasty things, bruises and marks of slippery black ink around a neck painted deep purple. They’d classified it as attempted murder, but now the Commission’s taken the incident off the kid’s record completely. He’s lucky, Shota figures. If the man had died, they’d have no choice but to stick him with manslaughter at the least. But the Commission’s stretched thin, taking all they can get, and with All Might gone they were desperate enough by December. He still has half the mind to ask the kid about it, ask why, ask what a convenience store robber did to deserve all that time without air. There is no footage. 

But Shota doesn’t ask. No, he kept his mouth shut when the Commission stepped in in December, because that was what you did with the Commission, and he keeps his mouth shut now. 

—

They work together with minimal disagreement. At least minimal from Shota’s perspective, because to the kid everything's an argument. Everything’s a tussle in the dirt. He doesn’t get it then—doesn’t understand what makes him so automatically defensive—and he’s not completely sure he gets it now. But now doesn’t compare to the early months, where the kid was made to defy, where Shota was made to insult. 

He remembers April when he thinks about fighting. 

The thing is, they make the kid work almost entirely in the dark. There are no dayshifts or early morning watches for him—he works nights or not at all. It’s to keep public support of him to a low, so people see and notice him less. It doesn’t work, but it’s still an active rule. And for the most part, neither of them mind it. Shota doesn’t come out in the day unless necessary, and he figures the kid mostly has no time, with school and all. 

Until one day the kid minds it. 

It’s a situation in a plaza downtown, Shota remembers, because it was a school day, and the first thing he thought was it better not be one of my kids. The sun slipping down into early orange, the cherry blossom petals falling in pink rain drops to the street. And a villain, some sort of slimy green thing, had caught a student in a shopping center, and he’d been watching it on the TV live in the faculty break room. Some helicopter in the air recording the scene; Shota has never understood the need for close-up zoom-ins of people’s pain. 

The heroes don’t step in—he can admit he isn’t surprised, limelight heroes never do—and he’s thinking, well, that’s the end of that, and such a shame, until he sees something. 

A flash of darkness. It’s a sunny day, he squints. There’s a person, short in stature and dark in cloth, breaking from the crowd, and then there’s something thrown—he’s not supposed to think this, but the first thing that comes to his mind when the object hits the mountainous goo in the eye is good shot —and then everybody moves. 

The place is a mess of fire, the student’s combustion Quirk gone haywire, heroes running in from all angles. He leans in closer to the TV then, in the empty mess of the brightly lit faculty room, and watches the small figure wriggle his way out of the mess, run towards the direction of the crowd, the camera, too—they look up, then, and wave at the camera. Throw up a peace sign. Black leather gloves. 

Realization dawns on Shota like a battering ram breaking down a door. 

God damn it. 

—

He never tells Shota what he was even doing in the first place, out in the afternoon in full dark almost-vigilante getup. Shota questions, partly because he has to and partly just because what the actual fuck, but the kid has never given him a straight answer and he’s learned to stop expecting one. 

So they never settle it. Shota makes his bets, of course, but every theory is shot down or otherwise denied until the kid clams up over takoyaki or a bowl of cold soba. 

All their meetings have revolved around food. Or the absence of it. He can see now things he hasn’t noticed before, which is proving to be less helpful than one would think—Shota just finds it vaguely melancholic. Slightly depressing. 

Christ. He should open a window or something. 

He doesn’t. 

He goes back to thinking about how things were, and how things are. That’s all he ever does anyways. Maybe he’ll find some inconsistency along the lines. 

—

In May, there’s talk of making angel food cake. 

“I mean like, I can cook, but baking is like a whole different thing, right? Everybody says that baking is like the chemistry of cooking. I guess that’s fine because I’m pretty good at chemistry but like what if it’s, like, harder chemistry? I wouldn’t know, I don’t really do it. Like ever.”

Shota remembers being tired, not really paying attention to this, too many hours gone by and not enough sleep collected. Now he looks back with clarity, with some thought along the lines of you should’ve been paying attention. 

He thinks back to blinking against overhead lights in the cafe, warm night air, barely seeing the kid sitting in front of him. Vision blurred from exhaustion. 

“It’s just that, like, my mom makes it every year and now I have to make it and the last times didn’t really go well and that was when I had my dad helping me, but maybe this time it’ll go better because he isn’t helping me? Because last time we got the proportions all wrong and like it was super bad and kind of salty and also I think he spilled beer in it like three times but I don’t know I wasn’t really paying too much attention but—”

The kid starts mumbling, then, and Shota doesn’t tell him to speak up. He isn’t eager to hear much then. He isn’t eager to hear much at all until the kid starts throwing up. 

—

So they’re at the convenience store in June when it really starts. Shota could say it started before that, that night in December when the kid held a gun to his knee and asked him the question he couldn’t truthfully answer. Or before that, in October, when his fist met the face of the man who would be victim number one. Or the day the Rabbit was born, really born, some unfortunate day fourteen-fifteen-some-years-ago. 

But really, it begins in June, when the Rabbit is vomiting black bile and laughing so hard it hurts. It begins when Shota watches him, hinders instead of helps. 

In a way, Shota supposes—not the past Shota, not even the present, but the one so far in the future he can’t imagine it—he can be blamed for everything that happens next. In a way, Shota supposes he can be blamed for Oboro, too. 

Here’s the issue with Shota’s life: it is one day repeating itself over and over again. 

—

The last time the kid comes to see him when Shota is sitting in bed, still recovering, they’re watching the sky change from blue to black out the window. 

Shota doesn’t see it then; the resignation. The tightness of the Rabbit’s shoulders, the way he smiles like he has a secret. The way his head cranes around mechanically to look at Shota, the way it always does when the kid lies. 

He doesn’t see it. Shota doesn’t see what he doesn’t want to—that has always been his weakness. But the kid laughs, breaks any tension, and Shota almost smiles. Because for once he thinks the kid is happy. 

It’s the cream on the angel cake.

Chapter Text

“Don’t worry. Your father is only your father until one of you forgets.”

 - Ocean Vuong, Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong

—

He’s sticking his head out the window like a dog in the summer when he thinks did Aizawa really believe that?

The harsh winds of December whip across Izuku’s face, one neverending slap, but it numbs him almost to the point where he can’t feel the blood running down his chin. The road is almost empty at this time of the night, backstreets of the city always deserted during the week nights, and all he sees is the blurred grays of the buildings and the shining star street lamps. Himiko cruises down the road, life just one big open plain to her—Izuku can tell, with the way she whips the car around hastily at turns, with the sudden stomach-twisting stops when she brakes. 

Either that, or she hasn’t had driving lessons. 

Makes sense. He hasn’t either. It’s not exactly normal for people their age. 

Neither is being a vigilante or driving around with a serial killer in your free time. Fuck, well, he doesn’t exactly have a choice anymore, does he? Aizawa was stupid to think that he would stop, even for a second. What, he doesn’t trust Izuku now?

He scoffs. Like Aizawa ever did. 

They turn down the street, too fast—Izuku has to grip the door handle for a second just to breathe, so much for getting some air —and he hears Himiko’s cackle from the the driver’s seat. He looks back at her, a lowly passenger on her road to hell, and he smiles. He almost means it. 

“Where are we going?” Izuku asks, not because he expects an answer, but because he needs the temperature of the room. Or, er, car. 

Whatever. So she doesn’t suddenly decide to kill him. 

She just laughs, though, hands gripping the bright pink steering wheel, and Izuku doesn’t miss the way her sharp red nails gleam in the street light. “Close the window, silly,” is all Himiko says, “you’re letting all that cold air in.”

So Izuku does. 

He’s not an idiot, really. Being friends with a serial killer, a real full-time villain with a bloody Quirk and nothing to lose, is not the smartest thing he’s ever done. But he knows what Himiko wants, more than anything else in the world, more than all the blood and the boys. 

A friend. 

And Izuku can relate. 

He glances back at her again. She still makes him nervous, but now he’s not so sure if it’s because she’s a villain, or because she’s a girl. Himiko’s beautiful, really, a curved face and flushed cheeks and a button nose, but with those sharp red eyes—Izuku swallows. 

She’s wearing her straw blonde hair up in her usual buns, tied up with pink ribbon, body swathed in a big white sweater. If he squints, Izuku can swear he sees a blood stain on the collar. He can’t find it in himself to be disgusted, though, or upset. Himiko and him both use blood as a trophy, as something more than it actually is.

From his split lip, red dribbles down his chin and stains his skin.

Fuck, kid. A little too rough tonight? 

A voice that isn’t his own. He’s probably as crazy as Himiko now, if he considers it plainly. 

Don’t say that about yourself. 

A kinder voice now. Sorry, Nana, he thinks, and he means it. He probably has been a bit too rough tonight, maybe even a bit too rough this past week. Or two weeks. 

It’s hard without Aizawa. Not hard to keep himself in check, really, but harder to come down. Hard to know where it starts and stops. He finds himself going on patrol for hours that seem to stretch longer and longer by the day, finds himself ignoring his wounds and vomiting on the sidewalk and letting Himiko too close. 

Fuck. He has the final tests for the second semester in a week. He should be home, studying, grinding it out so he can actually get into a good school (well, if he doesn’t get into UA he’s pretty sure Shigaraki will dust him right where he stands) and be a good person and make something good out of himself. 

Instead, he’s sitting in Himiko’s pink car, slightly buzzed and with a headache to kill. A split lip and torn knuckles and a blood stain on his gray cargo pants. His teeth chatter steadily. Glass clinks in the back seat and he knows it’s cherry schnapps.

He fiddles through his pockets, finds cinnamon gum of the low-calorie variety, chews it hard enough that his jaw pops. 

The inside of the little car is warm, sleek and black. It reminds him of his dad’s, smooth dark leather, but with a cuter twist. Swinging from the front view mirror, little Sanrio characters smile down at him. He feels vaguely patronized. Who does Cinnamoroll think he’s staring at?

“So where do you think you’re going to go for highschool, Miku?” Himiko speaks. Izuku jumps, unprepared, which is silly because Himiko can’t go two seconds without talking. 

Miku is a silly nickname. Short for Mikumo, the fake name he’d been giving out to everybody and their mother lately , really he has to shut his mouth and stop talking to random criminals like this. But Himiko was a necessity, really. Because the only way Izuku was going to get to her was by being a friend, not a foe. 

“I haven’t decided yet. I mean, shoot for the stars, right? Maybe UA will accept me. Their Gen Ed program is off the charts cool.”

She cackles at that over the low vibrations of the K-Pop music through the speakers. 

He knew him and Himiko were in it for the long run the second they met, when she told him “just call me Himiko, Toga is sooooo boring!” ’ 

Izuku just didn’t imagine this long. Really, he got caught up in it—Himiko gives him access to something, to a whole new world of back alleys and criminals, of street races and weapons sales. There’s no need to turn her in now when he can bring in bigger villains in the long run, no need to burn a bridge so quickly. 

And it’s nice having a friend. Not only a friend, but a friend that knows his secret—the big one, the one he thought would make his world burn if he ever uttered it to anyone around. But all she does is call him bunny and make fun of him for his bad fashion sense and drag him away from his studies. 

She’s almost a normal girl. He’s almost a normal boy. 

Aizawa believed that he would stop, quit just because he was injured. God, he’s probably in bed with that stab wound right now. Blissfully unaware of everything that Izuku has accomplished, ignorant of who’s car Izuku’s in. Izuku’s never made a waste of December. He’s not about to start now. 

Himiko would have never believed that. She knows Izuku doesn’t stop for anything except his dream. He figures that’s something they have in common. 

“I sort of regret it, though,” he mumbles.

“What? Choosing UA?” Himiko looks over at him with an easy smile and a calculating eye. He feels surprise color his cheeks—he really hadn’t meant to say that out loud. 

“Ah, no,” he stumbles, curling his knees to his chest like a little kid. He’s suddenly cold, and the cinnamon scent is invading his sinuses. The parka does nothing to help him. “I was just thinking about, like, the fight. Um. I’m sorry you had to pick me up, that was embarrassing.”

It’s not what he means, but what would Himiko think if he said I feel really bad about beating that villain to a pulp?

She doesn’t get things like that. She probably never will. 

“You’re such a silly goose sometimes,” she giggles, that sharp crow-laughter she does when she’s truly delighted, and then she swerves—Izuku thinks this is the end of his time and grips onto the handle—and parks on the side of the road. Perfect parallel.

What the fuck.

“I can always pick you up, silly! It’s not like I have a job or anything,” she grins at him, all teeth. He huffs out a laugh at that, and wonders not for the first time what her days are really like—she has no school, no job, no place to stay. Where does she go? What does she do when the sun hits the sky? Where does she sleep? 

The only time he sees her is when the moon is out. The only time he can make sure she’s safe and the only time where she’s most dangerous.

Izuku considers the fact that he chases after people that don’t need saving. 

But still. All she owns is a little pale pink car with no plates and bedazzled doors. And she probably stole that, too. He feels vulnerable suddenly, not for himself, and looks away from her prying eyes. Stares outside the window and looks at the milky stars dotting the sky. 

He fishes out gas money from his pocket. It’s the least he can do. 

—

Izuku gets detention the next day for falling asleep in the middle of English class. He’s not too worried about it; he rarely gets detention and it’s not like UA will expect a perfect record for every student. He’s never gotten caught skipping class either, and he’s not yet considered truant for all the missing hours. He rides high all the way through the detention hour, turns in missing work, finishes up an analysis he’s been working on. 

Detention is honestly his most peaceful part of the school day. Kacchan never gets in trouble. 

It’s the last week before finals, the one where he’s supposed to get in all his missing work and make up the failing grades and go home and cram for hours, but as soon as Izuku walks out of school and sees the beautiful orange-pink setting sun, he knows he will not be doing that. 

Pulling his parka close around him, he makes a short detour on his way home to the convenience store. Walks around aimlessly with a basket on his arm, picks up sunflower seeds and chocolates, vaseline for his lips, a pack of pencils, peanut butter and melatonin, a new facial cleanser and some innocuous flavor of ice cream. Walks up to the cashier and picks up cinnamon gum, an Endeavor-branded lighter, and a small bottle of Ibuprofen for the headache. 

“Jeez, kid, been in a fight?” The older man checking his items out mutters. 

“I would say ‘you should see the other guy’ , but I think I look worse.”

The cashier smiles at that. 

The thing is, he’s supposed to be keeping up with his workout routine, with One For All and stuff. Izuku just happens to think that the whole crime-fighting vigilante thing should probably count towards that, considering the whole his-body-aches-every-day thing. The cold honestly makes it worse. The pain in his torso from the fight and the burn on his shoulder certainly don’t help. Izuku walks out back to his apartment, limbs tired, exhaustion suddenly hitting him for a second wave—his eyes blur together, and he has to stand still in the middle of the street against busy passerby to collect himself. 

Fuck. He’s not stupid—the physical effects of all of this aren't sustainable. He’s just been putting off dealing with it for a full year. Yeah, no biggy, buddy, let’s see you survive UA like this. With the rigorous education course and everything.

Izuku puts his clunky headphones on and tries not to have a thought past the music. 

—

He takes three little melatonin pills as soon as he gets home and passes out until eleven. When Izuku wakes up, his limbs are heavy like moss-grown statues, his brain foggy and uneven. His room is a swirling world of black, and for once his head is silent. This is a peace he rarely experiences, something absent of conversation or criticism, a kind of closure he can only get after just waking up. 

It’s sort of clunky getting up, always is, when he’s so groggy. His legs slide off the bed slowly, his hands barely loosening their grip on the blankets. Izuku is absent in his own mind, but already he can feel the rabbit-heart in his chest, because he has a mission, doesn’t he? 

He’s a hero. Or he’s going to be one, at least. 

Izuku changes slowly, slips out his window onto the fire escape. He’s alone tonight, an impossible occurrence. There is no Eraserhead to watch over him, no voices to help or hinder, no Himiko to smile down at him with those cats’ eyes. 

The silence is welcome, but unsettling. He’s not used to this. The clunky black headphones find themselves on his head again. 

Stepping out onto the street, his boots darken with something damp. Izuku squints down at the ground, and white graces his vision, carpeting the concrete like salt. He smiles. Nana’s always liked the snow. 

—

The thing is, he never really learned what he was doing. 

He had some trips to the gym, sure. Izuku was probably the hardest working thirteen year old there ever was, spending his allowance on workout equipment and groceries specifically tailored towards his strict diet. He had those YouTube stretching tutorials and he ran so many laps around his neighborhood that he threw up right outside the apartment pool. Twice. 

But there were never any self-defense classes taken, no CPR training. There was never a plan, never thought before the action. He’s always been smart enough to avoid imminent danger, always quick enough to avoid the police. But other than that, it’s just Izuku and the internet. 

So what? I’m sure they’ll teach me at UA. 

Izuku swings forward, black whips sticking to the side of the next building with ease. This is something he practiced, a technique. But most of his fights… 

Well. They’re improvised. He’ll put it that way.

He hears something vaguely down the block, near the residential area. A grunt. A shriek. 

It’s not like he doesn’t put effort in, or anything. It’s just always been more effective for Izuku to learn on the go. He can roll with the punches, fall and get up again. Maybe that’s something he’s always known how to do—there’s got to be something inherent in him, after all, to hold onto this dream for so long. 

Most of the things he’s adopted, though, are to Eraserheads credit. Especially the element of surprise. 

He drops down onto the figure in the dark, the one standing over some cornered citizen. It’s a lithe guy, tall but thin, who shrieks like a girl and collapses like a rag doll from Izuku’s weight—he’s not too worried, it wasn’t a long fall, only, what, two stories?

Pain thrums through Izuku’s body as he bounces back. Honestly, he needs to quit doing this. But he’s back on his feet even with his diaphragm fucking burning, and he gives himself a second to cough a bit. Ugh. Gross. 

The man— boy, Izuku notices, because this guy cannot be much older than him—folds into himself on the snowy concrete, turned onto his side. Moaning from pain. 

He’s probably fine. I mean, probably, right? 

There’s no response in his head. Izuku shrugs, figures he’ll call the ambulance in five minutes, turns toward the citizen. 

It’s another boy around his age, has to be anyways, despite the height and the scowling dark eyes. Vaguely, Izuku feels embarrassment. It’s probably the height. Izuku has never liked to look up at people. 

“Oh, uh. Hey!” He smiles, realizes that this guy can’t even see his face, and drops the expression immediately. Tries to put some cheer in his voice. The guy’s backed up into the wall, not exactly scared, but not exactly all cheery-jolly- oh-I-just-got-saved either. 

Aizawa’s always done most of the talking. This is not Izuku’s strong suit. He’s out of his element here, there’s no doubt about that. 

Suddenly, the guy behind them shrieks again. If the Commission gets sued because he’s, like, paralyzed, I’m totally fucked, he thinks. His head whips around, squinting to look for blood in the snow. 

“Dude, what the hell?! You’ve got it all wrong, he’s the villainous one! You should be jumping on him!”

Izuku looks back at the previously-thought totally innocent civilian. If I got this wrong, I’m also totally fucked. He quirks his head to the side, but the other boy says nothing in response; just straight faced with those deep bags under his eyes, gaze trained on the snow beneath them. There’s no defense, no aggression, and for a second Izuku feels weirdly reflected. 

He shakes it off. That’s nothing like what he’s seen in actual villains. Maybe there was a misunderstanding, though. “What, uhh..” fuck, he should probably seem all official and stuff here. He straightens himself, chin raised high. He almost feels like All Might. “What… transpired?”

I’m gonna kill myself. This is usually so much easier. What’s got him off his game?

The guy, the one with those eyebags (and lord, does this guy get any sleep? And what’s going on with his hair?), looks at him sort of strangely, eyebrows furrowed. Izuku puts his hands on his hips like those weirdly serious cops and tries to seem authoritative.

“Um… I know him from school. He followed me home or something, I guess. I was just going to the convenience store,” Eyebags says. Fuck, don’t call him Eyebags, you asshole.

He’s not sure if those were his thoughts or not. In any case, Eyebags’ voice is hollow, thin with sincerity, and maybe embarrassment. Or resentment. Izuku understands both.  “You’re… you’re Rabbit, right?”

“Oh! Uh, yeah, I guess. On a good day. I mean, like, every day. Haha. Okay anyways you should probably call the police, huh? Why don’t you do that?” Izuku lets out a laugh for no discernable reason, gestures towards the schoolboy still on the floor, and tries to seem like he’s making eye contact with Mr Eyebags. Nobody can blame him, Izuku thinks. Something about those eyes…

They’re judgemental, to say the least. Something churns in his stomach, and Izuku shifts, slightly uncomfortable—that analytical stare is too much. 

“I don’t want to get the police involved.” Eyebags mutters, his eyes following Izuku with what he can only assume is distaste. Izuku swallows, leans back a little bit to catch the December air. The sky is blue, drowned of stars, and tells him no secrets. Of course the moon is never any help. 

