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Chapter Text

It was already a few weeks into the Class A’s second year of UA, it was much calmer, and there was no real need to fight villains as the smartest had realised that it was easier to get their deserts by simply making use of the broken state of the country to work out their inner turmoils or in the case of some enlightened individuals start making legal cases, which was nice for them, less need to fight, more time to spend being teenagers. So today the class was simply heading to lunch after maths, Bakugou heading up the pack, members chatting away, discussing what they thought of maths, a few mutters of annoyance spiked through the numb chatter, and a particularly dark remark sounded from Ojiro’s mouth concerning Quadratics.

Presently the class spilled out into the lunch room, first-year faces snapping towards the arrival of the famous class A. Bakugou had made a rather bad choice heading up the group, is what one would think being that so many first years were so intent on trying to talk to him, but he had chosen his protective detail well, flanking his right was Iida the imposing class president was already a good asset to have at his side with a reputation of curtly but rationally stopping inbound paparazzi, and flanking his left was Mineta, who whilst had bettered himself, wasn’t there to hit on people, but more to draw attention away by attempting to get the first years to talk to him, an effective tactic.

As the class readied to split off into their separate groups, a commotion seemed to happen on the other side of the room, first year's heads snapped towards the other entrance where 2-B emerged, and those still talking silenced as the two classes approached each other.

Their rivalry was known to be a fierce one, earth-shattering even, a constant arms race to see who could best the other class, the thought of conflict stood on the watching first years minds, the other second and third-year classes simply returned to their meals, that was no powder keg, those were Fridays.

Tetsutestsu walked towards the group from his position flanking Kendo as Kirishima muscled his way forward, both rolling up their sleeves, raising them to their heads before striking towards the other like snakes, quirks activate, the sound of the two hands colliding in a dap was deafening, Jirou having preemptively covered her ears, it sounded like an I-Beam slamming into the ground, massive sharky smiles on their faces at their greeting each other.

“Sup Testu, how are you doing man?” Greeted the Ruby-haired lad.

“Pretty sweet dude!” Came the eager reply from his silver comrade.

“Did your quirk evolve? you look like you're shining, are you sure you're not currently platinum?” He jokingly asked his friend

“Well no but something pretty great happened yesterday” He was still grinning like a fool.

“Ohh, what happened my man?” The query came.

“Well…” He’d raised his rolled arm so that it rubbed the back of his scalp, and an embarrassed tinge of red glowed across his face like heated metal, luckily he had some to give him a hand with this subject.

“He asked me out yesterday and I accepted,” Kendo piped up from his side.

A Few congrats echoed from Class A, a slight squeal could be heard from Mina near the back, and a low “Yes congrats” From Todoroki after being jabbed by Yaoyorozu.

“Hang on, you asked me out as well,” Testutestu said, turning to her, freckles highlighted by the slight pink tinge that this rose.

“How did that happen?” Asked Midoriya.

“Easy,” answered Awase. They both wrote letters and were planning to give them to each other at the start of class, but then they both walked in with letters and stood there emitting the colour pink for several minutes after they realised they both had one before someone decided to force them to hand each other their letters. Honestly, this could have been avoided if they had used a mailman.”

“And who did that?”

“That would be me!” Came the reply and like Japanese Draco Malfoy, Neito Monama appeared next to them with a massive grin taking up a good third of his face.

He quickly sprang into his usual routine.

"Oh and would you look at them, they're so beautiful together, truly a match made in heaven”

He said, "Jazz hands waving," while standing in a striking pose, legs leaning back, arms in a triangle pointed towards the two being the subject of his jazz handing. He then turned back towards 2-A, bending at the waist while pointing towards them.

“Go on and show me a class 2-A couple better than these two, oh wait!”

He smiled, standing up to full height and tapping his right index finger to his head. Then, shrugging both arms down, hands spread wide, he shook his head.

“NO ONE'S DATING IN CLASS 2-A WHAT A SHAME!"

This outburst gave groans from both sides, Kirishima’s face sported the most befuddled look possible, and Tsu simply tilted her head at the strange blond, whilst Jirou astride her pinched her nose in annoyance, Sero and Tokage exchanged looks of ‘Well what’ll you do’. Kendo looked to be considering whether or not to hit him on the back of the head, luckily for her Awase grabbed the back of the dramatic hero’s collar and shook him up and down, quelling further outbursts from their classmate.

“He’s right you know” Sounded a deep voice to the left of Iida, hidden just behind the class President was Fumikage Tokoyami, who stepped out of the shadow in his trademark head down arms crossed pose, (Copyright was pending) to stand just alongside Bakugou.

“What is he right about dude?” Asked Sero, despite the pivotal role that the seemingly insane blond had played in the war it was still odd to see someone so easily agree with him.

“For one, he is correct you two look good together” he said nonchalantly, indicating towards the couple, a thank you echoed from the two.

”And for another, he’s quite right. I do believe that this class could do with some couples” he said the last part with what could only be described from him at the very least as a shit-eating grin. All of his teeth showed with his beak ajar and a gleam in his eye like he was a Magpie that had just spotted a shiny trinket.

This remark set off quite the reaction among his classmates, many of who snorted and coughed in surprise at their stoic classmates' response, Mina was the first to try to get an answer pushing past Jirou who seemed to have propelled all of her strawberry milk towards the open air like a fountain at Fumikage’s remark.

“Toooo kooo yami! Who’d have thought the sullen king of quiet would be a secret shipper? Who do you think should get together?” Exclaimed Mina, as she practically almost threw the shorter student to the floor in her move to get information.

“Wooh Ashido, careful! I’m not going to say it out loud, it might frighten them”

“Was that’s joke from Tokoyami?” Asked Sero in shock. “Did Dark Shadow take over?”

“No, I was just saying I wouldn’t reveal who I thought would make a good couple due to unspoken feelings and not wanting to expose those thoughts that they could express themselves”

“Ohh!” Was the simple reply from Mina as she scanned her friends still sputtering and trying to recover.

“Besides” Continued Fumikage, “when they do I shall act as their ‘wingman’ as I am best suited for it”

A burst of laughter echoed from the group, as they turned to see Todoroki clutching onto Midoriya for dear life, laughing at the air, startled faces looking at him like he was crazy, none of them had ever recalled seeing their stoic classmate laugh, it had started as a sharp chuckle and had now worked it’s way up to a roaring belly laugh, which was odd considering the last time that Izuku had seen him laugh he was on the floor holding his hand over his mouth after that run in with Mr Smiley, perhaps he had forgotten the whole ‘Your smile is killer’ bit, but in any case, he had stopped now.

“Wingman, because he’s a bird, oh that’s funny” Todoroki snickered “Good one”

Chapter Text

“Really! That’s what it takes to get him to laugh” Exclaimed Kaminari, as the two groups broke off and split into their little cohorts, “I tried for over a year to get him to even crack a smile and Tokoyami did it first try! And he laughs? What’s the deal with that!?”

“Have you considered that your style of humour may just not be appealing to him? Sparky” Retorted Jirou, who had mopped up her aerosolized milk with a cloth from Momo.

“Well considering that is exactly the sort of joke I would make, I’m just confused, was it the way he delivered it or was it just the fact that he said it?” The Blonde tried desperately to get why their heterochromatic classmate had roared like a maniac at the simple joke.

“I wouldn’t dwell on that too much, I’m a bit more interested in what he meant by the couples thing, that seems really out of character for Fumikage” Mused Kyouka looking to her friend to hear his thoughts.

