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Rody's surprise visit to Deku is going even smoother than he'd hoped.
There were complications, of course, as there always are- he'd wanted to visit sooner, so much sooner. But he had to save up money not just for himself but for his siblings to go because, apparently, turning over a new leaf and becoming employed full-time doesn't make your boss anymore willing to watch your little siblings while you're out of the country for a few days. Whatever.
So saving up took a bit. Between that and training to get his pilot's license, actually getting to Japan was more of a hassle than he wanted it to be. Part of him hoped that he could just fly there himself once he got the necessary schooling, but the other part was incredibly impatient and just wanted to be there as soon as possible, to see him. Not exactly conducive to long-term education.
The important thing is that he made it, and though the actual surprise was ruined by both his siblings and Pino barging into Class 1-A’s dorm building to meet Deku in the common room as soon as they turned the corner, he was finally there. He could finally see his hero again.
It's the day after they all arrived in Japan after a jetlagged night in. Rody and Deku are up in his room on the 2nd floor, while Roro and Lala are being entertained by Deku's classmates on the ground floor, along with another little girl escorted by one of their teachers. Either the walls are thin or they're all just really loud, muffled voices and cheers sounding from below.
It's an oddly pleasant setting. Deku's room is ridiculously decorated with excessive hero paraphernalia, but also unmistakably homey. The strung up fairy lights and dark curtains bathe the room in coziness, apparent in how comfortably the two are currently stationed on the bed.
Deku's head has somehow ended up in his lap, and it took a while of Pino being shoved into his breast pocket to muffle her hysterical squealing before she'd calm down enough to snuggle in between Deku's neck and shoulder. Still embarrassing, but easily passable as normal cozy bird stuff. He let it slide.
Deku’s in the middle of reciting and explaining a page from his 10th Hero Notebook, while Rody is flipping through No. 13, listening. They've been at this for hours, the books spread out haphazardly around the student's bed, each grabbed and picked apart one by one in meticulous detail. Especially as they got further in, when Deku's notes became less ‘excited toddler’ and more ‘critical analysis’.
It was cute, seeing him stumble over his earlier entries filled with crude drawings and unintelligible ramblings about heroes Rody has never even heard of, but have clearly meant a lot to Deku. Especially All Might, who Rody only got to meet once he got to Japan- and though he isn't as grand as he once was, it seems, Rody still sees that… spark. He sees why he was so beloved even in his sunken eyes and sickliness. And he definitely doesn't miss the literal spark in Deku's eyes when he looks at him, cementing Rody's understanding then and there that this guy must be something special.
His passion is infectious. It's kind of humiliating, going from being the number one hero hater to an admirer in the span of a few hectic days just because this kid couldn't shut up about them.
And because he'd saved him so thoroughly, but that's both a given and beside the point.
“Oh, this is when I first heard of the Wild Wild Pussycats!” Rody tunes back in from his thoughts to Deku flipping the notebook up to show him a page. It's adorned with a lively sketch of four feline-like heroes striking a synchronized pose, along with some doodle Dekus accompanied by little comments he can make out with his limited knowledge of Japanese- stuff like “so cool!” and “wooow!”.
Rody chuckles, Pino thankfully silent as she dozes. “They look like an interesting crew. I like the big guy, looks cool.” He says, pointing to the muscular man posed aggressively behind the ladies in front.
“Yeah, that’s Tiger! And Mandalay- the leader- Pixie-Bob, and Ragdoll!” He points to each one on the page. “They're a crazy awesome rescue team, I got to meet them during Summer Training last year and they were somehow even cooler in person!” Deku tells him, turning the notebook back to face himself with the dopiest grin on his face.
He flips through the next few pages pretty rapidly, thoughtful, “I made individual pages for all of them, too- along with their group page. I think I got a little excited, haha.”
“What are you, their biggest fan? Did you tell them that?” Rody lightly teases, flipping to the next page of his own book.
“I very well could be… B-But no! Of course not! That's so embarrassing!” Deku puts the open book on his face, hiding his flush. Rody laughs and eventually Deku does too, light giggling between them that feels all too familiar but far less manic.
Deku lifts the book to reveal soft, wistful eyes. “But… y'know, Mandalay is taking care of one of her cousin's kids, a little boy named Kota.” He mutters, almost too quiet to hear. “I saved him from a pretty nasty villain, the same one that killed his parents. I messed up my body pretty bad in that fight. And Kota hated me- or, he hated heroes. But…”
His gaze bounces to the wall, and Rody follows it to see a piece of paper tacked right above his desk, crumpled and creased, well-loved.
“...He wrote me that letter. He thanked me for helping him, apologized for hating heroes so much…” He didn't need to do that, Rody immediately thinks in Deku's voice, because he knows his friend doesn't do anything for the thanks. “It's the first time I ever saw, really real and in my face, that I was doing something as a hero. That I was really helping people. It meant so much to me that I could help this scared little kid. And that letter proved to me that… it's all worth it, y'know?”
He's a bit teary-eyed now, looking back up at Rody. Rody can't help but feel some pang of emotion from those big, green eyes- this kid rubs off on him badly, making his feelings run wild when he has no right to. Rody's once again thankful for Pino still sleeping and content in Deku's presence, even if that, too, is born from some embarrassing affection that he can't shake off.
Rody finds his voice as Deku scrubs his eyes with a harshly scarred arm. “Well… guess you have a way of changing peoples’ hearts, huh, Hero?”