“Well, I mean that’s fine and all, I guess, but we still need a check up for your, uh, friend here. No?”

Usually, when people are saved by the Rabbit, Izuku expects a warm thank you, a rushed agreement to whatever he says so they can get to safety, maybe tears. It’s not like Izuku doesn’t see differing reactions, but this one is certainly… unusual. Yes, very unusual.

He’s a fish out of water. But he’s always been, hasn’t he? It’s about learning how to breathe.

“...I guess so.” 

“We can say you guys had… a disagreement! And I broke it up. Easy peasy.” He nods hurriedly. Hopes the boy will agree just by positivity alone. 

“...That’s fine.” 

Izuku smiles. He doesn’t need Aizawa for this—no, he never needed Aizawa at all.

Chapter Text

There’s a brittleness in Aizawa’s voice over the phone. Izuku doesn’t say anything about it, not when he’s as mad as he is. Some part of him, the part of him that’s still eleven and always looking up at his parents, feels a certain shame. 

“I don’t understand why you continuously disobey orders when all I’ve wanted is for you to–”

The other part of him is just waiting for Aizawa to stop talking. 

“You can’t expect me to just stop patrolling just because you’re hurt. If anything, that’s more of a reason why I should be. ” His face is hot with something, maybe anger, but his fingers are freezing in the January winds, holding the payphone like an ice block. He looks to the right, to the comfortable bar with the heating and the jukebox, and wonders why he even called at all. He considers hanging up right then and there. 

“You lied to me. You lied to me, and—”

“Well what were you going to say if I told you no? We both know why you don’t want me going out without you, and it’s not because you don’t think I can deal with the police by myself.” 

For once, Aizawa is silent over the phone. Izuku feels a pang of guilt, but not remorse. It’s the first time he’s really interrupted Aizawa. He figures it won’t be the last.

But Izuku can’t ruin this. He has to salvage what he can. 

“...I’m sorry. But I’m not going to stop living my life just because you don’t trust me.” 

He’s not sorry. Not really, anyways. But Aizawa’s never been honest—why should Izuku be? Why should Izuku be anything at all like him? 

There’s a sudden intake of breath across the line, something sharp. Izuku can’t handle whatever’s going to come next, he knows it. “I have to go. Bye.”

He hangs up. 

Puts the phone in the holder. Izuku glances up, inches his way away from the red phone, glances back at the bar. Shit. Something blurs his vision. He lifts his sunglasses up partially, wipes his tears away with one sleeve. There’s nothing left to do but swallow past the lump in his throat and go back to where he’s wanted. 

That’s what he’s been doing his whole life, he figures. That’s what he’ll be doing now. 

He walks back into the bar. The hot air hits him when he opens the door, welcoming like an oven, and he coughs in the sudden change. The door swings shut behind him as he goes to take his parka off, hanging it up on the coat hanger by the door. He’s always appreciated this little detail about the bar—Kurogiri keeps it old-timey. Almost homey. 

Well, I wouldn’t say that, someone thinks, when Izuku catches a glance at Shigaraki sitting at the bar, with his weird-ass spider posture and pasty face. He’s sat furthest from the door, near that little TV in the corner, maybe in an effort to get away from Izuku. 

It’s not like Izuku would be near him on purpose anyways, but nevertheless. 

He’s got a cold this week, probably from all that trudging through the snow. If Aizawa was right about one thing, it was that Izuku shouldn’t work in the winter. He likes the winter, though, likes it almost as much as he likes the spring. 

When he looks back at his parka on the coat hanger, he finds little arctic-white spots all down the back. Flurrying this afternoon. He hadn’t even noticed in the fight with Aizawa, too busy focusing on the damn phone. The world is so beautiful and he doesn’t even watch.

Vaguely, he feels remorse in the back of his head, clinking like a spoon—the snow he dragged in would probably melt all over Kurogiri’s nice floors. 

Izuku turns his head to Kurogiri, faithfully behind the counter, and hopes he doesn’t notice. He’s not trying to be scolded twice over. But Kurogiri isn’t even looking at him, not like Shigaraki is. He’s just polishing a glass, that slow, mechanical movement that makes Izuku feel vaguely unwell. 

Shigaraki speaks first. “So?”

“...So what? I had to talk to someone.”

“About what?”

“About you minding your business? I dunno.” 

Izuku sits down on the barstool closest to the door, farthest from Shigaraki. He’s not trying to be in grabbing reach with the guy.

“If it makes you feel any better, I passed all my finals. Like, really well, too. So. I’m definitely going to be a candidate for UA.” He puts his hands, clasped together, onto the wooden bar counter. Nervously, he looks up at Kurogiri—he’s not really sure where to look, if those wispy yellow auras are really his eyes are not—and gestures to the bottles behind him.

“Umm, can I get a drink?”

Kurogiri just stares. 

“Just a… Just a beer. Not anything crazy expensive. I’ll pay.”

He squirms under Kurogiri’s stare. Izuku’s not sure if this thing that Kurogiri does is on purpose or not. Part of him hopes that it is, because if Kurogiri was watching him react like this for no reason, Izuku would feel pretty bad. 

Some people just can’t help being creepy. 

“You’re a child, no?”

Izuku blinks. That certainly wasn’t the expected problem to arise. “Umm. I mean. Is that a problem? I’m kind of also a criminal who’s infiltrating a top hero school for you. And stuff.” 

Honestly, he just wants a beer. He’s not some crazy alcoholic off the rails or anything—not like his dad, Izuku means, but it’s all the same—but they’re supposed to make people feel calmer, right? More normal. Well adjusted. If they don’t, Izuku doesn’t get why they drink. 

Plus, beer has so many calories. 

“...Perhaps it isn’t a problem if you have just one.”

Izuku smiles, knows Kurogiri can’t see it. This is the one thing he hates about all this vigilante stuff; nobody can be comforted by a bright grin. He’ll never be All Might, no charming smile to comfort the masses and discomfort the criminals. All he has is the paper mask and the twitch of his eyes. He hopes that’s enough. 

There’s a glass placed in front of him, half-full of brown liquid. He looks up at Kurogiri, doesn’t remember seeing him pour it. 

I feel like I shouldn’t question that. He figures it’s better if he doesn’t ask. 

“But, uh—yeah, I’m doing really well. As long as I pass the entrance exam for the general education course, I should get in smoothly. Uh. And stuff.”

He feels Shigaraki’s glare beaming into his skull. Izuku swallows, doesn’t even glance into his peripheral vision. Mostly because he doesn’t want to risk making eye contact with that greasy fuck. You shouldn’t say that. That’s rude.

Sorry, Nana.

He’s not sure if that was his thought in the first place. Who’s to say? Better to apologize either way. 

“ Yes, Shigaraki?”

It’s too quiet. All there is to hear is glass clinking and the wind rattling against the door. Someone should turn on the jukebox. Play something from the nineties. Izuku tries to remember the selection, vaguely recalls some Springsteen. He huffs. 

“You’re not going into the hero course?” 

The scratchy voice, straining with something Izuku can only imagine as contempt. He can feel the anger. He’s not sure what Shigaraki has to hate so much—All Might is gone, gone for good, and the city is ripe for the picking. Only the most calculating of minds, though, can get the highest hanging fruit. And Shigaraki surely isn’t that. 

Maybe it’s just the fact that Izuku exists in his presence. Maybe it’s the heroism. Maybe it’s the knowledge that someone is doing something . 

Izuku doesn’t know. He’s also not trying to find out. 

He keeps his reply steady. “Maybe I’ll try out for it. I just figure it’ll keep me away from suspicion if I’m outside the class of the student I’m supposed to be stalking, you know?”

The successor being in a Gen-Ed class isn’t exactly what you’re expecting either, Shigaraki. 

Fuck. It’s hard to trick two parties at once, isn’t it? Of course Izuku will be a traitor, he’s just not so sure who he’s betraying. He figures nobody really knows the answer to that, leaves it in the back of his mind for later. 

He pulls his mask up with a finger, takes a drink from the glass. It tastes like shit. He gags shooting it down. 

At least he knows he’s not his father. 

“Then how will you find out who the successor is? He’ll be hiding. I know he will.” Izuku feels Shigaraki’s gaze leave him. He finally looks over. It’s like staring into the barrel of a shotgun and hoping it just clicks.

But Shigaraki is sitting there, staring at the bar behind Kurogiri, scratching vaguely at his neck; Izuku can see it all—the red lines, inflamed and raw, around the pale skin. He winces looking at it. It’s got to hurt, but then again, everything about Shigaraki has to hurt. Everything about Izuku hurts too. 

He looks down at the wooden flooring of the bar. He and Shigaraki are wearing the same red shoes. 

“It won’t be completely up to me to find them. You’re going to have to pull your weight.” Izuku shrugs. He has to seem sure about this, can’t be a pushover, has to assert this before he’s doing all the work himself and this asshole is just sitting there scratching.

Don’t call him that. 

It wasn’t me this time, Nana. 

“I’ve heard—don’t tell anybody this, but—” he doesn’t even know why he’s saying this, Shigaraki doesn’t have any other friends—”there’s a field trip at the beginning of the school year. The hero course students are isolated somewhere away from the school. It could be the perfect time to see, uh… the possibilities.”

Negotiating isn’t his thing. He’s a charmer, but he’s never been good with the words—the sentences don’t match up in his head. Izuku is a nervous boy, always has been, and it’s even worse when he can’t smile. 

Shigaraki looks at him, hair strands falling into his face like loose silk strings, almost gray in the red light. He looks older than he really is—Izuku figures it’s the scratching, the dry skin, those dark eyebags—and under the shadows crossing over his thin face, red eyes stare. Beady like a rat’s. The cracked lips, reddened and scarred, pull themselves into a frown. Izuku swallows. 

“Then find out where it’s going to be. First week.”

I haven’t even been accepted yet. This guy sucks. Izuku coughs, finishes the rest of the glass off in one swallow, and tries not to choke on it. “Sure, and then what, you’ll show up and massacre them all just in case?”

The room falls silent. 

Izuku blinks. “...Um. Anyways.” 

He tries to shrug it off. Guess he’s not too much of the joking kind, anyways. Him and Shigaraki are similar like that—Izuku just has too much nervous energy to be honest about it. Shigaraki, maybe, has never been invested enough to be nervous. “I guess as long as you pay my tuition and stuff, I can’t complain. Haha.”

“This reminds me.”

Izuku flinches awkwardly in his sweatshirt. Every time Kurogiri speaks, it’s a gust of cold air against his brain. It smooths him over and makes him vaguely dizzy. Hope that’s not on purpose either.

He watches Kurogiri reach under the bar— isn’t his Quirk literally teleportation? --and pull out a white cardboard box, rectangular in shape, larger than Izuku would like. 

“Is this a bomb? Come on, I’ve been so nice to you.”

“Why would it be a bomb?”

“ Please don’t let it be a bomb.”

He takes the cover off the box—it’s loose, no tape, not the way his mother would have done it—and finds that it is not, in fact, a bomb.

The coat he pulls out is made of long, thick fur, patches of brown and black and white. Izuku watches it unfold as he straightens it out, one long cover with a hood, body long enough to go down his thighs but sleeves only enough to touch his elbows. He feels around it—padded, and on several occasions his hands slip into pockets he didn’t even realize were there. On the inside, too. 

“It’s badger fur. American.” 

Izuku looks, finds more in the box. Black pants, not as baggy as he prefers, but padded too—especially around the knees. He needs it, he figures, with how much vomiting he’s been doing. A black undershirt of the same quality, but light and breathable, sleeves going down his forearms. Black combat boots. And when he looks at the bottom, at the black gloves—

“Are those claws? ”

“Metal, yes. Good for grabbing. And cutting.” 

He pulls one out. A sleek black leather of better quality than the ones he has now. Obsidian black claws, lengthy and curled like an animal’s, sticking out of each finger. 

“It’s more for the warmer months, but fit enough for winter as well. It’s what you asked for, no?”

Holy shit. They really think I can do it. He’s not stupid, honestly, it all looks expensive. Feels high-quality. Feels good, too, to be gifted something like this when you haven’t done anything at all. Because people believe in your skill. Trust you to get things done, and done right. Because you’re capable—because they trust you. 

I better not fuck this up then. 

“Consider this a gesture of good will. Because you will get into UA. And you will be an adequate spy.”

Adequate—Izuku doesn’t think he’s ever been described as adequate. He’s either nothing or everything. 

He hopes he’ll be everything. 

—

Dad builds him a bookshelf in the middle of his room. He seems kind of embarrassed, what with the assembly taking two hours— haha, sorry, I know you probably just want to be alone in here, I’m not trying to invade your space, haha, it’s just these instructions are kind of hard to get through —but Izuku figures it’ll wash off. Water on a duck’s back, and all. This is, by far, one of the least embarrassing things his father has done in front of him. 

They end up pushing it into a corner. It’s reasonably tall, dark wood matching his floor, and it opens up the space when Izuku actually gets around to putting the books into the shelves. 

It’s not that he isn’t grateful, really. But the sight of his father in his room, just existing, stirs up something in Izuku—makes him feel unwell. His head fills up with heat like a burner on high. Every time his eyes fall onto the bookcase, he feels almost like his hair is aflame. 

So maybe he’s a little uncomfortable. It’s fine—the room is opened up now, with no stacks of biology textbooks and collections of essays to trip over. It’s a nice thing for his dad to do, and it’s only right to say thank you. 

Except. He doesn’t.

Izuku says a lot of stuff about it, for sure. I’ve been meaning to buy one for a while, and it goes really well with the room . It almost comes up, at the back of his tongue like a stray hair. But when he looks into his father’s eyes, deep red like a fire hazard—

—the thank you dies right there, a rotten animal carcass in the road of his mouth. 

But he likes it. The case frames the window, always half-cracked and unlocked in case of quick entries and escapes. He likes the way the sunlight patterns itself on the wood in the afternoon, glowing amber orange. 

Yes. Izuku decides he likes it. 

—

This is the thing: Izuku categorizes his life through bathrooms. 

If he ranks them, the bathroom on the second floor in the D hallway of Aldera is probably in the bottom five. Bottom three, maybe. 

Boys aren’t exactly notorious for keeping their spaces clean. It’s gotten so bad throughout the year that Izuku seriously considers ducking into the girl’s bathrooms to do his business—that is, the old nom and vom. 

That’s what Himiko calls it, anyways. 

As he bends down, onto his knees like it’s something sacrilegious, he notices the grit that covers the tiled floor and the marks on the porcelain toilet. He hates this, maybe—it always leaves him feeling especially dirtied. It doesn’t help that the stink on his breath lingers like a burn mark. 

He likes to be in the big stall the best. Gives him more space to feel as small as he really is. But that doesn’t mean it feels good to be in it. 

The uniform, black and tarred, is itchy around his skin; he feels hot, burning up, feverish with this anxiety. It’s never really been about the food, he gathers—it’s always the worrying. The third semester is always when it’s the worst, always when he’s almost out does it get this bad. The tests, the incessant projects and presentations and essays to prove he’s really worth something, really learning— we’ve been making it easier for you all year, Midoriya, can’t you just put a little effort into this for once?

And Kacchan. Always Kacchan.

It’s like he has to leave his lasting mark on Izuku before the year ends, like he has to make sure Izuku doesn’t think he’s safe even during the short break. It’s like Kacchan has to let him know that it’s going to be just like this next year, too. 

His own little don’t forget me. 

 It makes his stomach curl in disgust. He decides to waste no time now, his knees thrumming with pain against the hard floor, and brings his hand to his mouth. 

The banging sound reverberates through the stalls. Izuku flinches, puts a hand against the wall to steady himself. The shuffling of footsteps follows the banging of the bathroom door, the sound of conversation makes him freeze. 

“--And don’t fucking vape in here, I can’t have that on my fucking record, you fucking extras.”

“Do you have excessive cursing on your record? Because you should.”

“Shut the fuck up, Frenchfry Fingers!”

Izuku holds his breath, tries not to laugh. Or shit his pants. He breathes in through his nose, slowly so nobody hears him. Speak of the devil. 

Kacchan’s raspy voice, grating, booms through the room. Even with the damage to his vocal cords, he still has no problem making his presence known—though Izuku didn’t think anything would change. Nothing ever changes with him, even when everything does. 

It was a delusional thought for anybody to wonder if April would change anything about Bakugo Katsuki. 

Sure enough, months of physical therapy had Kacchan back in the game after the sludge incident. He’d vigorously refused any therapy for the event—the emotional kind, that is—and his physical recovery had been quick. His Quirk remained the same. All that was left was the damage to his throat, and the burn marks scattered across his arms. Kacchan would never scream again, but he didn’t need to—not with his power.

Izuku supposes it’s a good thing, though, for one thing in his life to remain consistent. 

The talking continues. Izuku presses himself against the wall, reminds himself that the door is locked. As long as they don’t know he’s there, he should be fine. It’s not like Kacchan harasses random people just because. 

Someone bangs on the stall door with both fists. He forgot that it’s not just Kacchan he has to deal with. 

“Anybody in there?!”

“You have no decorum, Finger Face—”

“Your breath smells like cigarettes, I am not listening to you.” 

“It’s not that big of a deal, oh my—”

Kacchan coughs. Izuku shrinks more into himself, instinctual as he stands, back pressed to the wall. He doesn’t answer Kacchan’s friend. He couldn’t tell anyone if he’s ever spoken to any of Kacchan’s friends, if he’s honest. Strangely, Kacchan is the strongest relationship he’s ever had. Hate is the only emotion as potent as love. 

“If someone reports you guys for harassing them and it goes on my fucking record, it’s your ass.” His voice grates against the tile, something only as dirty as the grit in the cracks. 

“Oh, come on, Bakugo,they’re not going to bar you from UA because of a harassment claim! We’re not even doing anything.”

If anything, he’s probably right—who knows how many reports he’s made on Kacchan before he knew better. Maybe it’s just because Izuku’s Quirkless, but none of it has gone on Kacchan’s record. Another bullying report wouldn’t make weight.

“It doesn’t matter what you are doing, you’re not getting into fucking UA.”

“What?! I have as much of a chance as you do!”

Nobody has as much of a chance as Kacchan does. He hates to think it, really, but it’s the truth. His power is unmatched. Well, as far as he knows.

“ I’m the only one with supervillain experience, you normie. I fought a villain!”

“You didn’t even do anything. The Rabbit came and saved you!”

I did, didn’t I?

“Shut the fuck up, Fingers—” his voice doesn’t rise above a harsh scowl, but the sweat at the back of Izuku’s neck proves the reaction just the same, “--I could have done it myself. I didn’t need his help!”

“A fucking criminal who’s probably a psycho serial killer had to come save you, dude.”

It stings. Izuku swallows, feels something rough like anger, but deeper in his chest. Buried like the inner layers of the earth. His ribcage crackles as he folds smaller into himself, a tortoise escaping into a shell, burrowing into something akin to safety.

“He’s not a psycho! The Rabbit is better than most of these damn heroes nowadays; he’s not afraid to show his power. He knows he’s the best, and he's not waiting around for everybody else to notice.”

Something ticks in his skull. Kacchan has never defended him before. If he knew the truth, would he still?

“Oh, like we are?”

The smoker’s voice cuts in. “Didn’t know you were such a Rabbit fanboy, Bakugo. You know they sell bootleg merch for him on Amazon?”

What? I should be getting royalties. 

“I’m not a fucking fanboy, asshole! He’s just fucking cool. Now that All Might is gone, someone has to step up and be the new best. He’s not waiting for the law to catch up. He’s like me.” 

Laughter bursts around the room. Izuku slaps a palm around his mouth to keep from giggling. 

“Dude, you are not a fucking vigilante. You’re afraid of someone vaping around you because you think you’re going to get second-hand high.” 

“It’s a real thing, you morons! And when I get into UA, I’ll be the best so the Rabbit doesn’t have to break the law anymore. I’m doing him a huge fucking favor. I think we’d get along.”

A laugh escapes him. Anxiety strikes his heart like a bucket of cold water poured over his head; it doesn’t matter, though, because Kacchan’s friends are laughing, too. 

“Dude, you’re fucking crazy. The Rabbit is a psycho. It doesn’t matter if he saved you—or anyone! He’s a violent criminal. That’s all he’ll ever be.”

Chapter Text

He’s dragging the trash bag behind him through the sand when he sees it.

Throughout January, Izuku hits the beach. He’s slipping recently, losing muscle faster than he’s gaining confidence, and he needs a reset. Takoba is his press-play button. Takoba is a time capsule, and it carries him ten years back. So he cleans. 

It’s easy the first few days. He goes in the middle of the night, right after school, when patrols in the early morning get slow. Dresses in long sweatpants when the moon’s at it’s full height, T-shirts as the weather gets sunnier. He picks up trash, piles plastics and papers into the garbage bags easily. It’s an almost monotonous process, something with no uncertainty. Something with security. In the evenings, when the tide flows in and the waves start lapping loose trash up, he makes a game out of how much of it he can grab before all the cans and cardboard boxes are swallowed up by the sea. He comes home with sandy calves and wet-soaked shirts, shivering from the frost-tinged wind. 