“Ohh yeah that was really out of left field, I would have expected Mina to say something like that, to be honest,” She simply nodded in agreement there. “Who do you think he was referring to?” She asked as he paused whilst they sat down.

“Could it be Midoriya and Uraraka?” He mused.

“I don’t think so, as much as she likes him, she told us she’s been doing a lot of thinking recently, I don’t think she is really in the headspace to be in a relationship at the moment” She answered the lemon haired man across from her.

“Right okay if it’s not them, how about, mhhhh, who do you think he was referring to?” He queried pointing a chopstick at her.

“Gotta be Momo and Todoroki, right? Like come on the chemistry is right there, they would go pretty well together” She said, gesturing across the room where she could see her friend talking with Tokoyami, was that Bakugou? Ahh well best not to eavesdrop, this conversation was too interesting.

“Give the Duchess her Prince” He smiled.

“Duchess?” She asked, slightly confused.

“Jirou, we both know she hates being called Princess, so Duchess which is a royal title, but Not a Princess” He said in a slightly mocking tone.

“You only said that to flex your mediaeval knowledge Kaminari, didn’t you?” She asked pointedly her right jack flicking at him.

“You got me, Jack, nothing escapes you, except that was simply knowledge of Royal Titles,” he said with a laugh, raising his hands in surrender.

Chapter Text

“Okay good they're engrossed in their conversation, we can talk” Tokoyami turned to his bandmates, who sat at the table with him, Momo Yaoyuoru and Katsuki Bakugou.

“You sure Trainor isn’t listening?” The blond asked in a low voice.

“Positive” Momo replied scanning across the room with her eyes on Kyouka “She has her jack close in, she’s focused”

“Good, considering the conversation I assume we’re going to be having, don’t want anything to spill” Katsuki growled.

“Why did you call Kyouka, Trainor?” Enquired Momo.

“Megan Trainor, she’s all about that bass.” He replied as if the answer was immediately obvious, to which the two tilted their heads in understanding.

“In any case, we know why all three of us are here” Fumikage asked.

“Yeah I gathered that from your odd use of humour, not your style Feathers” Jabbed Bakugou.

“Sorry about my rather crass joke, I believe my time working with Hawks has rubbed off on my humour I’m afraid, I sound rather like Kaminari” he explained, getting two nods.

“So I assume when you were talking about the possibilities of couples you were referring to our two friends over there” Asked Momo, glancing towards the yellow and purple shapes that could be seen across the room chatting away.

“Correct, I’m sure we’ve all noticed the odd energy, that those two give off, I may not be exactly the best at reading people but I’d say their relationship could be slightly more than platonic, or at the very least one or both of them would like something more, do we agree?” He asked the two pulling his hand from below his head stretched out in enquiry. “We’re friends with both of them, so it seems pretty obvious to us”

“Oh yeah, joint training coming up to compliment her, the whole thing when we were talking about the festival, walking directly up to her, right in her face, all those annoyingly semi-flirty comments they throw at each other” Katsuki listed.

“I found myself that Kaminari seems to care quite a lot, I remember him telling me about how he was practicing so hard to make it a better experience for her, I’d say he cares for her to a degree that I could count as non-platonic” Mused Tokoyami.

“You two seem to have not seen as much as I have” Commented Momo, the two looking at her with confusion.

“What do you mean by that Ponytail?”

“I’m saying the way he interacts with her is unlike any other girl”

“How so?”

“He doesn’t seem to, well flirt with her, when we were discussing possible ideas for the cultural festival and she shot down his idea of a band after he was talking about her room and love for music, he genuinely seemed to be confused as to why she acted so flustered, for another thing I know for a fact that she likes him,” She told the boys.

“And how do you know that she likes Socket like that?” Quizzed Bakugou, taking a bite of his food.

“Have you not heard the way she worries about him? Remember when we were attacked on I island, she said turning to Bakugou “Yeah what of it?”

“Well we staged an assault on the power core, and he overloaded himself, she was yelling at him to not overdo it, and she and Iida ended up carrying him around until Midoriya and All Might took Wolfram down” She explained for the benefit of Tokoyami.

“Plus she was even wearing his choker that she had borrowed that evening, and he only really agreed to the plan until she was onboard” She grinned.

“On top of that when we ended up going up against Gigantomachy, we were discussing our fears when he and you went with the pros during the Gunga Mountain raid” she said gesturing to Tokoyami, “she said that she wasn’t worried about you, but she was worried about him, and only him” The grin still punctuating her face.

“It’s kind of funny how much they seem to think of the other” Piped up Katsuki “The mutual pinning is embarrassing, they need to do something”

“Ohh and one more thing” Momo gave a devilish look “When we talking about who amongst our class would make good partners when we brought up the two, she practically turned red and started yelping about he easy he was to talk to and that there wasn’t more to it”

“Oh yeah” grinned Katsuki “They have it baaaaad, considering I once heard from Izuku about a discussion he and Denki had with Monoma, he brought her up and according to him, Denki became me, interrogating the guy as to why he found her interesting” He laughed “Apparently his inflection was damn near mine, and for another thing do you remember that training we did that had us turn into Zombies?”

“Yes” The two groaned in sync, that had not been a pleasant experience.

“Well I hit the ground with some pretty strong explosions, stun tactic, must have fucked her ears over pretty badly, because when I showed up to knock her down, he was there holding her as she was freaking out from the sound, and when I attempted to knock em into Fruit Bowl and Shinning Knight, he threw her out of the way” He grinned his massive smile at the two, who both smirked back.

“So we agree that if they won’t admit their feelings, we might have to take matters into our own hands” Fumikage suggested at which the two nodded in agreement.

“The only question is how?” Puzzled Momo

“Well it’s Kaminari, whatever it ends up being will be dumb and dorky as hell” Laughed Bakugou taking another bite as Tokoyami put forth an idea.

“I say we try sneakily broaching the topic, and wait for a moment to try and convince them to go ahead with asking the other out”

“Or” suggested Bakugou “we wait until the sports festival, you saw what he did last time with Garden of Eden, get him in a fight with a pretty girl he’ll do something stupid and start flirting” He let loose a grin at the idea.

“I can see him pulling a similar stunt, but are you sure that we would even participate in the festival, it is more of a first-year activity” Inquired Momo.

The two grunted at this, the plan wouldn’t have been very successful then.

“And even if we did, what’s the guarantee that they face off in a One on One?” She continued, “There are too many variables for this plan to work.”

“Ohh I don’t doubt that she could get into a one-on-one, grinned Bakugou, she holds her own like Izuku holds a drink, fucking well.” Referring to their post-war party, the whole class had gotten messy drunk off wine that Aoyama had brought in as a goodwill gesture, it had been a pretty merry night of loud singing and plenty of dumb activities, Sato, Momo and Izuku had held their drinks the best due to their quirks but it had been a fun night.

“Well from what I remember they still have the second and third years of the festival, so our chances are higher” Commented Tokoyami. “But I doubt that we will be fighting with quirks, considering how destructive we’ve become” He said this as Dark Shadow appeared over his shoulder for him to pet.

“Yeah, I’ll probably not be competing” Noted Bakugou, looking at his right arm.