Deku looks up at him and sniffs, another stupid smile crossing his face as he says nothing at all. If he tried to, he'd probably just bawl his eyes out. So he nods and picks his notebook back up off his chest. “R-Right, so… the Pussycats have been in operation for over a decade now, 13 years by this point…”
And they fall back into that lull of talking and listening like it's nothing. Rody reads what he can of notebook 13 and turns page after page, honestly excited to hear what Deku will have to say about them later. This one mostly contains pages on his classmates, or revamped pages on his teachers and staff that he now knows personally from UA. Though strangely lacking one for All Might, which Rody figured would be priority numero uno.
Regardless, there are still plenty of people he doesn't recognize in it, too. Like a blonde girl, who's quirkless but still finds ways to help people with her gadgets. An older, greyer looking dude who might be that girl's father, and seems to have some connection to All Might. Two kids, twins maybe, one with some sort of illusion power and the other with… something about cells? He can't totally make it out, but he puts a pin in it. He'd really like to know what warranted their inclusion.
He flips to the next page, and…
Wait…
“Hey, Deku…” Rody starts with an odd tremor in his voice. “What am I doing in here?”
Deku blinks from his rambling, sitting up to see what Rody is seeing. His eyes light up suddenly, “Oh, yeah! I still need to finish your page! I was so tired on the plane home I guess it slipped my mind…” He says, like it’s nothing crazy.
Rody stares down at the sketch of himself and Pino, who's now been jostled awake and sits perched on his shoulder, looking at the page with even more shock. He blinks hard a few times, like maybe he's seeing things, but the page remains the same. Complete- or, evidently, incomplete- with notes and doodle Dekus spouting little comments like all the others, though his mind is so jumbled he can't really read them.
“But… I'm no hero.” Rody says with an incredulous laugh, his throat feeling tight all of a sudden.
Deku tilts his head, meeting him with the most confused furrow of a brow. “Sure you are. You saved the world! How are you not a hero?”
Rody somehow feels lightheaded and heavy all at once. Pino panics a little on his shoulder, looking between the book and Deku with frantic eyes. “I… I saved my family. I had to, y'know? I'm not… like you.”
“But that's exactly it! You saved your family!” Deku says, hands balled into excited fists. “You didn't have to… No one has to save anyone, not really. Sure you were just a normal guy, but you fought with your life to protect people. Even if it was just the people you love. Even if the world was an afterthought, you fought so hard and almost died when you didn't have to…”
His face flushes from the sheer exhilaration, working himself up into a tizzy. He huffs the nervous energy out, hitting Rody with a resolute, “That seems pretty heroic to me.”
Rody can't say anything. He doesn't really need to when Pino's already started sobbing, massive tears crawling down her little face. Deku gives that smile that says he can see right through him, Pino or not, and invites the bird to perch on his palms. She accepts with a horribly broken coo, nuzzling into his hand while he pets her with a gentle finger.
Rody watches in dumbfounded silence for too long before his own tears start to form, quickly wiping them away. This kid… He looks back down at the page, still indecipherable through his misty eyes, but there's the unmistakable sense that Deku poured just as much passion and admiration into it as all the others. He feels that weird pang of emotion from earlier, and wonders if maybe the feeling is what Deku was talking about with that letter.
“And, y'know,” Deku points a finger up in conjecture, looking like a proper nerd. “Like All Might always says, meddling when you don't need to is the very essence of being a hero.”
“Oh, well,” Rody sniffles, scrubbing his face with his sleeve and adopting a smirk beneath it, “You've got that in spades. No wonder you wanna be a hero so bad.”
“Meddling is such a weird way to put it, though!” Deku says, almost pouting. “I don’t meddle. I just… intervene when no one asks me to. That's not meddling, that's being aware of the situation and acting accordingly!”
“Nah, that's pretty much meddling.” Pino nods, backing her host up easily. “I happen to remember you meddling in my business when we first met, Mr ‘you're out of your mind’.”
“That's different! That case was my business! You were making it difficult by making very good points that scared me.”
Rody barks a laugh, Pino making a knee-slapping motion in tandem. “For a hero, you do get freaked out pretty easy, don't you? You can break your body for some nobody from Nowhere, Otheon but you're probably still scared of like, going out past 10 at night or something.”
Deku shakes his head wildly. “You're not a nobody, Rody.”
Rody scoffs, closing the notebook still clutched tight in his hands. “Right. I'm a hero and all.”
“But you are!” Deku reaches forward to put Rody's hand in his, squeezing it tight. Again, familiar, but somehow more tender. “I truly believe that.”
Pino gives a lovesick coo that Rody desperately hopes Deku won't recognize as such. He squeezes his hand back, something he couldn't do before but wanted to so badly. It's crazy how drastically different things can be the second time around, he thinks. They aren't bloodied and bruised and delirious on the linoleum floor of a madman's cult operation headquarters.
They're on Deku's bed, in his dorm room, at his school, in Japan- and Rody would've called you crazy if you told him he'd ever end up somewhere like this. Holding hands again with someone who gave him a chance. Someone who believed in him. Who saw something in him, who almost died just to see him succeed like he knew he could.
Pino is still crying, but Rody feels okay. He's okay. “Thanks, Hero.”
His hero smiles, all creased eyes and teeth and rosy freckled cheeks. “Thank you, Rody.”
It's not the response he's expecting. Rody promptly bursts into tears.