And he loves it. 

It starts picking up as the weather grows warmer, and Izuku starts throwing microwaves and heftier debris into wagons, wheeling them around the growing openings between mountainous trash piles. The sand gets in his sneakers, the sun in his eyes, and the movement begins to warm him. He tries not to use the electricity in his veins, even when he feels it coursing through him with the voices of the past in his head. The general exams take place on the 26th, and for minutes at a time, he feels like the worst is already over. 

You’re not in yet. Don’t get too confident. 

But when Izuku thinks about it, really thinks about it, all he can do is smile. 

School gets harder to keep up with as it reaches a close, mostly because all of his thinking leads back to the beach. Patrol slips his mind too. There’s a childlike giddiness that follows him everywhere now—when he gets up at five in the morning to take his bike to Takoba, when Kacchan gives him a blow to the arm, when he picks up a payphone and dials Shigaraki’s number instead of Aizawa’s. 

Izuku tries not to think of Aizawa, just like he tries not to think about his mother. Both of these prove impossible. Especially at the beach. It is at once a fragment of his past as well as his future, a memory of his mother and a reminder of what he’s working for—being able to enter the building where Eraserhead hides away. That’s all he’s been hoping for his whole life, if he really thinks about it. 

So he puts his headphones on and tries to block it out. His music plays so loud that he almost doesn’t notice it, glaringly bright in the sand. 

The sand by the shore is muddy, cakey with water from when the waves brush farther up than usual. The sun is setting on Izuku, but he still has time—the sky is orange as a tangerine, not yet dusky blue, and he figures he has time to fish for trash in the shallow waters before the temperature drops like a fly. So he drags his trash bag behind him through the browned sand, and looks forward, only to the ocean—when his damp sneaker knocks into something hard. 

He looks down, half-hopes he hasn’t kicked whatever plastic trash it is farther into the water. It’s a small thing, covered with wet sand, metallic paint sheening against the glare of the sun, the colors red, yellow, and blue. 

It’s an All Might figurine. Damaged, dirty, paint chipped and figure bent, but Izuku knows him all the same. Izuku would know him half-blind. 

The little doll smiles up at him. 

Izuku kicks it further down through the water, waits for it to get swept away by the waves. 

—

The air is dry when he leaves in the morning. Izuku inhales, coughs, ducks back inside for a jacket. He almost grabs his parka, but thinks it through. It doesn’t matter if he’s paranoid—better safe than sorry.

The sun is rising in the distance when he leaves the apartment. The entrance exams begin in three hours—there’s a certain anticipation, an excitement, though he knows all he’ll be doing is sitting in front of a paper for a few hours. 

In a room with fifty other people. 

All doing the exact same thing. 

He huffs out into the cold air, inhales the sharp dryness. For a second, Izuku smells seasalt. 

The bike, faded and chipped red, drags beside him—he’s outgrown it, maybe, mentally if not physically. Maybe Izuku has been thinking about this for a while—he thinks about a lot of things still around from his childhood, but it’s not exactly like he has the money to replace these little mirror shards of his life. Even if those shards are just reflecting the past back to him.

Izuku stops. Sure, he didn’t have the money before, but now that his dad is around…

He hops onto the bike, cycles down the street. He hadn’t thought to tell his dad about the entrance exams today, out of habit instead of direct malice, and maybe that pattern had seeped into other areas of his life. Izuku had kept quiet about the broken window blinds, the leaky fridge, the outgrown clothes. But maybe he just didn’t want things to change.

A new bike would be nice, though. 

Izuku turns down the street. He’s got time to kill, a buzz in his heart, and the feeling of the hours clicking down on him are making him antsy. Three hours, a forty minute train ride to UA, and a father who has not a clue in the world. 

So he goes to the convenience store. He picks up melatonin, diet cola, and a face mask at Nana’s suggestion. It’s almost easy to forget that he’s still a teenager, especially when he’s been operating like an adult since he was twelve. Really, he’s just fifteen. Really, he’s still growing. Really, in a few years he’ll have clothes that won’t fit him, a bike he can’t ride, and a father that will still be an awkward addition to his life, not a foundational piece. 

Now, he’s just got an acne breakout and trouble sleeping. 

He pays, leaves. There’s a payphone, painted green outside of the store. He skips back in, pays for a telephone card since he didn’t bring cash. 

The cold metal freezes his fingers. There’s a chill in the air, dragging sharp air over his scalp. Izuku shivers, fingers shaking when he goes to tap the numbers. Should have worn his parka. He puts the phone to his ear, tries not to jump back at the biting cold.

The phone rings, rings, rings. Stops. For a second Izuku assumes he’s been hung up on. 

“Hello?”

“What?”

“You know, this, um, attitude problem—well, it kind of gets old really fast. I was just calling.” Izuku coughs awkwardly.

“To tell me what?”

“I’m taking the entrance exam today, Shigaraki. I just thought you should know.”

“You should’ve called me when it was over. You’re wasting my time.”

Shigaraki hangs up. 

Tough crowd.  

I can’t believe you spent your money on that.

Shut up.

He scoffs. Gets back on his stupid bike. 

—

UA stands skyhigh against the backdrop of mountainous buildings, glass-paned windows like scales, a beast among skyscrapers. It’s a statue, a monument whose shadow Izuku thrives in. 

Well. Will thrive in, once he passes the entrance exam.

The subway ride over is sluggish, the kind of slowness that makes Izuku rock from one foot to the other to keep the anxiety off his back. There’s too many things that can go wrong—forty minutes turns to fifty, an hour, an hour and a half, and he’s late for the exam and they won’t let him in, and his whole plan derails. Or he falls asleep or misses the stop somehow and by the time he notices he’s halfway across the city, in a place where he won’t know right from left, or something else he can’t seemingly imagine but could very realistically happen—

But it goes fine. He steps off the subway with thirty minutes to spare, bikes his way through the little streets that surround UA, all freshly-laid pavement and painted little cafes. Fresh plum blossoms dot against the streets, the thin gangly branches reaching out as if to disperse the pink-white flowers across the city. 

The students at UA really live the high life, huh?

He circles around, spots overpriced convenience stores selling Endeavor-sponsored protein shakes, restaurants with embroidered tablecloths and thirty-dollar appetizers, book stores that aren’t second-hand. For a second, Izuku has never been more jealous in his life. 

Maybe it’s best not to think about it. He turns around, cycles back to UA before his envy gets the best of him. It’s almost time anyway. 

Izuku comes upon the building slowly, circling it like a vulture before making his way up the hilly gravel-path and locking his bike into a rack. He gets sucked into the herd of students—but nobody he recognizes. Maybe that’s for the better. They knock into him, some students giddy with excitement and some shaking from nerves. Or the cold. Maybe Izuku’s the only one with nerves.

He’s hit with a blast of warm air when he enters, so forceful it makes him shiver. The flock of students splits, then, following different signs dignifying between the hero course exams and general education. Izuku falters. 

Eventually, he heads to the left, with the rest of the general education tryouts.

Down the hallway, students are gathered around a collection of bulletin boards—maybe directions. Izuku shoulders through the crowd—”oh, uh, sorry, excuse me”--and makes it to the front. Full names, presumably of all the students, with their corresponding room numbers. 

I feel like they should have made this more obvious. 

“Excuse me..”

Izuku flinches. He looks back, up at the voice to the left, all sullen and quiet. And tall. 

The guy’s looking down at him—Izuku should expect that by now—and dressed dark in a black coat. His hair is a melodic, willowy shade of purple, and when Izuku looks up at his face, his eyes are—

Holy shit, is that Eyebags?!

“Um, yes?” 

Oh fuck. He totally knows who we are.

Izuku is not panicking. No, panicking is a very un-serious, un-vigilante thing to do. That guy from last month wouldn’t know him.

I’m shitting my pants.

No, that’s entirely unlikely. They were, what–in the dark, and Izuku had his sunglasses and everything on and it’s fine. It’s completely fine. 

I need to kill myself, I think?

“You have a plum blossom in your hair.”

Oh. A laugh bursts out of him, an awkward thing that gathers some strange looks as his hand desperately combs through his hair. “Um, did I get it?”

“No. It’s right there.” 

Eyebags reaches a hand out. Izuku follows the long black sleeve, almost doesn’t register where this is going until the plum blossom is plucked out of his hair. The flower is held out in front of him.

“Oh! Uh, thank you. Haha.” 

Their hands brush together, skin on cold skin, when Izuku grabs the blossom. He holds it close to his chest. 

He turns back to the board to look for his name. And when he turns around to ask Eyebags if they’re in the same room, he’s gone. 

—

The exam room is cold. Izuku keeps his jacket closed tight around him, even when his hands start to sweat as he grips the pencil. They’re on a timer, desks spaced evenly across white tile, a blur of unrecognizable faces across from him. 

Eyes on your own paper, he reminds himself. 

Time passes by. The math section is one of the easiest things—Izuku’s always been good at calculations. The numbers fit in neat little rows in his mind, the same way Quirks do. Reading and writing take longer. He’s a quick reader, but the essay scares him—he doesn’t often trust his own words. No, he finds he’s always been a hypocrite. 

But if Kacchan will pass, the hypocrite he is, then surely Izuku will too. And Kacchan will pass. He’s never lost at anything. 

He doesn’t see the purple haired boy again, but he keeps the blossom with him, pink-white against the table. As he begins to pack up, he grabs it between his fingertips, and the gesture vaguely reminds him of the way he holds a cigarette. This doesn’t compare, though. The blossom, he finds, is more intoxicating. 

When the students are released, all at the same time in single-file, Izuku walks out with a skip in his step. He passes through the doors like a ghost, takes his bike off the rack, and buys a subway ticket to Kamino. 

Izuku has a feeling in his head, light and airy, as he boards the subway. He’s unburdened, maybe, now that the hardest part is out of the way. This is finality—everything that happens after this is out of his control. Usually, that’s the worst part. Now it’s the best. 

Now, maybe he can relax. 

Am I stupid?

Yeah, who are you kidding right now?

Maybe not. 

He’s tired, and his body lays limp on the seat like a loose blanket. The muscle he’s rebuilt over the month aches like it should, like it’s supposed to. It doesn’t ache with injury, with overexertion, just with the weight of change. If he can get used to change like this, why not the rest of his life?

Izuku passes off the subway, takes a black facemask out of his bag and onto his face, and rides his bike down to the bar. He figures that if change will come, he might as well face it head on. Let it rip. 

The plum blossom stays warm in his pocket. 

—

The air is uncharacteristically frigid in the bar, as if something had swept all the heat away like trash into the ocean. Like it’d been sucked up by something, a vortex of sound and warmth. His hood is up, covering his curls, though he’d be lying if he said it seemed like a suitable defense. 

Nothing about him is very defensive anymore. But he likes to defend, always has. There are too many things that need protecting, too many things he finds valuable. The city, the civilians, his mother’s memory—it’s not his fault his protectiveness has turned him aggressive. It’s not his fault he needs sharpened claws and teeth. It’s not his fault that violence is his only route. Aizawa has never understood that.

But Shigaraki will. 

And he’s right where he always is, sitting at the bar, always hatefully reliable. Never late. Never deferring, never expectant. There are no standards among criminals, no loyalty between thieves. 

“Heat’s out?” He mumbles behind his mask, paper mache against his skin, as much protection as a cat flat on its back. 

Shigaraki nods minutely, barely glancing at him, wrapped in his own sweatshirt. Plum in color, an odd choice, Izuku thinks. But maybe it isn’t actually all that odd; maybe Izuku is just not so familiar with things he does not know. 

“I completed the test. It was, um, kind of easy. Compared to what I thought it would be. So hopefully that’s good news?” He tries to put some hope in his voice, some excitement. Kurogiri isn’t here—there’s nothing between Izuku and Shigaraki now, no wall to pass through. Both of them, on even ground, for the first time. 

“That’s acceptable.” 

Izuku nods. He pushes further into the bar, away from the wind beating against the door, and sits in a bar stool in the middle of the aisle. This is the closest to Shigaraki he’s ever dared to go. 

He pulls out a notebook from his bag. Starts drawing. Shigaraki doesn’t protest.

Chapter Text

The letter comes in a week after the exam. Early March means the weather doesn’t whip as harsh, though Izuku’s cheeks still stain dusty red from the cold. The plum blossoms start to fall in quick succession, dripping white and pink against gray-slated buildings and dark sidewalks. The cherry blossoms don’t come until late March, but everybody starts talking about them anyway. There’s a certain anticipation that comes with the idea of time passing, some giddiness that takes everybody with the thought that the future can only be beautiful. 

He keeps the plum blossom from the entrance exam on his desk; lets it harden and brittle there. 

For a second, there’s no realization, no awareness of what it is. Izuku takes the elevator down to the mailbox—no stairs this time, though it’s a personal rule to never skip them, he lets himself have a break today—and rattles the key through the lock. He sifts through the papers, mostly bills, magazines his mother used to be subscribed to, National Geographic, advertisements for tree-trimming businesses that he won’t need. It’s all a jumble of numbers to him, words that blend together into one black hole in the tin can of the mailbox. Izuku passes all the pamphlets into one hand, sticks the other into the back of the box—he notices one last slip of starch-white paper—and pulls it out. 

U.A. HIGH SCHOOL 

He stares down at the letters, bolded and bright in black, written at the bottom right corner of the letter. Izuku inhales, swallows, throat suddenly dry. He slides it into the pocket of his cargo pants, slowly, and he doesn’t look down. 

On the way back up to his apartment, he takes the stairs. 

—

He sets the letter down next to the rotting plum blossom on his desk and locks the door behind him. Dad is around, wandering the apartment they used to live in together like a ghost. It’s a shaky change for Izuku, hearing the floorboards creak with another’s weight, a jacket placed on the dusty chair that nobody ever uses. 

There’s a stack of files on the desk, kept in manila folders like he sees the cops do, piling up and up and up. There’s not as much room anymore to spread out his slightly-illegal-but-actually-legal vigilantism stuff, so they balance precariously on his desk, in his room where he can keep the door locked tight and his blood-stained boots in the closet. Still, he feels slightly bare like this. He closes the window, locks it, pulls the blinds down. 

The letter stares up at him. Izuku used to dream about this. Really dream about this. 

He remembers, vaguely, watching a video in an office room—the room that now holds all of his mother’s old stuff, the things he can’t bear to look at anymore. He was young then, so young he can’t remember clearly, but he remembers the video. He remembers All Might. 

For years on end, in that little elementary school down the lane, Izuku would learn everything about All Might that he could. He’d sit in those little library computers, hands scuffed up and plaster on his knees, blinking past the headaches he’d get so frequently when Kacchan would blow little explosions next to his ears. All Might was so elusive in those early days, so loud in public but so quiet for the press, the kind that comforted but did not acknowledge. And he remembers having this one thought, though now he can’t remember why. All Might is just like Dad. 

Izuku can’t remember why he thought that then. But he has a similar thought now, too—maybe they are more alike than little Izuku would know. They both leave when people need them the most. 

In his fervent fixation on the Number One, Izuku eventually did find what school he attended. UA. And as he grew older, he learned UA was much more than just All Might’s birthplace. No, UA cultivated record-breaking heroes. They were the best of the best. The strongest, the fastest, the most adaptable. They had the looks, the charm, the motivation. Heroes from UA always knew just what to do, just what to say. 

And if Izuku was going to be a hero, he was going to be one of the best. 

But it’s different now, though, right?

Someone speaks. The feeling it brings to his head is hazy, like the voice is coming from behind frosted glass. 

It is different, though. He’s not going to be a hero. Really, he’s going to be far from that. 

He’s not even applying to the hero course. 

That doesn’t matter. You’re still going, aren’t you?

Well. He doesn’t even know that yet, does he? 

Izuku looks away, facing the window, like the fire escape behind the blinds will save him. It doesn’t. He turns back to the letter and rips it open. 

Congratulations! You have been accepted into UA High School.

He gets up, takes two steps, and barely makes it to the bathroom before he vomits. 

—

Dad doesn’t get told. It’s an accomplishment, and all, but an accomplishment he’s fragile about, like an egg waiting to crack. He’d imagine sharing stuff like this with his mom, with someone who stuck around to see how hard he was trying. He would have shared it with Aizawa, really. He would have shared it with anyone if they’d let him. 

He calls Shigaraki on the phone outside the convenience store he always goes to.

“Um. Hello?”

“Yes?” Kurogiri answers the phone. He decides it’s almost the same thing.

Kurogiri picks up faster than Shigaraki does anyways.

“I got in.” His voice is shakier than usual. He hopes Kurogiri doesn’t notice. Really, it’s more embarrassing to him if Kurogiri hears this than Shigaraki, for some reason.

“Sublime. Come by the bar when you’re ready.”

“Oh, sure, that’s—hello?” He hears a click.

Kurogiri has hung up on him. Izuku sniffs. 

“Who the hell says sublime? ”

—

He walks around all day, more in an afternoon daze than anything else. He waits for the night to come, like he used to, the comfort it would give him. It has a purpose, too, at least—he gets his steps in, and it makes up for the short elevator trip. If he’s going to be a hero, he can’t just take breaks whenever he wants. 

When he gets back to the apartment, the sun is beginning to set, little stars peeking out like small eyes. They watch him hungrily. His dad is still there, in the kitchen, wiping down cupboards—Izuku can’t blame him for that, really. He used to live there. If he wants to soak in the memory for just a bit longer, who is Izuku to say no? 

He still keeps the vases his mother used to put flowers in out on the tables, even if she was the only one to buy them in the first place. 

Izuku shuts the door, locking it behind him, something he never usually does when his father is here. There’s always an instinct to run, an easy escape plan hatched for every room in the apartment. He toes off his winter boots, shakes off his parka. 

He huffs in hot air like it can fix everything wrong with his body. 

And there are a lot of things wrong with Izuku’s body. 

The kitchen is almost spotless when he walks in, all the cleanliness an expression of some special type of guilt like that only Izuku and his father are aware of. Izuku doesn’t really hate it. His father has given him so much in these past few months between his flights to and from America. The house is cleaner, groceries are packed in the fridge. Bookshelves are built and the oven is fixed. Dad buys him treats he used to like when he was seven just because. He gets souvenirs from his trips, books about Quirk science, hero figurines, posters and merch and everything little Izuku could have wanted. 

Izuku just isn’t so little anymore. 

It’s fine, though. He sells some of the All Might posters, saves some of the limited edition merch in the back of his closet to pawn off later. He eats the sweets and throws them back up. The American souvenirs go in the trash. 

Izuku sniffs. There’s something in the air. “Are you cooking something?”

His father jumps, turns to face him. Izuku’s gotten very quiet in the past year or two. “Um, sorry.”

“It’s fine! You just startled me, haha—I guess your old man has to keep sharp around here, huh?” His dad is laughing, in his stupid I <3 NEW YORK T-shirt, rubbing the back of his head just like Izuku does when he’s nervous. 

“Uh. Yeah.” He shrugs. “You’re, uh, cooking?”

Dad blinks. Izuku feels tension, unwavering, like his body is all wound up. He’s run by a motor, and if he doesn’t move, all that energy is going to make him explode.

I mean, I don’t know if you’ll actually explode. 

“Oh, yeah! I’m making garlic bread! And pasta. It was one of your mom’s favorite, uh, American dishes, even though it’s not really American—”

No, he’s definitely going to implode. 

“I know what pasta is, Dad.”

Is it ‘explode’ or ‘implode’? Surely those are different. 

“Awesome! Well, yeah, that’s what I’m doing. I thought since the school year is coming to an end, and I’ll have to get, uh, back on the plane soon, we could have a nice family dinner just like we used to!”

Aren’t those the same thing?

“Um.. I’m kind of having an early night here, Dad.”

No, totally different words. 

“It’s only seven!”

Are you sure, though?

“It’s about to be eight.” He feels something like electricity, green and bright running through him. It’s only something mimicking an emotion, something two rooms away and singing through the walls, but it feels like rage nonetheless.

Why are you asking me?

“You can—um, maybe you can go to school a little late tomorrow? Come on, sleep in, let yourself rest, you know?”

You just sounded so sure. 

“Eating after eight kind of, like, messes with my schedule, Dad, and I just—”

I’ve never been sure of anything. 

“Just this once? It’s about to be done.”

But you sounded so sure. 

“I don’t know, um, I kind of have a headache right now—”

You have a listening problem, then.

“Well, you can take some Ibuprofen with the meal, it’ll help you if you eat—”

Maybe you have a talking problem. 

“I really don’t know, maybe it’s better if I go lay down?”

Maybe you have a doing problem.

“No, Izuku, please just eat with me—”

Does anyone do anything at all up here? 

“I got into UA , Dad. I need to have a tight schedule for UA.”