“I doubt that, knowing you'll probably get yourself back to fighting shape by then, they host it in July so plenty of time.” Momo said in encouragement. “But you are right, it will likely be hand to hand, or like what Sero said, a foam sword fight, that would be fun”

“I’m not a fan of waiting until July for them to make plays” Grunted Katsuki “but it would be funnier if he asked her out at the sports festival”

“So we’re in agreement then, we act as wingmen and women for our unsuspecting couple” Spoke Tokoyami, the two nodded in agreement “Then this meeting is adjourned”

Chapter Text

Saturday was always a bit of a drag for Denki, the mornings were if anything rather nice, sleeping in or if he was awake and didn’t quite fancy getting up, grabbing a book from nearby and reading until at least 9:30 before perambulating downstairs. He quite liked that word, perambulating, in any case, he’d been told by Mineta to meet him in his room at 10 for a day of playing video games and chatting, and wasn’t about to leave his buddy hanging like that.

Getting out of bed he grabbed a change of clothes and his toiletries and headed for the third-floor elevator where he met Ojiro also waiting for the elevator to arrive from the fourth floor.

Presently a light ding could be heard and the two stepped into the elevator which contained one Kirishima, all headed for the showers when they arrived on the ground floor it was rather quiet, Tsu was busy in the kitchen making her breakfast whilst Bakugou latibulated in the corner with the newspaper.

‘Why does he even read those?’ Denki thought to himself, ‘What is a Dad with nothing better to do? He really is an old man’

The three of them greeted the two and proceeded to the showers a quick clean and he was out once again, the common room was now awash with activity, Tsu was now at the breakfast bar eating and was joined by Sero with a plate of sausage in hand, the sound of the TV could be heard in the background, looking over he spotted people in red, yellow, green, blue and pink, costumes fighting a horde of axe-wielding goons.

‘Super Sentai, who the hell turned on Super Sentai?’ Denki questioned himself, the couch had a few people now taking up residence, Midoriya and Iida had returned from their morning run, and Bakugou had now transitioned to training with his Gripper.

Turns out Mina had been the one to turn on Super Sentai, Koda joined in to watch, as Denki went to grab breakfast.

“Morning dude!” Came the greeting from Sero, looking up from his food as he walked past the lanky student over to the cabinet. “What’s the plan for today electric man?”

“Gonna go play some smash with Mineta, says he’s got that combo working, can’t say he’ll beat me but I’m interested” He said pulling out a box of cereal.

“Really? All day playing video games with Mineta, you don’t have anything better to do Jamming-Whey?”

This reply came from Jirou who had exited the elevator, Kaminari could have sworn that every hair on his body had stood on end at hearing her voice, which was super odd considering she didn’t scare him, he brushed it off as the static that sometimes clung to him in his sleep.

“Oh yeah, well not all day he just wanted to try and beat me this morning, I’ll probably come and do something else later, but for now, breakfast then Smash Bros!” He replied, pouring out a bowl of cereal.

“Really this isn’t an excuse for you two to fawn over the girls?” She asked incredulously, walking in to make some coffee and toast.

“Hey he’s been better about that recently since Momo told him straight up that he was being a creep, positive reinforcement works wonders you know,” He said pouring the milk in, “actually I’ve always wondered, you seem to take his comments, or lack thereof, the worst, why?”

The room seemed to pause, Mina’s head popped up over the couch top violently shaking her head, and what looked to be a petrified look streaked across Bakugou’s face, Midoriya’s eyes widened in fear as Iida stood next to him making a chopping motion in front of his neck he got the message, he done goofed.

An expression of near murder appeared on her face.

“Sorry sorry sorry, I’M SO SORRY I DID NOT THINK WHAT I JUST SAID THROUGH MY BAD MY BAD MY BAD!” He panicked, waving his hands as he spun to face her.

‘Ah shit, she is going to murder me’

“Really, and here I thought you were perceptive, maybe it’s because I don’t like seeing and hearing the little creep say shit things about my friend's appearance, regardless if he’s learned manners” She spat with malice.

‘That’s not the end of it, He thought to himself, I know she’s right, but I don’t think that’s all she’s mad about, ohhh, no, Jirou wouldn’t care about what he thinks of her appearance, buuut, girls are fickle, maybe it’s that whenever he talked about the girls, he never said anything about her?’ He stewed on this whilst he came up with a retort.

“No, No I get that, that would piss me off too if a girl started saying the same shit about my friends”

“You wouldn’t enjoy being ogled by a girl” She asked.

“No, not in the way that he does, did” he corrected. “objectification is not a one-way street Jirou” He responded.

“Yeah, Equal Rights, Equal Fights!” Boomed Bakugou.

“It’s not manly to objectify anyone, regardless of Gender” Piped up Kirishima.

“Indeed, the Hammers of Justice are Unisex” Nodded Iida slamming both hands down in fists in hammer-like motion getting a few giggles.

“Did you just quote Batman?” Asked Mina.

“No, I heard it from somewhere else” He replied, but he was lying, his voice had an odd tinge to it.

“You're lying, that’s from Brave and the Bold” Shot Bakugou, the rest of his classmates gave him a funny look. “What, great show, I don’t blame you the quote is magnificent, just like the show, perfect golden age camp”

“Right right, in any case, I hope he knows that” She shook off.

“Oh, of course, I may seem like an idiot but I’m not the type to let him say horrible shit about you guys” He said, his voice rising.

“Okay!” Midoriya quickly butted in before the two could be at each other's throats. “We agree that what Mineta has said is shit and we need to talk to him about it, okay?”

“Yeah” The two responded deflating.

“Good, Ohh and Kaminari your cereal is going soggy” he said pointing at the milky bowl, “and Jirou your toast and coffee are going cold” he gestured towards her breakfast.

The two scrambled to grab their food, having it in silence as the sound of the Sentai battling their giant-sized adversity played in the background.

Presently Mineta, Shoji and Shinso walked out of the elevator and walked towards the kitchen for food.

“Hey Denki, are you ready for some epic gaming my man?” Mineta excitedly asked him, to which he got a nod, Jirou groaned and skulked away. “Who pissed in her Cheerios?” He asked as Kaminari gulped down his bite.

“Dude don’t say that whilst I’m trying to eat cereal!” He exclaimed.

“Ahhh!” another groan could be heard from Jirou near the elevator.

“Did I say something wrong, I swear I haven’t said anything out of pocket to her today, or anyone actually, did I say something yesterday?” Quizzed the Purple-haired student looking around for an answer.

“Well, technically I think you did” Answered Mina, still over the top of the couch.

“HOW, I haven’t even talked to her today!” He replied startled.

“Well I said I was going to play Smash with you all day, and she asked if it was a chance to fawn over the girls” Kaminari told him.

“What, no, we were going to play Smash, yeah sure I was probably going to make a few comments about the female characters, but I wasn’t going to talk about the girls, that would just be a dick move” he stated.

“At least you're self-aware now” Commented Shoji, taking a bite of his toast.

“What can I say, those books Yaomomo gave me were a great insight into the absolute travesty of what I was saying,” He said, taking a swig of orange juice. “But I honestly didn’t say anything, I never really have said anything bad about her, I have no real clue why she dislikes me, everyone else I get, I said some horrible shit.”

“I’m trying to move on from my Melodias-like tendencies” He continued.

“Tendencies, yeah but you couldn’t be him” Sero pointed out.

“Yeah, he kept getting away with it due to being attractive” Mina practically spat out that last word.

“The only non-deplorable member of the Sins was Escanor” Cut in Katsuki.

“Yeah and not to sound like I’m defending a Pedo here” Broke in Sero, gaining some odd looks. “It’s not like he knew that Merlin’s true form was like what, five? In his defence, she always looked 28-30”

“Is that really what Seven Deadly Sins is like?” Asked Koda “A bunch of deplorable people?”