Does anyone do anything at all?

“What?”

He hadn’t meant to say that. Not really, anyway. Maybe he just needed to get away. Really, he just needs to get away. He stands there, wavering, a ghost in his own home. Not his own home, Izuku thinks. He hasn’t lived here in a very long time. 

“I got into the General Education course. Um, it’ll be good for me. Really good.”

His dad is standing there, in front of him, only separated by a bar counter. So big and so tall—really, they thought Izuku would look more like him by now, fifteen and nothing to show for it. Just dyed black hair with the green roots coming out; always his mother’s son, no matter how much he tries to hide it. 

“...That’s good, Izuku. That’s—that’s really great, you know? That’s a good school. I mean, that’s an amazing school—”

“It’s okay, Dad. I know how you feel about it. It’s just the best place for me right now. You don’t have to act happy about it.”

Dad sighs, looks down like there’s something he can’t see. Maybe it’s in Izuku. Maybe that’s why he can’t look Izuku in the eye. “I am happy for you, Izuku. That’s—you’re a really smart kid, you know?”

“It’s just not what you wanted, right?”

Because if there’s one thing Izuku remembers, it’s the anger. It runs deep with his father, runs deep with Izuku, too—just directed at different things. Just directed at different people. 

“ No, it’s… If that’s what you want, then go for it, Izuku. It’s really amazing.”

“But it’s not what you would have done yourself? Is that it?”

“I didn’t say anything—”

“You didn’t have to.”

I can tell just by looking at you. Just by looking at you, I can see. 

He’s more familiar with disappointment than he is love. It’s unfamiliar to receive both at once. It’s unfamiliar to receive anything different. Maybe that’s why he likes Aizawa; everything is predictable. 

Maybe that’s why he hates his father, too. For making him believe there’d be anything different. 

—

The pasta gets eaten, actually. Izuku just eats it alone in his room, listening to the police dispatch radio, waiting for the right time. As soon as he finishes his bowl, he takes it back to the kitchen to wash it out. His father is gone, so he can afford to do this. He can also afford to do something else. 

He goes to the bathroom, sticks two fingers down his throat, and vomits it back up into the toilet. Then, he goes to put his boots and parka on. He grabs his messenger bag, slings it over his shoulder, and leaps out his window. 

Nothing big will happen tonight, he decides. He won’t go beating up any criminals unless strictly necessary. He doesn’t need a black eye on his first day of UA, after all. 

I’ll look just like Eyebags, haha.

Don’t call him that!

Sorry!

No, tonight he will play lookout, like he used to. When he sees a crime, he will report it, flag down the closest hero on the route. And he will do good. Yes, he will do good, just like he always wanted to. 

He goes on foot, patrols around his own neighborhood just in case. The others like to go separate ways—some of their families, descendants, live in different parts of the city. He likes those nights, likes to see different areas of the city he’d never think to go to, visit shops and restaurants foreign to him, meet street cats he’d never seen before. But tonight’s all about him. 

His neighborhood is boring. There’s nothing anybody wants here—low-income, low reward. And that’s okay with Izuku. He’d never gotten along with any of his neighbors, but his mom did. He tries to make sure they’re safe. 

Later in the night, he takes the subway down to another district of gray apartments and overflowing dumpsters. He calls an underground hero on a suspected burglary, walks a lost little kid home. 

He’s so at peace with little things like this, little acts of good, that he almost doesn’t realize he’s being followed.

Izuku lets it go on for a little bit, just until he recognizes who it is. It’s easy, when you know someone so well—knowing all of their tactics, knowing where they stop, when their steps fall flat. Especially when they taught you. 

He figures this will be easier on common ground. He drops from a roof, lets Blackwhip lighten his fall, walks between the buildings into an alley where the moon can’t reach him. And he waits for Aizawa to follow. 

There’s a sound, a thump from behind him, uncharacteristically brash for Eraserhead. Juvenile, almost. 

The temperature plummets at night. An owl hoots, but in the dark it almost sounds like a hawk’s screech—a warning call, dark and hard like platinum. He almost gives this a second thought. He almost runs. 

He turns back anyway.

It’s hard, when Izuku feels that thing inside of him again; the thunderous thing growling through his veins, fueled like a wildfire. Fueled like a plague. He’s a quiet boy, shy, quick to run before the gunfire starts. Just like his mother. But he can’t be that when he does the job he does, when he has to protect the people just like him. He wouldn’t have the luxury of acting the way he does if not  for the heroes; other people, guiltless people, deserve the same privilege. 

He’s angry. And he has been so good, for so long, so good at making up for it. Aizawa has to see that. Aizawa has to see that, even if Izuku slips, just for a second. 

He has to.

But the way Aizawa’s staring at him, that blank expression in the darkness, two eyes now red reflected back to him, makes him second guess. Makes him take a step back. Izuku swallows. Fuck, he’s not good at conversations, is he?

” …Heyyyyy… ”

Aizawa doesn’t say anything. He’s not really Aizawa now, he’s Eraserhead , or whatever bullshit name he picked to strip himself of humanity, to make himself into a steel mask of a person. Izuku can only half understand—he’s the Rabbit, the Angel; something above personhood, not devoid of it. 

“Long time no see, right? Ha. Haha.” 

The silence swallows him, the shadows growing longer over Eraserhead’s face. He blows a raspberry, awkwardly in the breeze. He stares into the glowing red and almost thinks I need my dad.

“Can we say…. um, forgiven? Uh, no harm no foul? Let’s leave it all in the past. Let’s forgive and forget.”

Eraserhead steps closer. Izuku almost looks away. 

“There’s a new lead on the Toga Himiko case,” Aizawa speaks. “We’re going to check it out.”

Suddenly, all the electricity in Izuku’s body floods away.

Chapter Text

The day of Oboro’s funeral, there isn’t a cloud in the sky. 

Shota expects it to rain, almost wants it to. He misses long stretches of white, streaks of dark like blurred dust. 

There seems to be a difference between him and the others; some wall between them that he wasn’t aware of until now. He sees it in the way everybody shuffles past him, how Hizashi smiles, a pitying crescent. Shota watches him hug Oboro’s parents, give a wet little laugh. 

It’s best to laugh, Shota. It’s best to stay positive. 

Hizashi’s voice rattles around his head. He swallows it down, past his throat and out through his spine. He disagrees. 

When people die, someone should care. Someone should be sad. 

Someone should hold on. 

So Shota holds on.

—

He’s watching Himiko light a cigarette, light and airy, cupped between her palms like a junebug. Izuku tries to imagine holding something as gentle as that, something worth so much he’d hold it with both hands. He can’t envision anything. 

“They’re only going to keep looking for you,” he says, and he believes it.

”Are you going to help them?”

“It’s my job.” 

“But is it your priority?” She blows a cloud of wool-gray smoke in his face. He pulls his paper mask down to inhale. 

“You’re always my priority.”

Himiko smiles at that like it’s a compliment. 

Izuku feels something, a rising crescendo in the air, the wind whistling past his ears like birds. March is starting to get warmer, but the temperature drops later in the night, and he pulls his parka closer. He’s not stupid—really, he isn’t, and that’s the worst part. They’ll find her eventually. Izuku will have to give it up. 

Just not yet. Not when she has so much more to offer. 

“You know, I think I might have a job for you.” He looks at her, at the wispy little flame burning in the satin night. 

“Oh, really?”

”Yeah. It’ll give you a place to stay. Food. Somewhere to park your car.”

The bench they’re sitting on creaks when he shifts his weight. The old wood is breaking, scabbing at his hands and scraping at his pants. “I’m not really a stationary girl,” Himiko smiles, her warm eyes staring towards the moon. “I never liked to stay in one place. Or routine.” 

“This will offer you anything but routine, Himiko.”

She cranes her head towards him, a bobbly head on a long pale neck like a swan’s. And she grins, open-mouthed and all teeth, that way she only does when she’s especially pleased. Her canines gleam in the moonlight, a refraction of some kind of beauty. Some kind of violence. 

They’re the same thing to Himiko. Maybe they’re the same thing to Izuku, too. He doesn’t like to think about it. 

__

Shota doesn’t visit Oboro, not even on the anniversaries. It’s a conscious choice, at first. The first year, he is sixteen and writhing, almost hateful. He doesn’t visit because he can’t. Hizashi does, and Shota tries not to feel betrayed. 

He spends the night imagining it instead—the tearful smiles Hizashi shares with the family, the light laughter as they exchange stories. He spends the night seeing the event, too. Over and over like a broken record. 

Shota doesn’t understand how someone could smile about that. Laughing at a bright life wasted. Grinning at the memory of a boy, dead for no reason. Just a broken body and a split head. 

So for the first years, it’s just a choice. Eventually it becomes routine. Eventually it becomes the anniversary, which means he will wake up with something like dread, or horror. He will not hear from Hizashi, because Hizashi will be somewhere, holding the hand of Oboro’s mother. He will be alone. He will have a migraine, and maybe nausea. Nedzu will look at him, but not say anything.

Eventually, he will start spending the entire night out on patrol. Eventually he will be greeted by a voice, pestering and mumbling, on these patrols. Eventually he will start confusing a rabbit’s voice for Oboro’s. Eventually, one night while watching through the park after another one of his nightmares, Shota will find a dead bunny, stomach torn open in a bush, killed by a black cat. Blood paints the greenery like cranberry juice. The cat is licking at the gash drawn along the bunny’s white fur, but jumps at the sound of him parting the leaves.

The cat stares up at Shota, but Shota is only looking into the cold eyes of the rabbit.

—

March is the start of spring break, which means Izuku spends all night out on the street beating the pavement with Aizawa looking for Himiko, and then spends the early mornings visiting her. He doesn’t feel bad about it—Aizawa thinks he can’t be trusted, so why would Izuku tell him?

Him and Himiko go to the parks together, watching the sun rise and the cherry blossoms fall into the grass. They lay out against the green ferns and speak—mostly about heroes, sometimes about villains. They have long, repetitive talks about Stain. Izuku has his own personal thoughts about him, but doesn’t share. There’s a line between going far and going too far. Sure, Izuku’s gone far, but only far enough. At least, he thinks. 

Sometimes you have to reach to save people. Sometimes you have to reach so far it hurts.

He meets Himiko an hour or two after his patrol ends, always wandering around for a bit before seeing her, just to make sure he isn’t being followed. Him and Aizawa haven’t spoken about it, their shared problem. Something between them is cracked, though Izuku can’t see why. So he went on patrol when Aizawa was out of commission, so what? If anything, Izuku needed to be out there even more. 

They don’t talk about that, him and Himiko. Izuku avoids speaking about the actual heroics included in his sort-of job, mostly because Himiko is on a completely different path, partly because she’d get caught up on all the bloody details and it wouldn’t be very productive. All they do together is watch the sun rise. Sometimes Himiko tries to paint it with acrylic colors on small canvases she buys. Izuku watches her drag the brush slowly along the canvases in the dark, watches her try to mirror the blue velvet of the night colliding with the orange tangerine of the rising sun. 

They’re very different people, Izuku finds. The job makes for dark colors—he dresses in black cargos, heavy sweatshirts and jackets, brown boots that wet themselves with midnight rain and sewer water. 

Himiko does not seem to care for the hiding she’s supposed to be doing; she wears a wig sometimes. Mostly, she shows up with new acrylic nails every week, in bright pink and jewels. She has hoodies with bunny ears attached to the hood, pastel knee socks, bright skirts and shirts. Izuku’s thankful they’re meeting in the dark. 

“Do you like anyone?” Himiko asks one night. It’s almost four A.M. and they’re sitting under a plum blossom tree, the dark bark digging into Izuku’s back. Himiko is leaning forward next to him, knees to her chest, swathed in his big black hoodie. He can’t see her face, but he can see the reflection of the lighter flame against the curve of her cheek. She’s flicking it on and off, over and over. 

Izuku watches the flame appear and dissipate, watches her thumb curve to flick it on for a few seconds. He tries to remember the last time he had a crush. He can’t think of anything.

”I guess not,” he shrugs, though Himiko isn’t looking back at him to see it. “I mean, no. There’s no one around to like.”

“Really?”

”Not at my school, no.”

”You’re gonna be lucky, silly. UA totally produces all the cute heroes. Like, you know, Midnight?”

Izuku bursts out laughing. He’s not sure why the idea of this seems like plain humor to him. Himiko turns back to watch his face morph into a grin.

”What? I’m being, like, soooo serious!”

“I know you are! I know, I know!” Izuku exclaims, raising his hands in fake defense. He watches the glow of Himiko’s yellow eyes like a cat’s, the way her smile makes her fangs gleam. 

“You know, I have this philosophy,” Himiko breathes. He studies her face against the backdrop of the stark night, the stars winking back at him. “We’re on this earth to love, aren’t we? And if we don’t love, we’re nothing.”

A cloud passes over the moon; the only light left is the lighter between them, off and on and off again. The glow of the fire under Himiko’s chin makes her features look all the more sharp, turns the shadows below her eyes black and powerful. 

“You should find someone to love, Miku. Otherwise, you might lose your way.”

Izuku swallows. He tries to recall a face to love; of all the people he’s ever known, he’s only loved one of them. And she’s long dead. All he has left is the aftershock, like an earthquake gone awry. But isn’t that what grief is? Just the leftovers of a life spent in the sun? 

Chapter Text

“If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ideal of being known.”

- Tim Kreider, I Know What You Think of Me

—

It’s one of the only times he’s really allowed to be in the daylight. The conference room is cold, clinical. It reminds Izuku of places he’d rather not think about—the smell of the hospital elevator, the seering white overhead lights. There’s a paper cup of coffee sitting in front of him on the table; once hot but gone cold. Izuku hasn’t touched it even though sleep is pulling at his eyelids and weighing down his bones. Aizawa made it for him; it’s pumped full of sugar. 

The limelight heroes in their bright suits—fuckers, his dad used to call them—are standing around speaking to each other, laughing to themselves. The underground heroes are speaking too, just not to the limelights. The room is split in two and Izuku’s sitting in the middle.

Neither group speaks to him. He doesn’t mind. Even with their clear differences, nobody accepts him; there's a clear line between him and everybody else. 

It's almost a physical separation. He's in foreign land here, a world of almost-bureaucrats, a world of people he spent months outrunning. Well, still outrunning. The Musutafu Angel stuck in the garden of evil.

He's wearing his sunglasses, which he's grateful for because he can scan the room and nobody knows who he's looking at. He sees the usual suspects: some rookie cops, a detective or two, Tsukauchi. Some bottom feeder heroes that he sees patrolling around the shopping district sometimes, a few more higher in the ranks. Some of Aizawa’s underground hero associates. Nobody really notable.

Nevertheless, he has notes on all of them. Some of them are in the back of his notebooks from years ago. Some of them he studied for days before the meeting. Stalked is a serious word, but this is a serious risk. What, do they think he's an idiot? He never goes into a room full of heroes without knowing everything about them.

Izuku’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He takes one more glance around the room. There's nobody sitting down, except him. Nobody at the front of the table near the giant TV screen on wheels, or whatever that is. He looks ahead of him, to the wall of windows. They're up high, the morning light peeking through the clouds, reflecting off the glass panes that make up the other buildings. Oh well, he thinks. There's nobody watching me but the sun. 

He pulls his phone out. Izuku keeps it discreet now; clear phone case, black background. He shoves it under the table to unlock it, just in case. When he brings it back up, sees the notification. 

BLOODSUCK3RR : hiii

BLOODSUCK3RR : wyd ??¿

He smiles in spite of himself.

allmightfanboy76 : nothing

allmightfanboy76 : at the meeting lol

BLOODSUCK3RR : omg

BLOODSUCK3RR : what r they saying abt meeeee

BLOODSUCK3RR : im blushing alreadyyyyyyy (*>_<*)ﾉ

allmightfanboy76 : they hvnt started yet

He glances up again just to make sure nobody's standing over him. He scans the room—Aizawa is still in the corner talking to Tsukauchi. Izuku looks back down quickly, because Himiko hates to be left on read. And if he's honest, he almost enjoys talking to her. 

BLOODSUCK3RR : awwwww man 

BLOODSUCK3RR : whats it with heroes and being sooooo slow? 。゜(｀Д´)゜。

allmightfanboy76 : lol thts funny bc ingenium’s here

BLOODSUCK3RR : wait which one is that

allmightfanboy76 : yk

allmightfanboy76 : the turbo hero ?

BLOODSUCK3RR : OHHH

BLOODSUCK3RR : no i totally knew that

Izuku laughs a little under his breath. He hears a certain squeaking—people are sitting in their chairs. He looks up, watches the heroes sit down all around him. Aizawa sits at his side. It feels like being a parrot surrounded by falcons. Suddenly there’s a sense of shame; like he’s a mockery of everything they are.

What is he talking about? He’s done more for the city in the past year than these people have done in five.

He swallows. Tsukauchi is at the front of the room. Izuku stares at Tsukauchi, because he knows that if he looks away he’ll meet the gazes of the heroes and policemen that are trying to hide their sideway glances. The people who are wondering what he’s doing here. Why he deserves it. 

He deserves it more than any of them. He deserves it all. 

Tsukauchi clears his throat. “It’s great to see you all—though the circumstances aren’t ideal, I’m sure you know why. All of you were here when we previously debriefed on the Toga Himiko case.”

Well, all of them except Izuku. He wasn’t invited to that meeting. 

Let me take the wheel. I’ll make them respect us. 

Oh, come on. You have to understand where they’re coming from. 

I understand perfectly. But if they understood where we were coming from—

They can’t. They never can. That’s the point of a secret, dumbass.

Hey!

Izuku zones back in. Fuck, he’s supposed to be paying attention. Tsukauchi’s mouth is moving, but it takes him a second to connect it to the sound of the words coming out of his mouth. Izuku brings his knees up to his chest, realizes it makes him look like a kid, and puts them back down again. He’s so tired.

”—And through analyzing the pattern of these crimes, we can see how it maps out into a spiral. The center of that spiral? Her previous school. Since discovering this, our law enforcement resources have allowed for us to move the victim of her obsession, who’s name is being kept anonymous, into witness protection.” 

Didn’t I figure that out? Didn’t I tell Aizawa about this? 

Can’t he get at least a little credit?

“With this knowledge, we’ll be able to better pinpoint her next moves. We’ll have increased patrol in these areas surrounding the school—that means longer hours for everyone, not just the underground heroes.” 

That’s the issue, isn’t it? He can’t get the credit. He can’t get the respect. He can’t get anything because he’s under them. At least, that’s how they view it. How Aizawa probably views it. He’s got nobody on his side, does he?

Tsukauchi continues to speak about what they know, what they need to know. Assignments and patrol routes. Izuku hears the word rabbit, but only vaguely—he doesn’t really try to listen anymore, because he knows that wherever the Rabbit goes, Eraserhead must follow, so they’ll have the same missions. 

Something dark and heavy starts to brew deep in the core of his chest. After the meeting gets out, he steps toward the bathroom and starts typing a message out to Himiko. 

allmightfanboy76 : hey

allmightfanboy76 : u need to stay away from school, ok?

allmightfanboy76 : ik its hard but we have to move u farther away from it 2

allmightfanboy76 : theyre closing in

—

They park the car in a hotel lot across the city for the night. Izuku stays with Himiko for a reason he can’t place. He doesn’t go out that night, figures the anger he’s holding wouldn’t be good for anyone, even the criminals. He watches her fall asleep in the back seat; he throws a cheetah print blanket from Himiko’s trunk on top of her, tries to tuck her in. His gaze lingers on her—it’s a strange feeling to experience absolute trust from someone. Maybe it’s another symptom of the way Himiko loves: hard and complete, with nothing left to question. But maybe it’s just the knowledge that she could gut him if he made one wrong move.

The only brightness shared between them in the dark of the parking lot is the yellow car light. He thinks a lot about how they only meet in the dark, how they circle tiny flames like two moths looking for the sun. 

Izuku opens a window in the passenger’s seat and lets the spring air infiltrate the car. There’s a suffocating feeling all around him, lingering from being in an office crowded with heroes at seven in the morning. The wave of anxiety, pushing and pulling at his senses, hasn’t left. He’s wound up like a broken toy box, and though it’s over it hasn’t gone anyway. It’s under his skin and it won’t come out. 

There’s no reason to worry. Everything is going well. Stop it. 

But he’s been living like this for how long? When did it start, this particular feeling of unrest? This feeling of being electric with no release? When he went out that night in October for the first time, and his feet moved on their own? When we met a blond man like a ghost in a graveyard after his mother died? When he went to the doctor’s office with his mom at four years old, and he got told something that changed the way he thought of himself forever?

It’s hard not to think of being quirkless as a personal failure. It’s hard not to think of everything as a personal failure. 

Dad has deposited more money into his account. Izuku checks it again. The money is a nice even number. Shigaraki’s covering the tuition, but Dad doesn’t know that. Damn. I should have told him I got a scholarship. 

But he’d been too nervous. They barely spoke since the awkward fight they’d had. Dad went back to the hotel that night, told Izuku he’d have a flight back to the US in the morning. He sends money wordlessly now. 

The tuition money is only enough for a semester, though. All that means is he can get groceries he won’t eat, buy the textbooks and the uniform, and take Himiko out to more expensive places. She’s a killer, but chivalry isn’t dead, is it?

And they’re.. kind of friends. Well, maybe. As far as she knows. 

Maybe as far as he knows, too. 

But he’s better than that—sure, he’s not a hero yet, but he’s far above a villain. He can admit that he’d made some mistakes early in his career. He was uncoordinated, didn’t know his own strength, didn’t even know his own Quirks. He was too reckless with criminals, too strong. But he’s better with it now, a gentler force. 

Still, Aizawa doesn’t trust him. It’s not like he killed anyone. It’s been a year of hands-on experience with no assistance—Izuku figures he’s done pretty well for himself. And it’s also not like Aizawa’s been particularly enthusiastic about helping him figure it out, so what’s the issue? Maybe Izuku’s done some things he shouldn’t have done, sure, but it’s nothing that can’t be forgiven. It’s nothing he hasn’t done for the greater good. 

Izuku thinks about the gun in his pocket. It comforts him. 

—

“How do you think your first day’s gonna go?”

”I dunno. It’ll be easy, I hope. Just gen ed.”

”Are you still gonna spend time with me?’

”Of course I will. I’ll still text you all the time, even between classes. Sure, my patrol hours might be shorter, but I’ll make time for you.”

”What about that job you said you’d get me?”

“I’m working on it, promise. Plus, aren’t you still obsessed with that Stain guy?”

”Duh. But you said I’d have money to go to the mall!”

”You will. In fact, I’d take you right now if you let me.”

”Can we get Chinese food tonight?”

”Himichan. Please. I’m trying to focus.” 

Himiko blows a raspberry, leans forward on the edge of the roof she’s swinging her legs off of, white heels flying back and forth. Izuku huffs, puts the binoculars down into his lap, zips his gray hoodie farther up.

“Himiko, if you keep moving, they’re going to notice you—“

”Sorry, I’ve never been on a stakeout before!”

“Keep your voice down!”

He brings the binoculars back up to his eyes. They’re looking down into a clearing in the middle of the shopping district, where two men are talking by the fountain. It’d be hard to see them if not for the warm street lights. Half of them are out—he should go down there and replace a few lightbulbs, shouldn’t he? He used to, back when his life wasn’t ruled by Aizawa’s endless missions. 

“When’s your first day of school?” Himiko’s whispering now, but very theatrically. She leans over and cups her hands around his ear when she speaks. It’s sort of cute. His ear tickles at the feeling of her warm breath.

”Uh, I dunno. I sort of forgot. It’s in the middle of April, okay? It’s only the first,” Izuku whispers back.

He honestly just doesn’t want to tell her. There should be some distance kept between them, and all. 

He tries to focus on the men. They’re both tall, but one’s skinny like a twig and the other’s got some muscle. He sees a few dark shadows, but he can’t tell if they’re tattoos or not. “If you see these two guys around when I’m not, will you tell me?” He asks.

”Sure,” Himiko says, returning to normal volume. Izuku almost puts his head in his hands. “Wait, what are we here for?”

”One of those guys is totally a drug dealer. I just need to, like, document all of his customers and stuff, or something,” Izuku says, speaking normally because if he whispers now it’ll look stupid. “Actually, I don’t really know, I think Aizawa just has me doing busy work while he’s out.”

”What’s he doing?”

”It’s some weird Commission meeting that’s like, completely about me, but I’m not allowed to be there.” Izuku shrugs. 

“Wait, are they still looking for you?” Himiko asks. She’s still leaning into the shell of his ear, but she’s speaking normally, so the sound sort of compounds. He hears all the notes hidden in her melodic voice, and for some reason this makes the anxiety worse. 

“I mean, they’re not supposed to be. They told me they’re not, but they are. At least Aizawa and his detective friend are. I dunno if the Commission is in on it.”

”Do you want me to handle that for you?”

Izuku lowers the binoculars again. He’s sure he’s missing the entire drug deal, probably. Doesn’t really care though. He turns to Himiko, looks at her face, pale and serene like a dove’s. “What?”

”Like, the detective guy. I can totally take him out for my Miku.”

”No!” He exclaims. “I mean—I sort of need him, and stuff. And you’re putting yourself in unnecessary danger by doing that.”

Wow, finally taking a stand against violence?

I always take a stand against violence!

Don’t make me laugh.

Himiko groans, turns her head away, nose in the air. “Ugh, sometimes you can be soooo boring, Miku.” 

He feels strangely bad about this. “Oh, come on, you don’t want to hear about how they’re trying to find me?”

Himiko closes her eyes and shakes her head. 

“You know you want to hear about it. It’s funny!”

Himiko opens her eyes. 

“Eraserhead’s looking into some stupid, like, child abuse cases. He thinks I’m some wounded kid with a rough start in life, or something. Which is so stupid, because I’m fairly well adjusted, and stuff.”

”Were you?” Himiko asks, body fully turned to him now. Izuku knew she’d be interested—she finds all the stuff the police do funny.

”Well adjusted?”

“Abused.”

Izuku blinks. “I mean.. Not really. My parents had their problems, but they kept that between each other, for the most part. Now they just leave me alone.”

He doesn’t know why he says things like this—they when he really means Dad, because Mom is dead. There is no they. There’s barely a we. Now that he thinks about it, there’s never been a we, actually. In fact, there’s actually not even an I. 

Himiko nods her head. She’s smiling that smile that means she has something a little silly, and maybe a little tumultuous to ask. 

“Does that mean I can come over?” 

And her voice is so sickly sweet with hope that he feels bad having to turn her down. He already went through all that effort making sure Aizawa never knew his address, and that he just thought it was a safe house, which—did he really believe that? I mean, there’s no way of really knowing. 

Point being, having this girl with her stark blonde buns and blood-stained fangs coming by his apartment at all hours of the day is too much of a risk. Who knows, maybe his dad will start showing up again, and Himiko’s not exactly a normal friend. And what if someone recognizes her? Then it’s really over. 

You’re neglecting the fact that she’s a serial killer who could stab you at any moment, and her having your exact address wouldn’t be ideal.

Well, yeah, but I’m not worried about that. 

You’re not worried about a lot of things you should be worried about.

He ignores that. He can afford to take a few risks. 

“Not yet. I mean, they’re still around, you know?”

There he goes, using they again. 

“Do they get along yet?”

”My parents? Uh, yeah.” Towards the end they did, is what he means. “Most of their disagreements came from, um… a difference in beliefs, I’d say? But they’ve sort of made peace with them.”

”Difference of beliefs?”

Izuku swallows, and finds a lump in his throat, tumor-shaped and just as cancerous. Talking about his mother always ends like this—his eyes get hot and teary, and he starts to feel like he’ll get so wound up that he’s going to explode. He doesn’t know why though—he should be over it by now. When you’re a hero, you leave the baggage at home. When you’re a hero, you leave the past behind. 

At least, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Maybe that’s why they treat him differently than the other heroes: they can see the grief plastered all along his face even behind the mask. It drips down his pores, exudes through his clothing. They can see his weakness. He’s not like all the others. 

“Uh, like, religion sometimes. My mom went on this trip to the United States with her parents when she was a kid and they got caught up in the whole Christian thing. So they had disagreements over that sometimes, because Dad’s, like, straight Buddhist,” Izuku says. It’s an oversimplification, really, but not a lie. He keeps his voice straight and narrow, and brings the binoculars back to his eyes so Himiko can’t see the shine of wetness. 

He feels her gaze on him, those eyes like a predator’s. “Which way did you end up following?”

”I don’t lean too far in either direction. But me and God, we don’t tend to get along.”

Chapter Text

The plum blossom has long withered away, but Izuku still looks upon the ghost of it on the desk with a certain familiarity. There’s a hint of warmth with it. 

He’s cleaning his room when his dad comes back. The first day of UA is so close, so Izuku needs a reset—he’s planning to take the day off patrol and just clean the entire house. The textbooks have been purchased and the uniform has been ordered, which was a bit difficult to do because mom was always the one keeping track of his exact measurements. And UA is very exact. 

He’d woken up early that day to clean the house. He started with the kitchen, made his way to the living room, then the bathroom. His room always comes last. He never opens the door to mom’s room. Izuku’s room is sort of a disaster, because he has old case files strewn all over the place, and old clothes he hasn’t gotten rid of. It’s a bit better now because there’s no books on the floor, and only a few notebooks, but still he figures he’s a person with a lot of waste. So he’s in the middle of finding old clothes to donate when the knock at the door comes. 

It reverberates as it always does; his father has a heavy hand. He has half a mind to grab the gun from under the bed before answering the door, but the knock is easily recognizable. He grabs it anyway just in case, puts it in the waistband of his pants, covers it with the hoodie he’s wearing. It’s not paranoia if they’re really after you, and all that.

Izuku walks to the front door lightly, because the floorboards creak under heavy steps and it gives him away. He’s thankful that nobody really lives here with him, because when he gets home in the middle of the night, his hefty boots make all kinds of sounds. At least he isn’t waking Mom up. 

He opens it. His father is standing there, in another one of his Americanized T-shirts, holding what looks like a million paper bags. Gifts, Izuku assumes. Dad plasters a smile on his face, his freckled cheeks upturning against his eyes. Genuine joy. Izuku can’t mirror the expression even if he tries; he just nods. 

“Hi—it’s so good to see you.”

”Oh. Yeah, thanks. Um. You can come in.” 

Izuku steps to the side a bit awkwardly. His dad shoulders his way in, and it’s as if he sucks all the air in the room—just heat radiating off of him in loose waves. He has an energy that can take up the whole room, a sense of authority, and Izuku wishes he’d inherited it. Maybe then he would belong among the heroes. 

He watches his father shuffle into the living room, setting all the bags down onto the newly-clean coffee table. When he bends down, the cotton-white of his shirt slides up, and Izuku catches a glimpse of it. The large ink tattoo encompassing his father’s back. He only remembers parts of it in snapshots; knows what it is, but can’t construct the entire picture in his head. A dragon, curled like a snake, surrounded by plumes of smoke and ash. The tattoo is dashed with red and green, but Izuku can’t pinpoint exactly where anymore. It’s been a long time. 

“I brought you back, uh, just a few gifts—it’s mostly clothes, a few books. I figured, you know, new school year, new you, right?”

”Uh,” Izuku says, because there are no words in his head. “Okay.”

So they don’t talk about it. Whatever it is at this point, Izuku isn’t sure. It’s more than just what happened before his father left—it encompasses a length spanning years, something made of infinitesimal moments that all converge to widen the rift between them. Maybe there’s a name for it, but Izuku doesn’t know. Maybe the name is Mom. 

—

There’s another talk about drugs, or drug dealers, or both, or whatever Izuku is zoning out of right now. Aizawa and Tsukauchi are speaking to each other. They’re not really trying to include him, and Izuku is surrounded by police—maybe he should have suggested a place other than the police department to meet—so it’s a perfect setting for a panic attack, of which he is currently trying not to have. 

He’s honestly just playing footsie with himself underneath the table, looking down at his gloved hands. His phone is buzzing in the pocket of his All Might hoodie. Izuku doesn’t pull it out because Aizawa is sitting right next to him, and even if he’s looking at Tsukauchi there’s nothing stopping him from glancing down.

But it is really tempting. Who knows what Himiko’s saying?

He tries to picture it with his mind. 

BLOODSUCK3R : just killed a guy lol wyd 

Or maybe—

BLOODSUCK3R : the police r surrounding me NOOOO XCCCCCC

Or maybe it was something so innocuous that he’d be stupid to even worry about it. There’s no way to tell, is there?

He shifts in his seat. The air is hot and uncomfortable, sticky with the anxiety that shakes off of him like bristles. He would take his hoodie off, but then his hair would be out in the open and maybe a strand or two would fall onto the seat, and Aizawa would see the hidden shell of his AirPod tucked into his ear. Then it’d be a fight about him not paying attention, because Aizawa doesn’t know that he already knows all of this stuff, and Izuku can’t explain where he knows all this stuff from—Himiko Toga, who he’s supposed to be arresting—without it turning into an even bigger fight. And then Izuku would miss all of the UA statistics talk from the Present Mic podcast playing in his ear. So that’d suck. 

Without all the anxiety and the stern conversation Tsukauchi and Aizawa are having, he’s actually having a pretty great time. It’s only eight, the night is still young. He’s wearing a new pair of cargo pants that are stretchy and comfortable. Present Mic is screaming in his ear about UA’s new senior class coming up and predictions about the sports festival, while a guest—Edgeshot, maybe? Izuku really wasn’t paying attention to that part—politely tries to get a word in. He fucking loves this podcast. 

He wonders what Aizawa thinks of it. Aren’t Aizawa and Present Mic coworkers? They both teach at UA. Maybe they know each other. Maybe they’re even friends. Well, that’s kind of laughable. Aizawa doesn’t seem like someone with friends. 

Someone says his name—his eyes snap open. It’s not really his name, it’s Rabbit. 

“Excuse me?” Izuku says blandly, not looking at anybody in particular, because he can’t really tell who said it. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

Tsukauchi smiles. His eyes are warmer than Aizawa’s, which is kind of nice. “Sorry. Air conditioner’s coming in kind of strong over here, isn’t it? Might be hard to hear.” He laughs a bit. Izuku just sort of nods. He doesn’t hear the air conditioner at all, and in fact is sort of hot. What ends up coming out of his mouth is some mix of a few words like ohyeahhahareallycoldandstuffyeahnoproblem. Is he even speaking real words?

”I just wanted to say that you should know that heroes get drug tests randomly throughout the year. Just wanted you to know before you become an… official hero, yeah?”

Izuku blinks. What, Tsukauchi believes he can be a real hero?

We already are a real hero. What is he talking about?

Oh, come on, he was trying to be nice. Don’t be egotistical.

It’s not egotistical if it’s a fact.

He’s just trying to help, Izuku thinks. Like a warning—kick any bad habits before you get more than just a temporary license. 

“Haha,” Izuku says, physically saying haha, “no drugs here, sir, I swear,” he also says, ignoring the feeling of the vape pen in his back pocket that he’s been sneaking into the bathroom to hit digging against his ass. He’s, like, totally working on it, okay? It just helps with his anxiety. 

He’s tapping his fingers all loosey-goosey against his right knee in some kind of rhythm he doesn’t recognize. It comforts him slightly, but doesn’t erase the everpresent buzzing under his skin, corroded like some fucked up battery. Maybe he needs to be on medication? He doesn’t know. Maybe this anxiety he feels is normal amongst heroes—they put their lives in danger all the time. But he’s sort of been feeling this way all his life. 

Tsukauchi smiles again. Maybe it’s meant to comfort, or he just finds Izuku humorous. God, I’m probably the laughing stock of the hero world. 

Is it stock or stalk?

Why would it be stalk?

I dunno, why would it be stock?

Isn’t that some English phrase?

Aren’t you some English phrase?

Hey!

Fuck, his mind is running in circles. He tries to zero back in on the conversation he’s supposed to be having, or whatever. 

“Can we get back to business, detective?” Aizawa says. What a way to ruin the mood. Can he go two seconds without having to be such a downer? He acts as if working with Izuku is such a chore. He’s, like, helpful!

“Right, yes. Well, apart from the drug ring we’re investigating, you two are all caught up on the reports of the fires around the city, right?”

Izuku has no idea what he’s talking about. “We are,” Aizawa says, before he gets up to leave. 

—

He checks his phone for Himiko’s messages as soon as they’re back on the street. It ends up being a few messages from Himiko and two missed calls from Dad. Izuku sighs, ducks into the alleyway by the police station and tells Aizawa to give him a moment. 

It’s a bit on the colder side tonight; he pulls his hoodie close around him. The night is already dark-damp and he sidesteps the street light peeking into the alleyway, hoping if he’s completely in the dark Aizawa won’t sense his shame. He checks Himiko’s messages first. 

BLOODSUCK3R : MIKUUUU

BLOODSUCK3R : i totes saw the drug dealerz 

BLOODSUCK3R : theyre soooooooo working for someone its cray

BLOODSUCK3R : idk who tho

BLOODSUCK3R : but theres a group of them

BLOODSUCK3R : LOVE UUUUUUUUUU

Hm. Well, that would’ve been useful while they were in the meeting. Oh well. They wouldn’t have listened to Izuku anyways, because he’s not supposed to have underground connections like Aizawa can. They’re so picky about their rules. This job is so much easier when he doesn’t listen to any of them. 

He checks Dad’s missed calls after that. There’s a voicemail left on the second call. Izuku pauses the podcast, plays the voicemail.

“Hey Izuku. I wanted to—well, I don’t really know what I wanted to say. I went by the apartment and you weren’t there. It’s getting a little late and all, and you aren’t picking up. I know I shouldn’t expect you to—to tell me, you know, where you are, but I’d just appreciate knowing you’re safe.” 

Fuck. Well, he can just say he’s at a friend’s house and staying the night. That way Dad doesn’t worry, or anything. 

“And um… I wanted to apologize for the other night. I shouldn’t push you to spend time with me. I know I have a lot to make up for, and I guess I try too hard? They’re—in the meetings I go to in the US, they talk about this idea, this pink cloud. It’s sort of made me think that everything was going to work out super smoothly, and I could just fix all of it. But I can’t. It’s not—well, I know you’re going through a hard time, okay? I know. I know.” 

There’s a curdling sense of dread that makes his stomach flip. An emotion Izuku doesn’t recognize, at least in relation to his father, bubbles up inside of him. What is it, guilt? 

“I just… Well, you’re a good kid. And UA is a good school. It’s only fitting. I love you, okay? And it’s fine if you can’t say it back. Bye.”

Bye. Izuku thinks I love you but he doesn’t mean it, or maybe he just can’t voice it. He puts the phone back in his pocket, tries to mouth the words he can’t say. His tongue doesn’t move. 

Izuku ducks back into the light of the street lamp, out of the harsh sweatiness of the alleyway. Aizawa’s already down the street, tired of waiting. He rushes to catch up. There’s a sinking feeling in his gut that he’s always rushing to catch up. 

—

“Okay, yeah, I’ll be there—“

“But do you promise? Do you promise, Miku? Because you said that last time and—“

“Come on, don’t hold it against me, okay? It was one time. Listen. I’ll be there.” 

“…Fine. Hmph!”

Himiko hangs up. Izuku throws his head back as he groans, hits the handle of the car door, and yelps. “Ow!”

Aizawa looks back at him from the front seat, his head craned to see him. “Who was that?” He asks. 

Izuku shoves the phone back in his pocket. “Nobody,” he says. They’re in Aizawa’s shitty old car again, the heater cranked up just enough. He’s splayed out lying in the back seat, honestly just to put some separation between him and Aizawa while him and Himiko argue on the phone. 

“Girlfriend?” Aizawa asks, and then when it’s silent for a beat, “boyfriend?”

”No. Just someone I need to meet later—actually, what time is it?”

”It’s going to be 2:45.”

”Oh, okay. So if I catch the train in, say, 10 minutes, I’m sure I could—oh, fuck, so I need to leave right now actually.” Damn it, he wasn’t keeping track of time. Best case scenario, he’ll be late by about 30 minutes to the place he and Himiko are supposed to meet tonight. Fuck, that’ll piss her off. 

Izuku rises up into a sitting position and shifts to face the door. He looks back at Aizawa, but only means it to be for a split second. “Okay, shit, I’ll see you later, right? Tomorrow?”

He knows Aizawa’s scowling just by the tone of his face. “…Fine. But—hey, wait.”

Izuku looks back again. He watches Aizawa pull his phone down, squints to see him swiping into his messages. It sort of frustrates him—he can’t wait long enough to watch Aizawa flip through his messages with informants or Tsukauchi or whatever. He’s got a girl to meet, and all.

“Tsukauchi sent me something. It’s information about the drug deals that have been happening. They seem to think that they’re connected to the fires around the city.”

Izuku blinks. “Oh, those fires around the city you never even told me about? How long have those even been going on?”

“Since about early October.”

“What? Why did you not tell me?” He sounds more desperate than he means to. It’s just that this is picking at an old wound, maybe. A wound that’s barely scabbing over. 

”It was just small at first. In dumpsters, abandoned buildings. It progressed over a few months into larger targets—merch stores, training facilities. And then a hero office went up in flames a few days ago, which I’m sure you saw on the news,” Aizawa says, which doesn’t answer Izuku’s question at all. He never even saw the news, actually, because he wasn’t in the house long enough to watch it. “The reason I didn’t tell you was because we thought it was just some small gang, or a group of teenagers, at first. The Toga Himiko case was becoming more important. But now there’s intel coming in from various sources connecting this to a rise in the drug trade.” 