“Pretty much, why do you think they're called the Sins?” Respond Sero.

“Annnnyyy way, enough discussion of that, I’m good to play Smash, you dude?” Kaminari said, looking at Mineta.

“Ohh yeah, let’s go!” The two rose from their seats and headed to the elevator, clicking for the second floor.

‘What could he possibly have perfected to beat me?’ He asked himself.

As it turned out, the combo was Kazuya’s Electric Wind God Fist.

“Ahh” Denki groaned, falling back from the second beat down, he’d done better the second time now that he knew what he was facing but his Pikachu had been spectacularly launched off the stage regardless, Mineta sprang up pulling All Mights victory pose in triumph.

“I knew that training would pay off!” Exclaimed his fruit-headed friend. “Sorry man you got beat!”

“Nah it’s cool dude, man” He responded, but he was a little out of it.

“Wanna go another round?”

“Nah, might chill for a bit, not in the mood for another beating”

“All right suit yourself” Mineta responded, walking over to his desk, which Kaminari noted had what looked to be a large piece of paper on it, a drawing of a woman on it, he looked over to see what she was doing or rather if she was fully clothed, instead of a scantily clad woman he instead saw the face of the former Pro Hero Midnight. Denki’s breath hitched slightly at the sight of his former teacher, he knew Minoru could draw very well, but what was presently on his canvas was incredible.

She wasn’t dressed in her hero outfit but rather normal civilian clothes, a button-down shirt with a jacket over it with chinos, he had depicted her sitting on a bench near the bank of a pond, with a content smile, and sparking eyes behind glasses, he had captured her well, obviously, the prepositions were spot on, this was Mineta after all, but there was something so elegant in the way he’d drawn her, hair hatched in his signature style.

Denki let loose a breath in surprise.

“Ohh, yeah” Minoru spotted his friend looking over his shoulder. “Do you like it, I hope I didn’t mess anything up” He said sheepishly. “I was thinking I might get some odd looks for drawing her”

“No, No it’s beautiful, she’s beautiful” He corrected, still looking in awe at the drawing.

“I was planning on gifting it to her family at her funeral” Mineta spoke in a low voice. “I never got to finish it, I wanted to have it perfect, represent her not as a hero but as a human, simply enjoying life. I'd planned to colour it in some way, but I’m still not sure, I might mess it up.”

Denki glanced at his friend, who shifted slightly uncomfortable in his seat.

“Not to pry, but why did you draw her? You didn’t have to” He asked him softly.

“It’s my way of coping,” He responded dryly. “I draw when I feel like I’ve seen something cool or I need to relax after being stressed out, and the image of her, body so broken, is seared into my mind, I couldn’t forget that, so I drew her, happy, not broken” The already small student looked even smaller at these words, Denki felt a pang of guilt and shame.

He stooped down and hugged his friend, he felt him lean into the warmth.

“You know if you ever need someone to talk to man, I’ll lend an ear”

“Thanks” The Purple-haired boy muttered, pulling away at last. “Hey, you wanna see the other ones I’ve done?”

“Of course, let’s see em, dude”

Minoru spun around on his chair as Denki stood back up, grabbing a large black binder and putting it on his desk.

“I swear I’ve removed all of my weird stuff, I did draw a few, unsavory things, but what I have here which might be a little odd is anatomy study” He clarified. Flipping to the first page which had Kirishima and Ashido, the former with arms akimbo held like he was holding a cummerbund, whilst the latter was in the middle of a cartwheel, both luckily for the image, wearing sportswear.

Denki flipped through the pages, each was a full-page spread of drawings, each one of members of the class, often in action poses, one of Katsuki blasting off from the ground like a spacecraft, Mina melting through part of a wall, Hanta jumping upside down off a building, one interesting one was a group shot, Momo, Tenya and Katsuki on the bridge of a warship, another was of Midoriya and All Might going in for the final hit against Wolfram, he remembered seeing that even if it was a little fuzzy. The drawings were all immaculate but one caught his eye, this one was of Jirou in a Hockey uniform, stick slung over her shoulder with bubble gum being blown, again he had managed to get her prepositions pretty damn correct, he stared at the picture little longer than the others taking in the detail, he didn’t notice the coy smile that had crossed his friend's lips.

“Like that one ay?” He smirked.

“Eh waah, sorry” Denki spluttered.

“Figured you might think I did pretty well, she is a bit easier to draw than most of our classmates” He stated.

“Why is she playing Hockey?” He asked.

“Because she does?” Mineta gave him a confused look. “Did you not know that?”

“I mean I know she used to play back in middle school, but she still does?” He questioned, “Moreover, how do you know?”

“I went for a walk to one of the parks for some inspiration, I spotted her playing so I did some drawing, I hadn’t drawn her yet so made use of the opportunity” He explained.

Kaminari had to take a moment, recalling that she was oddly absent on a Tuesday afternoon, and would return wearing sports shoes and shorts as opposed to her school skirt or pants, she’d look tired and occasionally have a few scrapes. ‘Must be what she does on a Tuesday’

“So you have drawings of the whole class?”

“I do now, quite a few portraits, I think they look pretty good, I haven’t shown anyone else, a bit weird for the known perv to say ‘Hey I have drawings of everyone in the class!’ you know?” The two laughed at this.

“You know I think I might have an answer to your question from earlier” Said Denki after he had finished laughing.

“And what might that be?” Minoru responded.

“Remember when you found that hole in the wall last year?” He nodded. “And you started listing the girl's physical features” Mineta cringed at this. “And you neglected to mention her, I mean you talked about Hagakure, and she’s invisible, that’s gotta hurt.”

“I mean yeah, It’s not like I wouldn’t have said anything like she’s not my type, but still punk, to a degree tomboy, that kicks ass, people are into that, like you, hence why I didn’t say anything, I didn’t want to piss you off”

Denki paused at this comment. “What do you mean by that?”

“What do you mean ‘What do I mean’ dude you had a crush on her!” His purple-haired comrade exclaimed, to which the yellow-haired boy stood back.

“What! I didn’t have a crush on her!” He yelped.

“Sorry, Correction YOU HAVE A CRUSH ON HER!” He repeated, standing up on his chair at this last exclamation to emphasis the point.

“What gave you that impression, me and Jirou are friends alright, JUST FRIENDS, I wouldn’t ruin that!” He cried in panic.

“Dude, you're lying, I saw you take that picture of her at the sports festival, I’m pretty sure you went along with the plan because you wanted to see her in the uniform” He replied cheekily, thumb and finger under his chin.

“Wah, no, I didn’t, that’s conjecture!” He exclaimed sparks flying off his hair.

“And didn’t you go out to lunch with her that one time?” The smile persisted as Kaminari flailed his hands, showers of sparks flying from the motion.

“She only did it out of pity! Uraraka and Tsu had already shot me down!” he yelped.

“And you didn’t try to ask her again?” He tilted his head at this. “By the way, where did you go?”

“Lovely cafe in Midtown, THAT’S NOT THE POINT! There is nothing more between us!” He was very glad that Minoru couldn’t read minds, he would have been cooked, as his mind flashed a few images from that day.

“Do you want something more?” Mineta asked, sitting back down, to which Kaminari had to pause. “Let me phrase that again, would you like to go out with her again?” His friend now had his hands held under his head, fingers locked and eyebrows raised in questioning, waiting for his response.

Denki’s head was running faster than before, it felt like time had stopped and that his brain had been clocked into overdrive at the same time, Minoru’s inquisitive look awaiting a reply.

‘We do like her, right?’ The voice in his head said. ‘Do we like her that way?’ another asked. ‘I’m pretty sure we do,’ responded the first. ‘I mean just think of all the dumb things we’ve said and done to get a reaction out of her.’ The second voice returned fire. ‘But if we did, do you think she would reciprocate?’

The two voices took a moment to respond, the second simply asked. ‘What do we like about her?’ Clearing ignoring its previous statement.

Denki took a moment, his mind flashed with images of her, it would have been odd if he didn’t think about her semi-regularly, her appearance was cute, with the bangs, and in Mineta’s eyes the lack of definition in the chest was a seemingly no go, it wasn’t exactly unappealing to him, not when she had nice well-toned arms and legs, he quickly snapped himself away from the shallow thoughts to another topic, her face, purple eyes like Topaz, and when it did appear a gorgeous smile.

Minoru watched Denki’s face morph into a shallow smile as he waited for a response.

There was also the way she’d bite back at his comments, the only girl he’d ever had to make fun of him like that, and she did it regularly, snapping back with a curt sarcastic remark, sometimes he would say something stupid just to get one of those back, and nearly every time they would have him speechless like he was a dartboard and she’d just scored a bullseye.

He also loved it when she would clack her jacks together, to see a girl so cool and aloof being so nervous like that gave him little butterflies, not that he didn’t like the cool sarcastic Jirou, but seeing her vulnerable made him want to simply smother her in his arms buzzing with electricity like a blanket to warm her up and… oh god he did like her like that!

He focused back in on his friend still waiting on the answer, but it looked to him that he already knew what he was going to say.

“Yeah, yeah I would,” he said sheepishly rubbing the back of his scalp, to which his friend simply smiled at him.

“I say go for it man, you’ve got the looks and she’s pretty damn comfortable with you so It won’t be like you're coming out of left field to ask her out, and you like her, if that’s what I’m reading your Todoroki/Midoriya esc stare into space correctly” His purple friend chuckled.

“You seem to know an awful lot for someone likely to never get a date” Denki jabbed.

Minoru simply smiled standing again and spreading his arms wide. “I guide others to treasures I cannot think to possess”

“That was surprisingly deep” Marveled Denki. “Whatever your reading, you’ve got to lend me, man”

“You’re more than welcome to take’em, I’m at 10 out of 15 at the moment, but uhh, enough talk, ready to have Pikachu be Team Rocketed?”

“Oh, you are on dude! Hey later you should show the others your art”

“Uhh sure, so long as you tell them there's no weird stuff”

“Do that yourself Minoru”

Chapter Text

‘Okay, why did I snap at him, what did he even do, not like it was his fault that Mineta said those things, and besides, what the hell does that ball-headed menace know about women anyway’ Scowled Kyouka internally as she thumped down on her bed.

Not that much had changed about her room since the first year, there were a few pictures now, Mina had the brilliant idea to take a photo together before the final battle, a before and after shot, unsurprisingly they were all covered in blood and dirt with torn clothing, they looked like actual zombies and one of their number pretty much was one and the rest of them looked close to ones with the amount of energy they had expended, how the hell they were all alive was a miracle in and of itself.
She looked over to the left side of the photo where she stood, missing her jack and coat, dirt smeared across her face with a gaunt stare, Fumikage stood to her left the photo’s right, he looked pretty damn dead inside and his body was being held up by Dark Shadow, he looked so exhausted but pretty triumphant, to her right stood Denki and Momo, the former who was trying to imitate his finger gun pointing motion towards the camera, but due to the sheer amount of energy he had expended he simply couldn’t do it, his arm was zig-zagged, hand pointed down with his forearm pointed up, with elbow dropped, he’d also been doing the motion with his left hand as Momo and herself where at that moment trying to keep him upright, well he was also attempting to keep Momo upright, the two had expended the most energy out of the lot of them keeping the Coffin and UA afloat and then to top it off creating and firing off a railgun.

‘No clue how those two even had the energy to do that.’

Momo had acquired a scar across the top of her nose during her engagement with the Twice, she’d also lost her belt. Kyouka didn’t quite remember what it was actually named, she was also slouched and looked thinner, not surprising considering the sheer amount of stuff she made.

She looked back at the before image, her classmates all had serious looks on their faces, she had her glare on, and her left jack, she touched the end of her ear, it was so weird to feel that missing, the lack of weight. She’d been told that Eri would have reattached it, the little girl had burst into tears when the class arrived back, looking more dead than alive. Considering her quirk it was very much possible that she could have, only if they had managed to retrieve it, which considering all the fighting, hadn’t been a priority at the time, it was likely somewhere on the battlefield.

In the interim she’d been given a prosthetic to replicate the abilities, not that she needed it to consider one jack alone was strong enough to rival the two, but she’d also been given a magnetic dangle earring by Momo to account for the weight, it was a nice gold chain with a point at the end to imitate the jack that once occupied that ear, said earring was currently on her nightstand.

‘Okay but why did I snap at Kaminari, that was uncalled for, it’s not like he knows why I don’t like Mineta, but it just sounds like I got pissed at him about that, well I did, but that’s not the full truth’ Her mind was processing her previous actions. When she heard someone scampering from the elevator to her door, she knew exactly who was approaching, every person has a certain way of walking, a certain sound that is indicated by weight and speed, her quirk let her do this better than anyone after being in the dorms with everyone else she could pin down who it was easily, the approaching person was Mina, her footsteps had a certain timing and a kick to them like she was about to jump.

She called out even before she knocked. “Come in Ashido!” The door burst open in response revealing her bubblegum-coloured friend with a befuddled expression.

“How did you know it was me?”

Jirou didn’t even respond, flicking out her jack and sliding it out in front of her face, moving it from left to right to empathise her quirk to them. “You need to ask?” She asked in a bored voice.

“Right, sorry, forgot you can do that sometimes,” She said with a finger to her chin.

“Mina! How do you forget what my quirk does?!” She laughed.

“Sorry, kinda forget you know when someone's around” She said sitting on the seat for the drum set. “Anyway, what was with snapping at Kami earlier? Bit out of line for you Kyouka, don’t you think?” She quizzed.

“I just thought it was strange that he was going to hang out, all day with him is all, I don’t quite get why he’s friends with him in the first place, probably his pervy nature attracts the two together” She said with slight vitriol.

“Well as crazy as it is to say this, he is a good influence on Mineta, probably never had anyone be his friend to even tell him what he was doing was wrong, I mean I tried my style which worked, and he’s trying the positive approach” Mina stated.

“Positive, how do you know Kaminari would be positive?” She scowled.

“Kyouka, you know Denki he’s a flirt but that’s about it” She leaned over the kick drum. “But why do you care if he plays smash all day, did you want him to play another sort of smash all day, with you?” She wiggled her eyebrows causing the girl to glow vermillion at the jab.

“MINA!” She yelled, jabbing at her with her Jack in anger.

“Sorry, I thought it was funny!” The pink girl squealed. “Wow you are red, how many nerves did I strike?”

“NONE, None at all I was just repulsed that you suggested that”

“Normally when people are disgusted they turn green, not red!” She giggled. “Just admit you like him Kyouka!”

“I don’t, not like that anyway, Kaminari and I are just friends, and we leave it at that” She desperately explained.