“Okay, so the manufacturers of the supply are also, like, hero haters? Okay, but why would—“

“I’m not finished. We saw something like this previously, before you were active. It was all tied to one villain in particular, the Dragon.”

He never heard about this in the news. Never this name, never any mention. Certainly not someone that All Might fought—every fight he had made it into the mainstream. Well, except one. 

“I never heard about any Dragon, sir.”

”It was kept mostly underground. The thing was, we never caught him. There was only ever a few things known about him, and when we got close, he split—fled the country. We thought to maybe the United States or Mexico, but we couldn’t track him.” 

“So what? He’s back?” Oh, just what Izuku needs, juggling UA and the League and Himiko and Dad and this. Can’t he ever have a break? This is the first time he’s ever not wanted to be put on a case, if he’s honest. 

“That’s what we’re thinking. If the fires weren’t started, we’d have just thought it was another drug rig gaining power. But the fires were a personal touch. The Dragon has a fire Quirk; he starts all the fires by himself. That was one of the only things we ever knew about him, but not enough to identify.” 

Izuku furrows his brow. His hand tightens around the door handle, leather glove slipping against it with the pressure. There’s a strange feeling in his chest again.

“…What else did you know about him?”

“Well, we never had any information about his looks except for one thing,” Aizawa says, facing forward again. “Some sources alleged that he got his name from a large red dragon tattoo on his back.”

“Oh,” Izuku says. 

He opens the car door, leans over, and vomits onto the concrete pavement the car is parked on.

Chapter Text

He’s almost late for the opening ceremony for a multitude of reasons.

The first is this, plain and simple—Izuku wakes up late. His eyes open unnaturally, grogelly, at nine in the morning. Something is stabbing him in the side, and when he blearily shuffles a hand under his blankets to grab at it, he realizes the mysterious object is his phone. Fuck. He fell asleep texting Himiko last night, and he didn’t even plug his phone in. 

He checks the battery. 47%. Then he checks the time. 

Damn it. Izuku rolls out of bed—he must have forgotten to set his alarm. The All Might alarm clock stares at him from his bedside table. He looks back at his blanket, and there’s All Might, staring at him again. When Izuku looks out his window and realizes it’s raining, his eyes search the room to find his All Might umbrella. 

He feels as if encased by a million All Mights. They must be haunting him. They must be judging him, at the very least, with their saccharine blue eyes and their painful smiles. Heroes are never late.

Izuku fumbles his way out of bed, tangled in golden red sheets, and makes his way to the bathroom. It’s a bit hard to shower lately because he’s sporting some bruises the color of wildflowers along his torso. Fighting people twice his side is hard when he’s avoiding using the worst of his Quirk, especially when he feels neon lightning glittering underneath his skin. His shower takes longer than usual since he’s moving slower. He takes a longer look at the bruising—a mess of purple, green and yellow, blooming in a hundred different shades. Himiko would think it was beautiful. Izuku pinches the skin at the heart of the color; it aches and pulses off in different directions like the roots of a tree. He feels a sort of shame. A sort of pleasure, too. 

But he has to snap out of it eventually—he’s already running late. 

He contemplates just going in his All Might hoodie, but he’d probably get kicked out. And he’d totally look like some weird fanboy to all of his classmates, so that’d suck. Reluctantly, he pulls on the layers of the uniform. He spends another ten minutes packing his bag, because all his shit is across the house. His keys in the living room, his ID in the kitchen, his wallet in his room. Izuku also takes his temporary hero license just in case, but he doesn’t really know why. He slips it in the back of his wallet. 

The bike ride down to the train station is surprisingly uneventful, other than when he tried to call Shigaraki on the pay phone outside the convenience store and he didn’t pick up. Oh well. But the train comes late, which fucking sucks. So. There’s that. The train ride is still only 40 minutes, though, which is the usual time. 

He bikes down towards UA faster than usual to make up for lost time, and ends up almost crashing into a telephone pole. Idiot. Izuku readjusts, almost crashes into two people, continues on his journey. 

By the time he gets to UA, his bruises are screaming at him, he’s got a scraped knee and burning palms from gripping onto his bike handles. There’s a bit of dirt on the sleeve of his uniform jacket. And then he spends another ten minutes being confused about where the opening ceremony even is. The school is enlightening, and endlessly overwhelming in a good way, like taking a giant breath of fresh air after holding yourself underwater. It’s glittering and flashing, the sunlight reflecting off the window panes like thousands of little jewels. He feels for a second that this is some ancient castle housing a private society, a society which he would never normally be allowed into—Izuku is so out of place. And, well, he can’t find his place among the winding hallways and scattering of students and staff members. 

Am I an idiot? 

UA’s a big school. It’s fine. 

No, I’m like, completely an idiot. 

Well…

Whatever. He finds the wide-open doors to the opening ceremony. Most students are already sitting there, assigned by class. The ceilings are high, bright white lighting shining down on him—he isn’t used to being held in the light like this. Aldera’s more on the yellow, buzzy side. The students are all lined up, sitting in front of the stage, turned and talking to each other. Izuku feels a peak of something ugly, anxiety, he figures, rearing its head. Maybe he’s not ready to be social, is all. Izuku walks around, looks for a sign pointing to his class, and somehow bumps into one of the only people still standing. 

“Sorry, oh, uh, I’m sorry—“

”It’s fine,” says the nameless person in front of him. Izuku isn’t looking up, mostly out of embarrassment, so he doesn’t see whoever brushes him off. He’s glad for that. 

“Oh, and you have something in your hair. Again.” 

Izuku looks up. It’s fucking Eyebags. Fucking Eyebags with his violet hair and haunting dark eyes and penchant for pulling mysterious plants out of Izuku’s hair. What’d he do with that plum blossom?

And what did we say about calling him that name?

I mean, it’s pretty fitting.

“Huh?” Izuku says, because it must have been years since he talked to a normal, regular person about normal, regular person things. Shame digs deep into him, heating his face like little bursts of flame. He’s great at terrible first impressions, isn’t he? Or, rather, terrible second impressions. 

He looks up at Eyebags, watches the curve of his slender arm reach up and grasp something out of Izuku’s hair. A warm hand in his curls, tugging softly at some innocuous little object. 

It’s been a while since someone touched him like this. A while since someone touched him at all.

If he’s honest, it’s mostly his fault. He is an expert at ducking hugs and playful grasps from his father, and cautious around Himiko. He’d avoid Aizawa’s touches, too, if he ever made the effort to try. But Aizawa keeps his distance. And Izuku’s got nobody else, after all. He blushes in spite of himself. 

He watches Eyebags pull a green leaf out of his hair. Jeez, if his hair wasn’t dyed, Izuku probably could’ve gone the whole day without noticing it. Eyebags turns the leaf over in his hand, but just drops it onto the floor instead of handing it to Izuku this time. For some reason, there’s a pang sent through Izuku’s chest, like he’s missing something. Maybe he’s going crazy?

”You stand under trees a lot?” Eyebags asks. The remark is sort of deadpan, a little sarcastic, as if he means it to be scathing. Or maybe Izuku just can’t read tone, he doesn’t know. He tries not to take offense to it just in case. 

“Uh. Haha. I guess so?” Izuku tries to smile, though he stumbles over his words in that terrible little stutter he can’t kick. “Um, do you know where the general education class is sitting?”

”Yeah. I’m in it.”

”Oh. Uhm, me too!”

Eyebags blinks. Fuck, doesn’t Izuku know his name? What’s his name? Wait, is he even supposed to know his name? Izuku blinks back, hopelessly trapped in this stale sort-of-conversation. Then, Eyebags turns away wordlessly. Oh, okay. Let’s just ignore me then. 

Maybe he’s socially inept?

Like you?

You are so rude.

Maybe I did something wrong? Shit. Well, whatever. He follows Eyebags since they’re in the same class, and thankfully they sit at the very end of a long row of blue chairs, the rest of them filled with their soon-to-be classmates. Izuku’s right at the end, so he has nobody to talk to except Eyebags. Maybe he just won’t talk at all, so it’s not awkward, or… something…

I wish Himiko was here. 

Honestly, me too. 

He leans forward to look at the row of students passed Eyebags, who’s looking forward so focused it’s as if it could kill him to make any amount of eye contact with Izuku. What’s wrong with him? Is he ugly or something? Himiko doesn’t treat him like this. The only other person he knows that treats him like this is Aizawa. And Kacchan, he supposes. 

Speaking of Kacchan, where is he? 

Izuku expected something by now. The familiar sound of popping like little rockets, a growl from behind, a hot hand reaching toward him. Something to call back to the little talk they had last month when Kacchan found out he’d still wanted to go to UA. The back of Izuku’s head slamming against a brick wall again, just like last time. His skull pounding for the rest of the day like a dying star. 

He almost misses it. Not the pain, not the anxiety, but the knowledge that there would always be someone around to watch him. To keep up with him. A tether to his life, his real life, to keep him in check. Keep him from getting lost in long nights spent out, rolling with the punches, vomiting his guts out in response to his Quirk and some deep instinct to make himself lesser than. Maybe he has a tendency to become, what—codependent, like Mom used to say? 

Codependency is just a word made up by people who don’t understand need. Who don’t understand love. Kacchan used to be his best friend, after all. And wasn’t he still, to be watching over him like this? 

Izuku stands up from his chair and turns his head left and right, looking past the rows of filled chairs for his little anchor. Then he sees it.

In the very front, there’s a row of seats, completely empty. He looks at the sign posted next to it—HERO CLASS 1-A. Isn’t that where his anchor is supposed to be? It’s where Izuku is, in his dreams. He looks around to see if there are any students standing off in the corner, but finds none. The ceremony won’t start for another five minutes, but UA values punctuality. There is just a seat of sitting heads, Izuku, and no 1-A. 

“Hey, um, do you know where the hero classes went?” Izuku sits back down and barely looks at his scathing companion when he says it, since it seems they’re not on that level yet. 

“How should I know?” Eyebags replies, and his words are heavy. There’s some weight to the topic, maybe? Is he sensitive about something? 

Maybe Izuku’s projecting. Maybe he’s a bit sensitive over something. Over anything, actually. 

“Sorry, I just—I was wondering where they were.”

“…Okay.”

“Um. Okay.”

Izuku shifts in his plastic chair. He’s uncomfortable. His head is panging with anxiety—there’s nobody he knows here. Not even Aizawa. His stomach starts to churn uneasily, like there’s oil slicking in the water. He’s not supposed to be here, is he? He’s an ugly duckling among pruned swans. 

He puts his hands, sticky and damp with sweat, into the folds of his gray pockets. Tucked in the left side, his hand finds a folded piece of paper. Written on it, he knows, is Shigaraki’s number. 

—

When he gets home, his dad is waiting by the door. Fuck. 

When Izuku comes up the stairs and sees him there, the blackened form of his father, tall in his brown jacket, he almost considers turning the other direction. But Hisashi turns the other way, looks over at him, and his face brightens like the morning sun. 

“Oh, thank God,” Dad says, a habit picked up from Mom, because Dad is not a godly man. “You weren’t answering my texts. I got… I got a bit anxious, Izuku.”

Fuck. Yeah, he hadn’t replied to those in the last few days, had he? Not since he found out, anyways. 

Well, not really found out. Izuku had always known there was something wrong, something deeper, darker in the life of his father. His father was many things, but never a liar. Sure, sometimes he’d made promises he couldn’t keep, but he meant them every time. When he said he’d get rid of the heroes, he meant it. He always did.

So, yeah, Izuku knew that the company his dad was working for in the US wasn’t real. It’s not like Hisashi was going to great lengths to hide it, or anything. He was vague about the corporation, what he was really doing there. He couldn’t even lie to his son for the sake of covering his own tracks, Izuku guessed, so he opted for not saying anything at all. That was the difficult part—if his father never talked about work, how was Izuku supposed to find out what he was doing? 

Which was the reason he started talking to the League. Part of the reason, anyway. 

“…Sorry,” Izuku mumbles, “I just got a bit busy. With school and stuff, you know?” Fuck. He wonders what he looks like in the eyes of his father, his son in a hero school uniform, looking so much like his mom. Maybe Izuku always knew they were far apart, but he never took them for being on completely different sides. 

He thought it was just tax shit. For a few months, after some talks with Shigaraki, he thought it might be drugs. But that’s as far as it went. As dark as he could ever imagine his dad really going, because he was just…

Just what? A great father? A good person? A loving husband? He was none of those things. He was nothing. He was a man in a tall black suit, standing in the back of the graveyard, watching Izuku pay his respects. He was a villain who set fires to the very things his son adored, who took advantage of addicts and the poor, who drank until he couldn’t see straight. He was a chimney leaking smoke out of a burning house. Maybe that’s why Izuku is the way he is. Maybe he just never stepped outside of the fire. 

“That’s—that’s okay. I’d just really appreciate it if you could talk to me next time, okay? I’m still your father, Izuku.”

Right. Still his father. My blood is your blood, and all. 

Izuku nods. He wonders how much of this is real. He wonders how much of this is some ploy. He wonders, almost absentmindedly, if this is all some big misunderstanding. 

Hisashi raises a hand then, and for some reason Izuku thinks he’s going to hit him, and he almost flinches away—but it comes down, soft, light as if Izuku is fragile, onto his shoulder. “The uniform looks really good on you, kid. I’m proud of you, yeah?”

It takes a second to hit. There’s a warmth that spreads through Izuku’s body, shakily from his shoulder, and for a second he thinks it’s just the natural heat that comes from being near his father. But it opens a chasm in him, a deep pit he didn’t know was inside of his stomach, wrenching it wider and wider. Izuku smiles even though he knows he shouldn’t. 

“I just really love you. You know that, right?”

”…Yeah. I love you too, Dad.” 

Hisashi breaks into a grin. 

—

“Listen. I just—I don’t know if I’m comfortable being a part of it anymore. I have a lot of stuff going on, and doing nightly patrols and working the Toga case is a lot on my plate. School’s coming up, and—“

“You knew the details of this job when you signed up for it. I get that it’s a lot of work, but that’s what being a hero is, kid. You had the option to back out.” 

“I know. But I just don’t… We’re not making good progress on the Toga case, anyway. Now you want to spread our resources even thinner by getting involved with the Dragon? I just don’t see the point.” 

“We do what I say we do. We’re closing in on Toga Himiko, whether you want to believe it or not. We’ll close in on the Dragon, too. Until we do, it’s all hands on deck.” 

“You don’t understand. I’m saying—“

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand. We’re on this case. We’re not leaving.” 

Izuku hangs up the phone in frustration. He slams it into the holder, turns his red sneakers away from the telephone booth, and stomps his way back into the bar. There’s nobody here again, except for Shigaraki and Kurogiri, loyal as ever. 

“I’m sick of all these heroes and villains. They all have attitudes,” he says, because there’s still an image to be put up. A separation of himself and the Rabbit that needs to be acted out. 

“You have an attitude,” Shigaraki says. 

“I know. I’m a hero, you know?”

”Hardly.”

Izuku grumbles. He slides into the dark barstool, only one seat between him and Shigaraki now. He figures now that there’s stakes in the game for the both of them, he can be more comfortable. And, well, there’s just a certain familiarity. “So, there’s good news, and there’s bad news.”

”As per usual,” Kurogiri says, and Izuku can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or not. He’s not sure if Kurogiri has the capacity to be sarcastic yet. 

“Right. Well, the good news is, I went to the opening ceremony to get a good look at all the students. Bad news is, all the 1-A students were gone.” 

He feels the way Shigaraki turns, his reddened neck craning slow like a door. Izuku tries not to look, because frankly it just freaks him out. “Apparently their teacher, Eraserhead, took them out for some Quirk test instead of letting them go to the ceremony. That means I didn’t get a good look at them, or their Quirks.” 

There’s silence for a second. It’s not his fault, but it feels like it’s his first failure. And it’s not even his first day. 

“…If you were apart of the hero course, you would have seen the successor from today. That’s what you’re telling me.” Shigaraki’s voice really creeps him out. Goosebumps rattle down Izuku’s neck, his forearms, his chest. This is his least favorite part about visiting—the part where he’s distinctly aware of what Shigaraki can do, and distinctly aware of the fact that he will do it. 

“It’s not even the first week yet, okay? Let me work it out. Remember that field trip they’re supposed to be taking? I’ll get everything I need on that as soon as possible. And you know what I said about pulling your weight?”

He’s getting that sweaty feeling in his hands again, the one that makes them all tingly and damp. He feels the need to vomit. Izuku’s only had, what, cereal and a few protein bars throughout the day? Is anything even in his stomach? 

“…That should be fine,” and it’s Kurogiri speaking this time, Kurogiri the savior. Izuku flushes in relief; the heat leaves his face like he’s finally put out the fire deep inside the hearth. Shouldn’t it be Kurogiri that’s running this thing? He’s the most level headed here, it seems. 

Izuku nods. “Yeah, it’ll be fine, okay? Trust me. I’m good at what I do.”

Maybe that’s the worst part, the fact that he’s good at what he does. Maybe that’s what’s cursing him. 

Chapter Text

It’s the night before, and he can’t sleep. The bruises are weighty on Izuku’s side, and his stomach is writhing with hunger and anxiety. He feels it churning deep inside, like there’s an ocean storm in the caverns of his body. Uneasy in his bed, he turns. 

He’d gotten home from the bar at around ten, which was early for him, but still his body had been weary and thrumming with some kind of ache. Some extreme kind of tired, he supposes. He’d read about something like that in one of his books a while ago—he’s missing REM sleep, or something, and his body is rushing to catch up. That would explain some things, maybe; the way he couldn’t get up in the mornings, the way even his alarm couldn’t wake him, the way he found his eyes closing halfway through patrol and opening again an hour later in a different place, having arrested various criminals and solved various accidents without even knowing. Maybe he’s floating through time, maybe he’s just glitching through it. Maybe his brain is so full of information that it’s choosing to block out the unimportant stuff to make more room. Izuku figures he’s lucky, anyway; on the various nights that this has happened, Aizawa seems to act like there’s been nothing amiss. 

But he can’t sleep. He’s tired, bones heavy like lead, but he can’t sleep. Izuku lifts his head for a second, tries to find the silhouette of All Might in the dark. The red light of his alarm reads 1:12 AM, and the glow reflects against the smile of the figurine placed above it. He’s always felt a bit creeped out from this, because the red light from under makes All Might’s face sharp, teeth painted red. 

Okay, so that’s a wasted few hours. He hasn’t slept a wink. Fuck, he has, like, school. Tomorrow. Actually, technically, today. In a few hours. At eight in the morning. Which means he needs to get on the train by seven. Which means he needs to get up at six, at least. Which means that he needs to be up in five hours, so honestly, is it even worth it to sleep?

You’ve been up since nine in the morning.

So?

You need to sleep. Desperately. You won’t make it through the school day if you don’t. 

It’s not that bad. I’ve only been up, what, sixteen hours?

So you don’t sleep for five? That turns into twenty-one. 

Stop doing math. I’m tired. 

Oh, really?

No. 

He shifts in bed again, screws his eyes shut like something bad is about to happen. Waits for sleep to come. Time passes slow, and for a second his body starts to sink into the mattress and he almost feels like he could—

Bzzt.

Izuku flinches a bit at the familiar noise. He forgot to silence his phone, he guesses. He shifts over to face it, plugged in on his night stand. Opens his bleary eyes and sees the screen lit up in low gray tones. Should I check it?

No. You need to sleep. We already discussed this, what, seven times?

What if it’s important?

Sleep is important. Sleep is very important. 

What if this is more important?

It’s not going to be. If it’s from Aizawa, he can handle it himself, or call for backup. Heroes tend to be capable these days. 

What if it’s from Himiko? 

Don’t call her that. Her name is Toga. 

Now that I think about it, someone else chimes in, we haven’t seen her in a bit. 

It’s been, like, three days. 

That’s a lot of days.

Oh, fuck it. Izuku plants his hands against the mattress, sits up, and grabs at his phone. 

BLOODSUCK3RR : sooooo bored ;(((((((((

BLOODSUCK3RR : wanna hang ?! 

He stares down at the screen in his scarred hand. Izuku blinks once, twice. 

allmightfanboy76 : yeah

allmightfanboy76 : lol

—

He goes out in unfamiliar clothing this time, mostly because the police think they’re closing in on her and he doesn’t want to take any chances, partly because he wants to try something new. Izuku needs to test out the costume before he really has to use it in the field anyways. 

And he decides he likes it within the first five minutes. The pants are dark, loose, and lightweight. The undershirt is padded and the sleeves go all the way down to his hands, so when he puts the leather gloves on there’s no free skin. The metal toed boots give him a bit of height, and the big swath of brown badger fur that goes over is heavy but breathable. The badger fur is actually his favorite part: the big sleeves end just below his elbows so the fabric doesn’t bunch up around his hands, the hood is big and fluffy so it covers his whole head without heating up his neck, and every time his hand feels around his torso he finds a new pocket. 