“Just friends who sit with each other at lunch, who constantly flirt wi-”

“We do not Flirt” Jirou placed particular emphasis on that last word as she overruled Ashido. “I Tease him for his stupid antics”

“Ohh, sorry but it looks an awful lot like flirting to me, from where I sit, which is across from the both of you, I see and I ship,” Mina smirked at the still bright red Kyouka.

“It’s not like that!” She had completely lost her composure now.

“How about that time you just about lost it when he came right up to you to compliment you on how many instruments you could play, I swear you had nearly the same look that Ochaco had when we teased her about Midoriya, and you can’t see that you like him?” Mina asked, genuinely confused now.

“Nuh Uh, even if I did, which I don't,” Kyouka responded. “I know his type, swimsuit models, with longer hair, and bigger boobs, I do not fit that description” Mina caught a slight tinge of annoyance in that remark.

“Fuck you mean Nuh Uh! I’ve seen him interacting with you, I don’t think he could care less about your appearance, girly personality, that’s what got him hooked on you.” She exclaimed, removing herself from the seat and jumping onto the bed beside Jirou.

“Okay why are you bringing this up, all I said was that I didn’t like seeing him hang out with Mineta, why are you asking me how I feel about him, Mina?” Was the return.

“I was just thinking about what Tokoyami said the other day.” She said, putting her finger to her chin and pointing her head up in a thinking position.

“He was not talking about us!!” Kyouka exclaimed, waving her hands. “He had to be talking about Yaomomo and Todoroki,” trying to shift the conversation.

“Ohh he absolutely could have been, but I’m pretty sure he was talking about you two”

“Okay I see you trying to retread this, I am not interested in him like that and I have made it very clear” She was still trying desperately to get her romantically chatty classmate off her back.

“Right, right, so what was that date you two went on at the start of last year then?” Her massive yellow iris stared her down awaiting a response.

“He had been shot down by Ochaco and Tsu, he asked me, I pitied him and he was buying, so I went along with him, nothing more” She said calmly.

“Oh, where did you go, and what did you do?” The massive Black and Yellow eyes still staring her down.

“That open window front café in midtown, the Eatna Mode, banana cake, coffee for me and he got apple juice like a five-year-old” She noted not missing the easy joke at his expense.

“So why do you remember exactly what you both had huh?” Mina cheekily asked.

Kyouka froze. ‘Why do I remember exactly what we had, those are weird things to remember, why all that, it was once in what May? What the hell could have possibly made me remember that?’

Her mind quickly wandered back to that afternoon in May, when she was sitting at the cafe's window seat.

Chapter Text

Kaminari had insisted on only buying one larger food item to save on cost, which had turned into him buying two to be adequate for one large cake, so the two banana cakes sat on a singular plate between the two of them, it was a nice enough day nice and sunny with plenty of clouds, they had both positioned themselves in such a way as to actively talk to each other without issue, in this case he was asking her a question, holding out his fork as a pointer.

“So you do anything interesting in Middle School?” He said flicking the utensil at her.

“If by interesting I assume you mean sports or music, stuff like that?”

“Yep!” Came his cheerily reply.

“I play a few instruments, and I played Hockey,” She said, twirling her left jack with her index, cutting apart her cake with her right hand. “What did Cassanova do, apart from failing to get dates?” She sniped.

“Oh very funny, I’ll have you know I read, quite frequently” He added as she cocked an eyebrow at him. “I was practically the Librarian's best friend with how often I was in there.”

“Really,” She said biting down on her cake, “I didn’t peg you for the bookworm type, more the running around playing Pokémon and trying to get girls”

“Who said I couldn’t do all three?” He said in a shocked tone, “You can't chase girls And read books, well I never Jirou, stereotyping, you?” He had a massive grin at that remark and she instantly got the joke, giggling slightly.

“Stereotyping, okay that’s good, I’ll give you that” She snickered.

‘Okay he’s funny, but he’s going to have to do better than puns’

“So what did you read?” She asked, leaning in to drink some of her coffee.

“Ooh a bit of everything, but mainly the classics, you know the old Greek Stuff, Iliad, Odyssey, and stuff along those lines, Shakespeare so, Macbeth, Merchants of Venice, you already know I read Hemmingway, Gulliver's Travels, you ever read Ovid?”

“Can’t say I have”

“Okay how about Stranger in a Strange Land”

“Yes, that was awful”

“It just turned into Heinlein’s weird fetish book” He scrunched up his face as he said this. “Also that part about it being the woman's fault that they get” He looked around spotting a family with two young children to their right. “You know, remove g from grape.”

“Oh, god yeah I put it down after that”

“You mean you didn’t already put it down after even starting the third act?”

“I was curious about how it would pan out, worst mistake of my life”

“That wasn’t coming here with me? Shocker!” He said pulling back and putting his left hand over his chest.

She elbowed him in the side. “It’s not as bad as that but still pretty high up there” She smirked, taking another bite of her cake. “So you do anything else other than read, and chase girls? Sports, Instruments?”

“No sports but I do play ukulele” he responded.

“No way, Ukulele, what were you learning that for?”

“Trying to impress a girl, you know serenade her” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“And you thought that a ukulele was the way to go as opposed to the classic guitar?” She asked genuinely interested as to why he’d picked the instrument.

“Well, it was cheaper and had fewer cords, plus leaned into my, admittedly silly vibe”

“So did it work?”

“Nope!” The two burst out laughing.

“Okay, okay, what the hell did you sing?” Kyouka snorted.

“In accordance with Love” came the reply.

“No, not the Levi Corinth song,” She asked in disbelief, “what did she say?”

“She said,” he said, putting on what Jirou assumed was an impression of the girl. “That was very sweet but sorry, I’m not interested like that, sorry” His face held a rather unfortunate ahh welp expression, that she couldn’t not giggle at.

“The flirtiest member of the class, gets shot down constantly, it’s like your school work, you just can’t win” She shook her head at him. He did his whole hurt expression.

“I’ll have you know I do get work done when I like the work,” He said with an air of annoyance.

“So you just don’t like the work at all then, skate on by with that flash quirk and do no more ey whey?” She poked, ‘She’d give him this so he could take a hit, smack him with a self-confidence melter and he’d go back in for another.’

“No, no, it’s more ADHD, I want to do something, but if it just doesn’t interest me I don’t tend to do it like I know I need to, but I don’t, if that makes sense?” He explained.

“Hmmm,” Kyouka had to think for a moment, when a sound caught her off guard, a heartbeat, that by itself wasn’t weird she heard those all the time, but this was off, the beat was odd, and she swore she could hear a, was that a kazoo of some sort?

‘Wait, no, that’s not?’

She focused on the sound of the Benny Hill theme blaring into her ears. ‘What the actual fuck?!’

She now had to find the source of the noise, her jacks snaked out, Kaminari jumped back in his seat.

‘Wait, no?’

Her jack wound its way towards the blond, coming just in front of his chest.

“Wooh, Jirou, umm, I didn’t know we were that close,” He said, a bit of fear in his voice, he had seen what these things could do.

“Shush!” She hissed.

There it was, it was his heart making that noise.

‘WHY IS HIS HEART PLAYING THE BENNY HILL THEME?!’ She couldn’t quite understand it but his heart sounded so much like the theme, ‘How is that even physically possible? Arrhythmia?’ She looked back up from her thoughts to see Kaminari staring at her with a confused expression, ‘Why was he so close, he wasn’t before?’ She realised that her head had been nearing his chest, and she leapt back in a panic red rising along the ends of her ears.