And there are, like, an insane amount of pockets. They’re deep, too. He could probably fit Himiko’s Stanley cup in here. 

The only things he leaves behind tonight are the mask, because it covers his whole face and he prefers the casual, paper one for now, and the swatch of knives and detachable claws that are supposed to be lining his pockets and attached to his gloves. He’s not fighting tonight, or at least he shouldn’t have to. 

He sticks a few things in his pockets, though, of course: hero license, keys, gun, wallet, notebook. The necessities in case anything goes wrong. That’s the thing about his life, he supposes. He’s always preparing for the worst case scenario, because the best case scenario doesn’t exist. 

Izuku lifts his window without a second thought and climbs onto the fire escape. Despite everything, he feels good. He thinks maybe he even feels great. 

The temperature has dropped a bit since the evening, and it’s cold even for April. The wind blows, though not too sharply, and it carries the scent of the familiar flowering buds. It’s a wonder this smell reaches him, because the alley between the two apartments in the complex that he drops into is laden with pavement and brick. It’s a bit far from the flower gardens that are kept around the entrance of the complex, with their yellow tulips and their primroses. He squints to see as he heads towards the entrance road with all its bursting flowers, and soon his eyes adjust to the black. For a second, Izuku stops and picks at a flower in the dark, for a reason he can’t really discern. He leads himself by the light of the street lamps, and imagines the croon of Himiko’s laugh reverberating through his head. 

—

He likes this, Izuku realizes, he likes this, and it makes him nauseated. So sick. 

He’s watching Himiko chug at the bottle in the dark, the car light above them creating a golden halo across her blond hair, her pale neck craned like a swan’s in the night. The rain is coming down heavy, falling onto the car ceiling and against the windows like millions of little crystals, and when he looks out the window he can’t see anything except the shimmer of falling water against the black. “You know,” he says uneasily, because something rotten is squirming inside of him like a worm in an apple, “this isn’t the best spot to hang out, Himiko.” 

This isn’t good. He shouldn’t be feeling like this. 

She puts the bottle down, letting it sit in the black cup holder between their knees; hers dressed in white wool knee-socks over pale tights and his in the dark pants. When he looks up at the sharp glass of her face, her lips are stained something dark—blood or cherry wine, he doesn’t know. She glances over at him, smiling that small way she does when she’s holding something back. “Why not? You said this area would be good for playing hide away.”

”Yeah, but that’s from the cops. It’s not ideal for, you know, hanging around.” 

“What? Scared to be alone in the rain with me?”

That’s not even the half of it. He nods anyway. 

She laughs. “You’re so silly, little bunny. Or—wait, what are you now?” 

Izuku follows her gaze to his new outfit, or really the furry swath draped over his shoulders. When he looks down at it, he’s kind of surprised it’s really there. Maybe he’s just not used to it yet. “Oh, uh, badger. Isn’t that nice? But this is only for special occasions, until later. I haven’t found a really good time to, uh, introduce everybody to it. Since I’m kind of not supposed to have it.”

“This is a special occasion?” 

He looks back up at her, surprised at her tone. She sounds unfamiliarly touched. Her eyes are widened and glistening, like she’s far away in some dream, seeing everything for the first time. He wonders what it’s like, to feel like this, so taken with something so apart from you, so enamored with nothing but a ray of light. 

Izuku swallows. “Yeah,” he breathes, “it is.” 

Saying this makes something inside of him shake, something small and sucked in tight like a cocoon. It hurts worse, maybe, because it’s true. 

—

It’s already 4 AM, so what’s the point? 

That is so not an excuse.

The night’s already ruined! That’s all I’m saying!

“Come on, just have one. It’s totally not even that bad for you.”

“No, Himiko, I already told you—it’s a school night.” 

“But, like, you know you want to. Like, you know. I mean, look at you. You haven’t been having any fun at all in the last few weeks.”

She kind of has a point. 

Don’t do it, oh, I swear if you do it—

He takes the open bottle from her manicured hands and throws his head back to chug it. Despite advertisements, it does not taste like cherry, and in fact is just some syrupy blend of tangy, almost-sweet liquor and a bitter aftertaste that makes him gag. It honestly fucking hurts going down. Izuku figures that’s good, because all of this will dissuade him from ending up like his father. Sure, drinking like this helps with his anxiety, but never enough for it to be worth it. Probably. 

“Okay, there. See? It was delicious and fun, but now I’m done.”

“You didn’t even drink half of it!” Himiko exclaims, a whine in her tone like this is something necessary, and rips it out of his gloved hands. A drop of it spills onto the length of brown-black fur around Izuku’s shoulders, but he strangely doesn’t mind. The liquid sinks deep into the fabric and disappears from view. I guess it’s pretty thick, isn’t it?

How are we not burning up?

The shirt’s pretty lightweight. Also, the AC’s on. 

The AC has been on this whole time?!

I didn’t even know Toga’s car had a working AC. 

It didn’t—wait, did she get this fixed?! 

They take turns gulping down the sour-sweet concoction and switching the radio between channels, Himiko looking for the pop channels and Izuku the hero reports and drama stations. So what, he likes it when Midnight and Mt. Lady fight in public. The late night stations always have the best recaps of it, anyway. 

Rain stops, comes again, and then passes. It’s only for about twenty minutes or so, but it rains hard and heavy just like last time. They listen to the melodic tapping against the glass like rhinestones falling from a beaded necklace. 

His stomach is warm with the drink, but not uncomfortably. It’s like there are sparks going off in his chest, slow and light but colorful like fireworks. He leans the back of his skull against the head rest. 

“Can I tell you a secret?” He speaks almost without thinking. 

Izuku feels her gaze turn to him like he always does. Maybe it’s his honed senses, or maybe it’s just how people feel around Himiko. “Of course, Mikuchan,” she murmurs, the quiet declaration of her voice drowning out the sound of the radio. 

“That job I want to get you? I’m working with the same people. That’s kind of the reason I’m going to UA—I mean, I was going to go anyway, but I’m doing a job for them over there.” 

Himiko doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. “So, wait, what are you doing?”

”They have me looking for a student. I’m a spy, basically. I have to figure out which student they need to kill.” 

It’s not everything, but it’s something, isn’t it? Something he needs to get off his chest. He needs to let something go. Let something free. Reach into the back of his own head and drop some of the weight. 

“So you’re….” 

She trails off. The silence plummets his mood. He’s never said this aloud to anyone, never confessed what it is he’s doing. 

“You’re working with villains?” Himiko asks, and Izuku knows her gaze is hardening even if he can’t see it. “But you’re a hero, aren’t you? I don’t get it.” 

Izuku bristles with shame, the drink in his stomach bubbling up uncomfortably. He hasn’t eaten. Fuck, he hasn’t even slept. What is he doing? Why is he doing this? Anything of this?

”I know, but it’s just—they have something I want. Connections. I’m looking for someone, and they might know where to find him.” And doesn’t that sound like such a sorry excuse now? Forgive him for everything, he’s just looking for his dad. His dad that’s right there in front of him almost every day, his dad that holds his shoulder and brings him gifts and sends him money. 

”And you know, I’m a hero, and I can stop it before it goes too far. I’d rather have me doing it than someone who genuinely wants the kid dead, right? It just makes more sense. It makes the most sense, Himiko.” 

He shuts his eyes in some infantile way of shutting down the blame. Izuku doesn’t want to face it, maybe. 

And then the sound of something, Himiko smacking her lips together, breaks the tension. It’s an odd thing. His eyes open wide like starlets for a reason he can’t comprehend. “Well, that’s okay, then,” Himiko says. “I always knew you weren’t a bad guy, Miku. And if you were a villain, well, you’d just fit in with me!”

His face breaks out in warmth, and Izuku looks over at her smiling form, expression rippling like water as she grins with far too many teeth. He smiles back. She’s always accepted him, hero or not. Why would it be anything different now? 

—

He almost can’t keep his eyes open, but Izuku still can’t bring himself to regret it. 

It’s probably the alcohol that’s keeping the anxiety at bay. It’s a little chilly for April, but his body feels warm and lithe like a snake’s, and when Himiko drops him off just before the sun rises he makes it back to his apartment and gets dressed with ease. It’s been, what—two, three years since he last wore a tie? He can’t remember—and normally his fingers would shake in uncertainty, but he loops the fabric now with a sort of practiced calm. Izuku likes this, likes this feeling of almost-optimism, the notion in his mind that everything might just work out. 

He doesn’t really know what’s making him feel like this, mostly because he doesn’t yet realize what he’s missing. 

On the way to the train station, he passes along early crowds and street vendors setting up their carts. Almost without thinking, and completely without worrying, he buys a bundle of freshly fried korokke for breakfast. Izuku bites into them, tastes the crunch of breadcrumbs and potato. It’s hot on his tongue; he coughs a little, chews the first few bites fast, but they’re still good. They’re great, in fact. 

Izuku’s head is strangely silent on the way to UA, and he doesn’t notice for a startlingly long while. He’s preoccupied on the train; the movement is making his stomach turn with nausea in a way it usually doesn’t, and he’s fumbling around with his backpack to make sure he hasn’t forgotten anything. He sees most of what he needs: school supplies, wallet, school ID, extra notebook in case he gets bored. Am I forgetting something? He asks, because he’s feeling weirdly loopy. 

He gets no reply. 

Hello?

Nobody speaks. 

Izuku swallows past the lump lodged in the back of his throat. He continues looking through the bag, all the small compartments and hidden pockets. He can’t recall anything forgotten, but then again he’s the only person inside his own head for the first time in forever. Other people usually keep track of stuff like this. 

He zips the bag back up, turns around, and is suddenly very hot. The tie is too  tight, the friction of the layers of fabrics dragging against each other ringing in his ears. Not to mention that sleep is dragging his bones down, because he hasn’t slept all day. He really is—what’s a good word for it?—a mess. At least, that’s what Aizawa would say. 

Oh, yeah. Aizawa’s going to be there. 

The thought of him makes Izuku’s body tense up even more, tight and heavy like a bomb. Sure, Aizawa won’t be his teacher, because Izuku’s only in gen-ed. But maybe they’ll see each other in the hallways, brush arms or make eye contact across a room, and recognition will flash somewhere deep in Aizawa’s irises. Izuku will know. And then he’ll be done. 

The thought sobers him up, to the point he realizes that he was drunk in the first place. Maybe it was the fried food that put an early end to it, maybe it was the hit of reality. Sleep pulls at his muscles like lead, and briefly he considers getting off and taking the next train back home; partly to sleep and partly to plan his next move. 

But the train’s already pulled to the stop. Shigaraki would hate if he missed the first day of class. 

Chapter Text

So there he is throwing up in another bathroom again, and it feels different—Izuku figures it’s because there’s alcohol and fried food coming up this time, not stomach acid and black tar from a Quirk overused. It sort of hurts this time, too, because he doesn’t mean to. No, this is completely involuntary. 

The bathrooms at UA are almost pristine. He leans in against smooth porcelain over brightened tile, the floors scrubbed clean of everything he’s usually accustomed to seeing; all the mysterious grit and dark stains. Strangely, Izuku almost wishes he could stay here, but he’s almost late for class. 

The nausea subsides almost immediately after the sudden release. The back of his throat burns like wildfire, and when he tries to swallow he just ends up gagging again. He heaves, sighs, and then stands shakily. Izuku’s got places to be, and he can’t afford to stay here all day, vomiting liquor and crouching woozily. His backpack is hefty when he lifts it, and when he goes to flush the toilet he almost falls over. 

Dude. This sucks. 

I wonder what could have caused that. 

Don’t give me attitude. 

He almost doesn’t even realize they’re back. 

Holy shit!

Language. You’re in a school. 

Sorry.

And just when he was about to worry, too. 

(Well, he’d been worrying all morning, but they didn’t need to know that.)

He unlocks the bathroom door and heads to the sink. His mouth is dry, and he cups the rushing water to his face, swallowing the liquid clean as glass. They must really have high standards here at UA, huh? 

There’s nobody else in the bathroom, which is enough of a sign that he needs to get out of there. He ducks out and rushes through the halls to find the class—there’s only a few more students lingering, everybody desperate to be in class prim and proper. In a school like UA, if you’re not five minutes early, you’re late. Izuku digs into his pocket, finds the crumpled up map of the campus he’s been given (which, he notes, is convenient for more than just getting to class), and swerves to the hallway on his right—

—And bumps into someone. This someone is tall, broad, and Izuku is pushed back a bit just by the force. The clash makes his head spins with dizziness and, fuck, is he still tipsy? He thought he got all that out just now. “Oh—I’m so sorry,” he rushes to apologize in that comfortable, second-natured way he has, and surely this must be a teacher, right? Someone dressed in black instead of uniform, someone with long, dark hair, with black eyes and—

Holy shit it’s Aizawa. 

Izuku stares up, agape. 

He swallows hard looking into Aizawa’s eyes, hardened like shining black opal. He thinks oh, I’m really caught now. Thinks how’s prison going to be? Thinks Mom would be so mad at me. Thinks I’m your biggest fan. Above all, Izuku waits for it—waits for the inevitable. 

But Aizawa just looks down at him with that familiar little furrow in his brow. The one that he gets when he’s just annoyed or mildly displeased, not vindicated. “Get to class, kid,” he says, and then side-steps out of his way. Izuku looks back, watching him move briskly to where Izuku can only assume the hero classes are waiting. He breathes a shaky sigh, wavering in the hallway, chest wound up tight like a landmine. 

Aizawa didn’t even recognize his voice. For some reason, Izuku feels almost disappointed. 

—

Class is decidedly boring, and Izuku almost considers skipping the rest of the day to go home and take a nap, because he almost falls asleep in math and English. But he has to be here, at least for all of the first day. Shigaraki would be so pissed if he left.

The general education students are more pulled back than he expected. They don’t really talk to each other, mostly small compliments or good morning’s, brisk introductions. There are no discussions about Quirks or villain attacks that happened earlier in the morning, just the curriculum, the different English units they’d be going through. 

This is the most normal school day he’s had in a long time. There is no yelling, no pops of burning explosions, no early-morning snickering and laughing at his expense. His body is buzzing with anxiety, laden with loose electricity. He shifts in his seat once, twice, three times. It’s like his body and his brain haven’t connected, haven’t come to the same conclusion. There is no Bakugo Katsuki to start his day. Izuku hasn’t even seen him in the hallways. 

It’s passing period, so half of his classmates are out in the hallway, in the bathroom or talking to friends in other classes. He doesn’t have anything to do, so he considers putting his head down, but if he does he’ll just end up sleeping through lunch and the rest of the classes; that would not be a very good first impression. He tries to shift his focus to something else instead. 

The class is bright—the lights are off, but the windows to his left scale from the floor to the ceiling, and the Sun shines into every crack and crevice. It makes his eyes burn a bit, more used to the dark. The desks are hard wood, the plastic chair digging into his back. He closes his eyes just for a second, finds sleep looming silently, and opens them as to not give in. He looks around again for something new to keep his attention, and lands on the purple-headed boy sitting in front of him. 

He knew his name now, or maybe he just thought he did. Shin… Something? Shinto? Shinso. Shinso? Eyebags, but if Izuku called him Eyebags to his face, he’d get sent to the principal’s office for harassment or bullying. 

And Nedzu is terrifying. 

Yeah, might want to stay away from him while you’re here doing heroic.. villainous.. whatever activities. 

The whole Shigaraki thing is rubbing me the wrong way. 

In my days, we didn’t bother with this undercover idea, we just killed—

Calm down. We’ll figure it out.

“Hey, umm.. Shi—Um, excuse me,” Izuku tries to speak, and when his voice cracks halfway through saying the guy’s maybe-name, he sort of veers off course. The boy doesn’t look back, and Izuku is left to stare at the pale nape of his neck. It sort of reminds him of Himiko’s, long and thin like a beautiful sea bird. 

“Um.. Plum blossom guy? Hello?” He attempts to speak up. 

Eyebags finally turns around. His face is thin, almost sheet white like his neck, cheeks unflushed like a corpse. Izuku swallows, struck with a strange sense of intimidation staring into his dark eyes, a stark flash of white and purple. Eyebags just sort of squints, glares. 

Izuku’s throat is suddenly dry. Fuck, it really has been a long time since he held a genuine conversation with someone his age, hasn’t it?

”You’re the plum blossom guy. You always have something in your hair.” 

Izuku sucks at his bottom lip, tries to smile. Feels terribly awkward. “…Yeah, you know what, that makes more sense. Haha. Um, anyways, I just have a question for—“

”Okay.”

He blinks. Eyebags is just staring at him, unmoving. Izuku sort of wants to kill himself, if only to escape this weird kind-of-conversation they’re having. “So, um, do you know when lunch is?”

”It’s on the schedule paper.” 

He nods, in a really enthusiastic way that moves both his shoulders and his head, mostly because he just wants to seem friendly. “So, um, yeah, but I,” he sighs, “I didn’t catch your name?”

“Shinso Hitoshi.” 

Izuku nods again. God, if you’re up there like Mom said, please save me from this. Please. I’m actually begging you. I can’t take this anymore. 

“That’s, um, awesome. I’m Midoriya Izuku.” 

“…Okay.” 

Eyebags—well, Shinso—turns back around. The bell rings for the passing period to be over, and Izuku hadn’t even noticed the majority of the students had returned. Too captivated by this awkward interaction, for some reason, with this stranger who isn’t really a stranger. 

That was so fucking embarrassing. 

I’m going to throw up everywhere. 

This year is going to be my personal Hell. 

Every day I wonder why I continue to live. 

Izuku wipes his sweaty palms along his pants. It’s only been three periods and the only thing he’s thinking is I want to go home. 

—

Izuku sleeps through almost all of lunch. He ends up crashing at the table the majority of his classmates are sitting at a few seats away after freaking out a bit over Lunch Rush. Because, y’know, it’s Lunch Rush. 

Before, though, he finds himself staring at the Class 1-A table, all of them huddled together—already making friends. He cranes his neck to look, and his gaze finds Kacchan easy, like a moth to a flame. He does a quick head count after everybody’s sat down, Izuku does a quick head count. 

Only nineteen kids… Huh. I wonder what happened to the twentieth. 

When he looks back at his own class, he finds Shinso staring in the same direction. Izuku can just barely see the glint in his eyes, the glare as if realizing something. 

He noticed too, huh. Is that what he’s going for? Transferring?

Izuku hums. He’s not the only one desperate for their life, it seems. 

He wakes up with just enough time to throw out his uneaten lunch and grab his bag as the bell rings for passing period. He goes back to his regular classes, with his regular classmates, in a regular classroom. Izuku almost doesn’t hate it. But almost isn’t enough for him, for this sick want to take the place of someone, of one of those prim hero students in their special costumes and their special curriculum. Maybe Shinso feels it too. 

Izuku doesn’t like to make assumptions, though. He figures he’ll find out soon enough. 

As seventh period starts, he sinks into his chair right behind Shinso. He feels a bit less anxious because at least now he knows someone, even if that someone doesn’t particularly enjoy his presence. The nap revitalized him, at least a bit, and now he can open his eyes without his corneas burning. But now his limbs are heavy with drowsiness from temporary sleep, and he doesn’t bother writing any notes down while his hands feel like lead. At least he’s awake and aware enough to pay attention. 

Well, sort of pay attention. Izuku’s mostly just staring, wide-eyed, at the back of Shinso’s neck, waiting for the day to be over. He’s sort of zoned-out, mostly just thinking about what Aizawa’s doing right now, if he recognized him, how long he has until Aizawa does— 

Boom!

Izuku jumps, startled, hairs on end. His head whips to the window, and his first instinct is to get up, to rush toward the sound, but he can’t. It’s not his time, nor his place. His emergency gear isn’t even in his bag, because of course he forgot to bring it. 

The rest of his classmates are looking too, even Shinso. He’s comforted by this, the concept that he is experiencing the same thing with another person he knows, even if only briefly. The lonesome feeling he’s been used to for two, maybe three years of late nights and deep cuts, is almost gone. 

“Ah—Just the hero course,” their teacher speaks, trying to draw the class’s attention again. “They’re currently in their hero training class. That’s double-blocked, so expect to hear some noises like that during seventh and eighth period.” 

“I wonder what kind of Quirk that is,” one of his classmates murmurs. The class has devolved into small talk now, the teacher fraying to keep them all together. They’ve all turned to each other, taking the opportunity for small talk.

“My guess is the first year Bakugo Katsuki,” he speaks, without thinking. “He has an explosive Quirk. I think it’s a nitroglycerin-like substance in his sweat, haha.” 

Everybody turns to him, bright eyed, mouths closed. He swallows. “Um, or so I heard, haha.” He flushes under their gaze, and he feels honestly just like an embarrassed little kid—not a vigilante accustomed to rolling with the punches, not the singular holder of One For All, not anybody at all except Midoriya Izuku, his mother’s son. 

“Oh,” scatters around the room, as people shrug it off and turn back to each other and ignore him promptly. He sighs in relief. That feeling of having everybody’s eyes on him is familiar, and usually comes with something violent. Izuku feels his heart beating, and forces his breathing to slow. 

He turns forward. Shinso is looking at him. 

“So that’s your thing? Quirks?”

“Well, it’s not plum blossoms.”

—

They’re sitting in the restaurant again, and Izuku has never hated it more. Ever since he met his dad here, it carries a certain weight. Like there’s something here that shouldn’t be.

He’s up early, five AM, and his uniform is stuffed into his backpack. He doesn’t bring his favorite backpack—the yellow one his mom bought him at the start of middle school—so he brings the black one with no brand name. It’s easier when it’s something so popular it becomes unidentifiable, when he becomes unidentifiable. It’s just hard when he has to strip away his personality to do it. 

“You okay?” Aizawa asks. 

Izuku blinks back past his sunglasses, and turns away from the window towards Aizawa’s dark features and questioning glance. “What? Yeah, I’m fine.”

He’d gone home after school, taken his uniform off, and knocked out on his bed in his boxers and socks. He’d slept all the way until twelve in the morning and woken up in a cold sweat. Another nightmare, he supposes. He can’t remember. Now he’s under the saccharine yellow lamp-light before the sun is up, staring into the black of the night outside the pane of glass. It’s Tuesday morning, the second day of school. His dad should be around. 

“So was it—it was the first day of school at UA, right?” He tries to test the waters, because maybe something is going to happen, but maybe not. 

“It was good. Well, I expelled a student. But nothing the class can’t come back from.” 

Okay. Casual, friendly, like they’re supposed to be. His tone is gruff, but not careful, not dancing around something. So that’s where student number twenty went. Wonder how fast he pulled the plug. 

“Really? What happened?”

“Some people just don’t have what it takes,” Aizawa says. “It’s cruel to let a kid keep believing in a dream they’ll never achieve.” 

It’s the way he says it that sends a pang of unwellness down Izuku’s throat and into his stomach. The way Aizawa sounds so far past him, sounds so separate. They aren’t talking as equals, but as student and teacher, in a way Izuku’s never liked—because in Aizawa’s mind, the student never surpasses the master. In fact, if Izuku was actually a student, he’d have been expelled a long while ago. Probably just like that other guy, too. What did Aizawa say, that late night in the summer? That he’d never be a hero?

Well, fine. Izuku’s something better than that. He found the League. He found Himiko. Hell, he found his own father. And maybe the way he thought heroism was when he was a kid isn’t the reality; maybe sometimes you have to be a bit more in the gray rather than in the light. Maybe you have to do the hard things, make the sacrifices. Being a hero doesn’t mean you have to be a hero to everyone. And Aizawa doesn’t get it, has been a hero for longer than Izuku’s been alive but doesn’t understand. That’s why he can’t succeed. That’s why Izuku has to drag him along, give him a little piece of bait when the leads dry up, send him in the wrong direction. For the greater good. 

“Is that boy still bothering you?” Aizawa asks suddenly. “The one who gave you the concussion?”

He doesn’t expect it. “Um, no. We’re in different places now.”

It isn’t technically a lie, though he doesn’t have to practice this kind-of-truth just yet. Tsukauchi isn’t around too much. But you can never have too much caution with a Quirk like that, just like you can never have too much caution with a Quirk like Izuku’s. He’s sure they know that, at least. 

Now that I think about it, did he know I lied about the drug thing?

I mean, it’s a vape, it doesn’t really count. Right? 

Right?

Guys?

Guys.

Okay, so maybe it counts. Fuck. He deflates noticeably in his seat. They’re waiting for two cups of black coffee and he’s anxious without it. Maybe it’ll make him more anxious, now that he thinks about it, but he doesn’t really know. He doesn’t drink coffee that much, mostly just energy drinks. He doesn’t know which one’s healthier. Neither? Neither, probably. He’s got to get back to that diet All Might tried to get him on. 

Why don’t you call him by his name? He wanted you to call him that. 

Izuku shudders at the thought. Toshinori is a world away.

And Izuku’s, like, a professional. Well, he likes to think that he is. He’s mostly a professional. Professionals don’t tend to carry guns in their waistbands in case they’re rendered Quirkless again, by their own partner or by some possible Quirk malfunction, but who knows? Maybe experts do. Maybe the real experts are the Quirkless, accustomed to fighting the old-fashioned way, to using just their own wits and their own bodies and the man made weapons that the world so quickly forgot. And, fuck it, the gun brings him comfort. 

“Listen,” Aizawa says, with a suddenly low tone like he’s trying to calm a caged animal, and Izuku almost immediately checks out in a fever of anxiety. It hits him like a train; he could vomit.

“I know you’ve been overwhelmed lately, and I’m not stupid. You’re a kid. You have school, and a whole other life.” 

Is he getting fired? Is that what this is? They’re breaking the news to him now that they’ve got him cornered in this diner, with innocent civilians in the kitchen, so he can’t escape? He feels his heart beating like a jackrabbit’s. For a second, he feels a twitch in his finger, like searching for a trigger and a great load of electricity. 

“But there’s another case they want us to consult on. It’ll be in the background, and it won’t take priority over Toga Himiko. I just got the news tonight. We’ll get a debrief on it over the next few days, and we’ll check out future crime scenes. But that’s about it—I’m a teacher, too, and it’s necessary to lessen the workload, especially at the beginning of the year.” 

Izuku exhales. “Oh. Okay.” 

“…What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just thought it was something else.”

“It’s never anything else. This is your job. You know that, right?” Aizawa asks, casting judgement already.

And isn’t this such a problem, that Aizawa is always casting judgement before he tries to understand? Izuku sighs, flustered, still anxious from the aftermath of the shot of adrenaline. His brain knows it’s okay but his body doesn’t, not yet. He rubs at his thigh with his palm, wishes for a swath of deep, soft fabric to pet. Wishes for the melodic ringing of laughter from the many-toothed mouth of a girl he isn’t supposed to be comforted by. 

Electricity is buzzing through his body. He needs to let it out at some point—just not now. There will come a point, he knows. He’s got a job to do today anyways, just not what Aizawa thinks. Class 1-A is supposed to be going on a field trip soon, after all. 

Chapter Text

“The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.”

- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

—

He’s got a migraine in his head, a watch that’s two minutes behind on his wrist, two Aspirins and some lint in his pocket, and a desperate need for a drink. Coffee or a vodka shot, he’s not sure. 

The bright lights in the hallway are beating down at Shota in some offensive, aggressive way. They’re too pushy. He’s reminded vaguely of Hizashi, but he waves that thought away. The lights aren’t that bad. And he’s only wading through the hallways after the bell mostly because he’s letting his new class simmer. He does the same thing every year: test their reaction time, see how long it takes the students to notice him. Of course, he tested them the day before classes, just before their little apprehension test. Thirteen seconds, an abysmal record. Some of the worst he’s ever seen. The Rabbit notices him in five. Now, though, he’s almost excited; will they beat their record today? If not, he might as well just expel them all, for the second year in a row. They’re not too promising, anyway, even the recommended students. Their stats during the apprehension test were subpar, and he’s sure they won’t make any fast improvements. They’re not a very focused class, anyway. 

And maybe he’s too lost in thought about it, about all these stupid kids, particularly the explosive, angry one with barely any voice, because when he turns the corner towards his classroom—

—he bumps straight into someone. Poor kid, and he thinks kid because they’re so short, and when they separate he sees dark, almost-black curls and tan skin. His voice comes out stuttery, high-pitched, sort of scared. “Oh—I’m so sorry,” he says, like he’s used to it. 

Shota blinks. Something about this strikes him, a chord strung clean and loud. He’s not sure if it’s the voice, or maybe the look the kid gives him when they make eye contact—his eyes meeting wild forest green—but something reverberates as if familiar. He feels as if he’s meant to be meeting his eyes, as if they’ve done this a thousand times. Maybe during the welcoming ceremony, perhaps? Before he dragged his worthless class to the open field for the test? He’s not sure. 

But now the kid’s struck him with this look, as if in recognition, as if in fear. Shota’s not unused to it in the field, since he’s dressed in dark and speaks in that low, serious voice, but in UA? When they’re surrounded by daylight and there’s nothing but heroes? What’s this kid got to be scared of?

Shota scoffs. Not his business, anyway, since the kid’s got the uniform of a gen-ed student. Who is he to prolong the discomfort the kid’s so obviously experiencing? “Get to class, kid,” he says, and steps out of the way in case the student is half-paralyzed in whatever fear he’s feeling. He thinks he hears the kid mumble something when he starts walking down the hall, but when Shota looks back the kid is gone. Hm.

—

He gets put on lunch monitor duty the first day, because God hates him and so does Nezu. His class is still amazingly subpar: 14.3 seconds until they noticed him, which is worse than yesterday, and half of them aren’t even very mentally present during the actual academic classes. He’s got a pack of idiots in there, and he can’t wait to expel them once they inevitably fuck up during the basic training heroics class. Maybe he’ll go easier on them this year and only expel them for the week, just to scare them into shape a bit. Hizashi gave him hell last year for expelling them any longer, and for some reason it still makes Shota wince thinking about Hizashi being mad at him. 

It’s sort of weighing him down, the fact that Hizashi isn't also on lunch duty. Shota peers around the room, waiting for a shriek of sound or reverberating laughter, but only sees a sea of other students and Lunch Rush. They don’t talk anymore, so he doesn’t know why this thought comes to him. It’s always a weird kind of comforting seeing a head of bright yellow wherever he is, though. It brings him the same comfort he had when he was fifteen,  a thought that feels awkward and disjointed, given that the last time Hizashi texted him was three months ago. You’re late for the staff meeting. And then, Want me to get your coffee ready? I still know how you like it.

Shota hadn’t replied. It doesn’t matter. 

He hates lunch duty. He’s used to it being a great time for his afternoon naps, and usually Nezu understands, but he supposes this year will be different. Perhaps it’s punishment for something, but he can’t figure out for what. Nezu understands how hard he has to be on the students, doesn’t he? It’s life or death in this world, especially without All Might. It’s only logical to cut the weakest links out before the villains cut them for him. But it doesn’t matter now, he supposes, since he’s stuck in this noisy cafeteria, the smell of food nauseating him almost to death. He hates this so much. He’d preferred if they all ate in silence, quiet and proper, thinking like real heroes. And fuck, that Aspirin never even works, he’s still got a migraine.

It all adds up eventually, and Shota’s halfway toward suicide when he sees that kid again. He’s scanning the gen-ed tables in the middle of dragging a disgusting trash can to the middle of the cafeteria, and he sees him. 

Head down and turned to the side, almost asleep—Shota would think he was if his eyes weren’t peering just slightly open—and looking half beaten down, half blank. What an apocalyptic little look for a fifteen year old. He feels a pang of something, maybe pity but surely not empathy. Like seeing a wet cat in the rain. When he squints, he can see a sharp bruise grazing the edge of the kid’s jaw, which he must have missed earlier in the morning. The gen-ed uniform is pulled taut around him, as if he’s trying to soak in the warmth, but it’s a bit loose against his body. 

For a moment he’s just staring, trying to place the kid’s face again, because something about it strikes achingly familiar just like it did this morning; he finds it even stranger that the kid doesn’t even seem to notice. Maybe he’s spaced out. But he seems to be just staring past Shota, and when Shota follows his gaze he only finds the table his own class is sitting at. 1-A. 

He’s probably jealous, Shota figures. Most gen-ed kids only apply as a backup for failing the hero course entrance exam, so most of them tend to carry some envy. For a second Shota feels disappointed, though he can’t figure out why. He turns away and continues to drag the trash can. 

—

The Rabbit doesn’t eat much at the restaurant anymore, and maybe Shota’s ruined it for him. He figures he’s ruined a lot of things for the kid, but he doesn’t know if he can fix that, or if he even wants to. 

He ignores it, like the host of other things they like to avoid talking about, and when they get their black coffees that Tuesday morning they drink it in silence. He’s broken the news about the new case, and now there’s really nothing to speak about, now that most things are back to business. Shota tries not to pry, but maybe it comes off as neglectful. Maybe it comes off as uncaring. Maybe that’s what it really is. He wraps his hand around the fresh mug, keeps it there even though it’s so hot it burns. 

“You remember that boy you saved?” He asks, without thinking. So rare of him. 

“I save a lot of people.” Not necessarily untrue, but there’s an uncaring edge that he’s unfamiliar with. Shota licks his teeth, almost uncomfortable if he didn’t know any better.

“You know the one. He was a victim to that sludge villain? He had an explosive Quirk.” 

The kid stills. He’s not drinking his coffee, but his gloved hands are clasped together on the table, so Shota can see the way they twitch. There’s recognition in the furrow of his brow, but for some reason he doesn’t say anything. Shota can’t conceive as to why; there was nothing special about that fight. Nothing special about the way Shota had chewed him out after it happened, either. So what’s the issue?

“Well, he’s in my class this year. He had an episode during our hero basic training exercise today, and I had to pull him from the lesson.” 

There’s a hollow sense of emptiness between them for a beat; and then the kid leans forward, suddenly interested, suddenly transfixed. Shota hadn’t missed the way he’d been broiling in anxiety for all of their last conversation, and he’s thankful for the change. He finds it in himself to ignore the bruises appearing when the kid’s collar is pulled down with the force of his movement. “What do you mean?”

”Our training exercise today was for combat training. We had the class split up into teams, half hero, half villain. We went to Grounds B, the training area with the buildings—it mimics a city. Well, two hero students were to go up against two villain students. The student got assigned to play the role of the villain, and he ended up having a… Meltdown.” 

Meltdown is a kinder word for what happened. Attacking your own classmate—the one on his team, that is—is thoroughly inexcusable. And for once, Shota isn’t sure how to go about it. He’d considered expelling the kid right there and then, but what would Nezu think of that, since he’s already trying to teach him a lesson about last year’s attempts? What would Hizashi say?

He shakes his head. Why does he care what Hizashi would think? He barely even cares what his boss would say, and Nezu is the one who’s paying him.

“A meltdown?” The kid repeats, but there’s a lilt at the end of his tone that makes Shota think there’s more to it. Probably concern: his priority tends to be other people, no matter how reckless he is. No matter how many bruises and scars start to appear on his torso, his arms, his legs, his head. No matter what. Shota ducks his head in an effort to not be privy to something, because suddenly it feels as if they’re edging on another conversation. If he closes his eyes, he won’t have to be a receiver of uncomfortable secrets. He doesn’t have to hold on to anything dark. 

“I let it slide this time, but I can’t excuse that kind of behavior for long,” Shota says. “If you’re not mentally stable, you’re not clear to be in the field, period.” 

There’s an audible wince. Shota looks up from his coffee, finds what he thinks are the shadows of the kid’s eyes behind the black beetle-glimmer of his shades. He’s probably struck a nerve, though the kid won’t tell him. He feels something like guilt but brushes it down. Sure, he hadn’t meant it that way, but it’s just the truth. What’s the statistics about bulimics? How many die choking on their own vomit? 

Shota’s always been an objective man. He’s not going to stop just because his partner has a certain vice. 

—

They meet again Tuesday night. The rain is scattered in sudden dark breaths, coming and going, pulsating like a heart and beating against the roof loud enough to hear. Shota’s comforted by it. The kid isn’t. 

He’s rattling on the floor in front of the toilet, and his breath comes in quick gasps like the rainfall. The vomiting is harsher than usual, too hurried to be on purpose, and Shota feels something like a memory worm his brain—didn’t something like this happen in the summer? He rummages around in his head, realizes he can’t quite recall. His hand is on the kid’s back, and under the cold of the jacket over his hoodie he can feel the way the muscles under his shoulders flex, as if moving on their own accord to account for the new mass that’s spilling its way out of his stomach. 

“I’m fine, just so you know,” the kid says. He gags, vomits again. The stuff comes up black like night.

“I know.” 

Shota takes a breath, adjusts. He’s kneeling with one knee on the floor. The pressure of bone against tile is starting to send slight shooting pains up his leg, but it’s nothing to him. He averts his eyes to the worst of it, mostly to avoid looking at the vomit and partly to avoid looking at the kid’s exposed skin. He already knows about the freckles, what more is there to see? 

There’s an empty sigh. “I think I’ve just been… I think I just need to be on my feet more, not relying on this Quirk too much.”

“You’re not going to do that.”

There’s the sound of movement, and the kid turns toward him—paper mask back on, sunglasses darkened against the yellow light from above—but for some reason Shota thinks he might be smiling. There’s a sound from the back of his throat like he’s been caught. The kid rests his back against the cool shield of the stall wall, and Shota does the same. It’s a bit uncomfortable facing each other, the tips of their shoes meeting when the kid brings his knees up to his chest. Like always, there’s not enough space for them to exist without having to cut a hole through each other. “Yeah,” the kid agrees, “I guess I don’t mind when it hurts.”

“Do you not mind it or do you like it?” 

There’s a beat of silence. Immediately Shota regrets it. But there’s something he can’t deny when all the bruises pile up, when the self sacrifice turns into reckless self endangerment, when for a second the kid doesn’t fight back. Because there are moments, tiny little sequences, of brushing off the wounds and disregarding the damages, that Shota can’t continue to ignore. A year ago, Shota had considered it coldly, an integral flaw showing a particular weakness. An unworthiness. Heroes don’t get to be unnecessarily self-sacrificial—not since All Might, at least. And he’d brushed it off, disregarded it as he had everything else about the Rabbit, because if you do it wrong one time, where’s the hope that you can ever do it right? Because if you do it wrong one time, people die. Because if you do it wrong one time, someone’s someone dies. Someone’s Oboro dies.

But maybe if Shota looks at it, really looks at it, maybe there’s some leeway. Some invisible space between them now and where they can be. Where the kid can be. Because, well, he hasn’t killed anyone yet. Least of all himself, though it kind of seems like he’s been trying. 

Shota swallows at the sudden thought. It comes as a surprising weight in the back of his head, something heavy and hard—a secret he has no business carrying. A secret he was trying to avoid being privy to. A secret he’d done everything to deny. But maybe that’s what he needs to do, in order to understand; maybe he needs to realize they’re both punishing themselves for something there doesn’t need to be repentance for. 

He refocuses his eyes and sees that bruising again below the collar, ugly and swelling and dark. “I don’t like anything I don’t deserve,” the kid says. The words send a morbid, retched feeling all the way down Shota’s gut. 

There’s a buzzing in his back pocket. Shota pulls out his phone with a certain quickness—desperate to escape whatever this is. Whatever it is, he doesn’t want it to be. He’s heard enough secrets for today. 

“There’s a situation downtown. It’s serious,” he says, though he doesn’t know the exact details. He’s just parroting what Tsukauchi had said in the text. “We should start heading there now.” 

There is, for once, no discernable emotion behind the Rabbit’s paper mask. 

—

They’re standing in the dark pouring rain, drops of ice-cold water cascading down on them soft as rose petals. When the white shine of the swinging flashlights illuminate the outlines of the kid’s body, Shota can see the droplets sliding off his exposed curls. He watches as the kid shudders and raises his hood. 

Shota turns back. It’s early Wednesday morning by the time they get there, and the scene is already adorned with yellow tape, neon like it’s something to be excited about. The burnt body—charred beyond belief, Shota guesses, as all the other ones were—is lying there on the street, an amalgamation of black flesh and ash. When he swallows, it smells almost like barbecue wafting in the air; if he were a lesser man he’d be nauseous. Thinking about this, he looks towards his own lesser man. 

“Another hero?” Shota asks the kid, though they both know. 

“Probably. All the rest were,” the Rabbit says, in that far-off way he does when there’s something going on in his head, another secret that Shota isn’t letting himself be privy to. The kid’s black boots are slickened with mud, rain sliding down the shields of his sunglasses like fast tears. People swerve around them, police officers and forensic specialists and detectives, but the kid is unmoving. He side-steps to let a police officer pass, but leans more towards Shota again as another officer begins to throw up just out of the scene’s boundaries. Probably out of comfort more than anything else; if there’s anything the Rabbit is familiar with, it’s vomit.

“Gross,” he mutters, just loud enough for Shota to hear over the rain as the officer to their right gags. “Anyway,” the kid says, unmoving now to watch the flicker of police officers searching the scene, white flashlights scattering around like beacons along brick walls and slick streets. “This isn’t… This isn’t that guy, right? The, um, the—“

”The Dragon? No. At least I don’t think so. He never killed heroes directly with his Quirk, just took down buildings.” To his ears, the kid’s voice comes out almost anxious and wavering, and instinctively Shota tries to calm him. 

“But he did, right?” There’s a certain quiver again.

“What?”

“Kill heroes.” 

For some reason, Shota hesitates to answer. “Yes,” he says, because it’s the truth, though his instinct is to lie.