“Sorry!” She yelped.

“What the hell was that about, if you wanted a hug you could have asked” He smirked.

“No, it’s not that, do you know you have a form of Arrhythmia?” She asked, trying to quell her blush at his close contact.

“No, what is Arrhythmia?” He asked with a puzzled look on his face.

“It’s when you have an irregular heartbeat,” His face dropped at this, “It’s due to electrical pulses that keep your heart pumping, considering your quirk I’m not super surprised that it’s messed with the amount and frequency” She finished, the poor boy looked positively distraught at what she had said.

“How! I was positive that I’d never mess up my heart! I followed Uncle Iroh’s instructions perfectly! No energy over the heart, HOW COULD IT HAVE MESSED UP?!” He looked like he was going to cry.

“Uncle Iroh? As in Avatar?” She asked, half trying to pull him away from the panic and half confused at his outburst. He seemed like the type that followed advice from a TV show, Iroh wasn’t a bad choice to gain advice from.

“No no, my Uncle Iroh, my mum’s brother, his quirk was Plasma Generation, so he taught me how to use mine, he was always adamant that I should never use my left hand alone to generate a charge so I didn’t do something to my heart, oh no, I’m so sorry uncle” He turned out the window like he was standing right outside.

“You know it could just be the constant charge on you, not that you used your left hand right? Arrhythmia is due to the charge generated by the heart, not by the presence of electricity over your heart you dunce.” She said still trying to get him to snap out of his panic.

“I, but my heart, what if it stops?” He still panicked.

“It won’t. Your quirk is a natural pacemaker. Even if your heart completely shuts down, you could still jump-start it with your quirk.” She lowered her voice to make him work harder to hear her. He had stopped panicking now and was looking at her, seemingly forgetting his rant about his heart and banana cake by her calm voice.

“Are you okay with me grabbing your hand? I want to try something” She asked as softly as she could, like he was a little mouse that she was trying to convince that she was a friend. He simply nodded, “No you need to say yes, not nod” Her voice rose slightly.

“Yes, yes you can” He said sheepishly, to which she grabbed the top of his hand and snaked her left jack around his wrist, he shivered slightly, it felt odd to touch him it was like touching someone that had just been on a trampoline with socks on, and his hand was really warm as well.

‘There’ She had identified his pulse, his heart was still playing the Benny Hill theme, she would have burst into laughter had he not been so terrified, in a simple move she started lightly playing the sound of her heartbeat through her jack, her left one was the best choice for it, being closer to the organ mean it was easier to send the sound out, she kept a steady rate, hearing Kaminari’s heart slow down and slowly line up with her own, steadying.

After a few minutes, she removed the jack and her hand, a small zap shot off as she did so.

“Ow, hey”

“I’M SO SORRY! You just did something nice for me I didn’t mean to, I swear” Kaminari panicked, wringing out his hands.

“Hey, don’t do that. I just got your heart to sync with mine to get it to stabilise, you're gonna mess it up.” She told him a tinge of annoyance in her voice, to which he looked befuddled.

“You synced our heartbeats?” He asked for a small hint of red on his cheeks.

“Yeah, and I can do that no big deal, why…” She suddenly realised what he was going red about. “Hey, I did that because you were freaking the fuck out, Okay, nothing more, and I needed to get your heart to not sound like that” red slowly creeping down her ears.

“What did it sound like then?” He said putting his charming demeanour to try and distract them from the awkward scene that had just befallen them.

“You know the Benny Hill theme?”

“No, No, NO, NO NO, IT DIDN’T?!” He looked positively gobsmacked, eyes wider than his plate and mouth hung so far open that he could have placed his glass in it upright.

Kyouka could do nothing but burst into laughter at his terrified surprised face as he held the top of his head in his hands.

He suddenly moved forward and grabbed her hands with a pleading expression, which took her aback, she would have stabbed him for that, but he looked so freaked out, again.

“Please, please please don’t tell anyone that my heartbeat sounds like that song, I will never hear the end of it if someone finds out” He pleaded, god she could not resist those honey-coloured eyes, well she could but he was pleading now and holding both of her hands, so she would relent.

“Yes, I won’t tell anyone one, so long as” She put in as he relaxed pulling his hands back, “You don’t tell anyone I synced mine with yours, understand”

“Yes, 100% I wouldn't anyway if the two are connected.” He put it in, he looked fine now.

“Cool, what say we finish the food, pay and leave?” He nodded in agreement and got stuck into the cake again.

‘Okay no, one, in particular Mina can know that I did something as weirdly intimate as, no! That wasn’t intimate, that was just me, resetting his heart rate, that’s a normal thing to do right?’ She pondered taking her cake apart, sneaking a look at Kaminari who was pensively eating his remaining cake.

‘Okay but we didn’t have to try and set his heartbeat to ours, I’m sure it would have been fine to leave it, glad no one else was around that would have been hard to explain’ She looked around to see if any of their classmates had seen them, she could have sworn that she saw red and white hair disappear into the crowd walking by, but another search saw two people rather than the expected one, she sighed in a sort of relief, would it have been that bad to be spotted with Kaminari? Well no the others had known he’d asked her to lunch, it was more the hand-holding since they definitely weren’t in a relationship.

‘Would it be so bad to date Kaminari?’ She’d thought at the time, now repeated in her mind back in her room with Mina still looking at her like a bug.

“Earth to Kyouka, you never answered my question” She pointed out, poking her on the shoulder. To which she jumped slightly, the content thinking expression quickly morphing into one of confusion and slight annoyance.

“Sorry, I spaced, what was the question?” Mina sighed at her.

“You have been hanging around Kaminari too much, you're starting to space out like him girl” She lay down on the bed gesturing back up at Jirou, who had in turn scrunched up her face in mild annoyance. “What’s that called,” she placed her finger to her cheek, “Mirroring?”

“No Mirroring is a subconscious thing you do with other people, mirroring would be me lying down with you,” Jirou explained.

“Okay, but now you are deflecting, why do you remember what you had at the café?” Ashido’s ‘start shit smile’ was on full display as Jirou’s ears became a deep scarlet.

“I was sworn to secrecy,” She said, turning her head, realising too late that it would severely intrigue her friend.

“WHY, did you Kiss!” Mina raised herself from her position, she looked like she was going to pounce.

“NO! WE DIDN'T, I SWEAR!” Which wasn’t all too convincing since merely the idea had made her go bright red, Mina’s smile slightly faded as she considered.

“No you can’t have kissed, if you had Denki would have bragged about it for a week.” She answered herself, to which Jirou sighed. “So what did you do?” The Pink Girl asked.

‘She’s not going to let up, what the hell do I say though, I can’t bring up the heartbeat, or the hand holding, and I’m trying to distance myself from the idea of a relationship, I’m not against it but I would rather tell her on my terms, and if I were to, she’d gossip about it, hard corner I’m in here’ Kyouka thoughts were rapidly looking for a way out of this situation. ‘I could, it’s a long shot, it might fool her’

“You know when you do or say something embarrassing and then your brain replays it in your head over and over for you to regret?”

“Ohh yeah, what did you do?”

‘Right here goes’

Jirou sighed, placing her hand over her face, “I fell into his chest whilst laughing, my brain replays that over and over, so now I’m stuck remembering what we both had.”

‘That’s not necessarily a lie, I did fall into his chest and I do replay that moment a lot, but not out of embarrassment’ Her inner voice told itself as Mina started giggling.

“Did static cling get to you?” She giggled, “What were you laughing about?”

“His awful middle school dating attempt,” She answered. Mina burst out laughing.

“What did he Do!”

“Three words, she said holding up her hand, Levi Corinth, Ukulele”

“Oh, Noooooo!” Mina fell onto the bed face first to hide her rampant giggling, which Kyouka also fell into.

The two laughed for what seemed like ages until Mina rose still laughing, “So if he were to do the same thing again but for you, what would you do?” She cry-laughed, wiping tears from her eyes in the process.

Kyouka could barely react to that, the colour on her face hadn’t changed from light pink from laughing, she had to consider that.

“In accordance with Love, on uke, with Kaminari singing? Hard decision, depends on how well he sings it in all honesty” The two once more burst into laughter. “Anyway, I’m going to go get lunch, you in?”

“Of course!” Mina jumped off the bed and the two wandered out towards the elevator.

Chapter Text

The two walked over to the elevator and set it for the ground floor, the doors shutting with a nice swwic, and the large metal box descended, but just as quickly as it had started it stopped on the second floor, where the two people Kyouka could have gone without seeing, were waiting for it to come down, Kaminari and Mineta, the two nodded and shuffled into the elevator, Mineta holding two large black binders under each arm, she had no clue what those could contain, but Mina stepped in to find out.

“So whatcha got Mineta?” She asked, pointing at the binders.

“I’ll show you with the rest of the class in a minute” Was the reply.

‘Well, there's no point asking any further if he’s going to tell us anyway,’ she thought, looking back over to Kaminari, who was staring at the doors and tapping his right index finger to his left.

“So,” she said, breaking the silence again, “who won?”

“Overall or last?” Asked Kaminari, turning to her.

“Overall”

“Mineta”

“Damn Zappy, though you said you were better than him” Jirou took particular delight in cutting him down, he made it very easy and always fired back.

“Well, I wasn’t prepared for Kazuya sweep!”

The two hadn’t noticed their friends standing behind them, exchanging knowing looks with devilish smirks.

The fact that anyone other than Kaminari had exchanged one with Mineta would have been cause for concern, had either of them noticed. For the ding of the elevator heralded their arrival on the ground floor and the four trudged out into the common room, Kyouka could have sworn she saw Tokoyami’s side eying the group.

Kaminari put on what she could only describe as an old radio announcer voice as he addressed the class.

“Alright everybody, Mineta has something to show you all!” He said spinning to his purple friend, who jumped slightly.

“Is it safe for work?” Asked Tsu in full seriousness, earning a few light chuckles.

“Yes, there is nothing in here that I wouldn’t show my mother,” he said, placing the two binders on the table. The class wandered over to see what these mysterious books of Mineta contained.

“Now, he said turning to them with a slightly guilty face, I have no idea how exactly to explain this but I have been drawing you guys for the better part of a year” This saw immediately concerned faces fly up around the class, to which he waved his hands in response.

“I swear I did no compromising art!” He still received at least six armour-piercing glares, so he quickly turned to Kaminari to back him up.

“Yeah guys he has no stuff like that, he showed me I can verify,” He said in self-assurance nodding, “Besides they are some of the coolest drawings I’ve ever seen”

Mineta started pulling out said drawings, Kyouka had to admit, they were damn good, she even spotted herself a few times, her classmates clamoured around to see themselves depicted in what they all seemed to think were super cool drawings of them, Midoriya and Bakugou were both gawking at a picture of All Might in what looked to be his, Silver Age costume? Momo had picked up a drawing with her Bakugou and Iida, on what looked to be a ship.

“These are all very impressive Mineta,” She said turning to him, he could only respond with a smirk.

“Yeah Man, these are awesome!” Called out Kirishima holding up a picture of Midoriya and All Might, the rest of the class was rifling through his banks of drawings, and Kyouka saw a familiar looking person, picking it up she found it was her, in her hockey uniform.

“HEY SMALL FRY!” She turned and glowered at the shorter student, “When did you do this one?” Her voice full of ice as she pointed to the drawing held in her left hand, a few curious eyes flickered over to it, and Mineta for his part barely flinched.

“Walking in the park one day last year, spotted the Hockey Game, saw you playing went ‘Hey, I didn’t know Jirou played Hockey,’ so I went over and watched, also nice move against their number eight, but yeah I thought the stick over the shoulder with the bubble was a cool image, so presto” he said pointing at it, “If I’m honest your probably the easiest to draw to some degree” He shrugged.

That comment sent a spark down her spine, ‘ohh that-’.

“Who’s the hardest?” Asked Midoriya.

“Hagakure”

“Seriously! Me?” Came the reply from the girl who was impossible to see, who despite the fact no one could see her face, knew that she had a shocked look. “What is so hard about drawing me, there is nothing to draw!”

“That’s the hard part, with no actual idea of what you look like I have no idea if the proportions are off, where do the arms end? Where does a hat sit on your head? I have no clue” The purple student exclaimed his remarks.

“Back to my original question, Jirou Glowered, but I’ll expand, why?”

“I honestly hadn’t drawn you very much, and it was a fun exercise to draw something sport-related rather than heroic. It's not like I’ve drawn you in an inherently weird way. I don't do that with my art, but do you like it?” He asked this last question with an eyebrow raised so far up it could have touched his hair.

Kyouka took a second to soak in the piece he’d managed to capture the yellow uniform that she wore nicely, despite it lacking colour, this was a pre-war image as she had both Jack’s, and she noted his comment about the No.8, he had captured, at least to her, unflattering figure rather well.

“It’s nice, would have liked to know you’d done it sooner, or at least let me know you were there” She sharply put in.

“Sorry about that, I’ll keep it in mind next time,” he said with a slight shuffle of his feet, he turned to see his classmates still pulling out drawings, one of whom was Mina, flicking towards the back pages.

“Wait Ashido not that one-” Was all he got out before Mina pulled a much larger drawing out of the rear page of the binder. There was a stunned silence as she pulled out the large drawing of Ms Midnight, Mina looked especially alarmed, and Kaminari deflated with a grimace, he had to have seen this earlier.

The silence was deafening, usually, a sentence that seemed contrarian, but for Kyouka silence was deafening, without the overall blanket of sounds in the foreground she was stuck listening to the sound of the laundry room at work, the shuffle of paper, and now shaking breaths of a few of her classmates, she looked back at Mina who’s eyes looked glossy around the lower edges, tears, Kyouka’s mind replayed the worst sound she had heard in her life, the sound of her teacher's heart-stopping.

She knew that memories were appearing in their heads like fireworks, unwanted and painfully sharp.

She looked around, Sato’s eyes held a look of pure pain, Kirishima looked ready to crumple into Mina who was now openly weeping, Mineta looked even smaller than he had once previously his hand still outstretched for the drawing, Momo stood across the other side of the table, with a haunting look, eyes that betrayed her thoughts, holding back tears, Kyouka couldn’t help but feel so bad for her in particular, she hadn’t just lost Midnight that day but her mentor Majestic too.

Todoroki, who was standing awkwardly beside her, gave her, what looked to Kyouka anyway, a pained expression on his glacier-like face, he hesitantly reached his hand out to her right shoulder and lightly placed it, she turned slightly to face him, Mineta gave a small whisper.

“I drew her to, touc,” he choked on these words but he valiantly continued, “I drew that for her funeral, to give to her family, a memento, of when she, she,” he choked again, Kirishima moved to support the small and seemingly shrinking student, “when she was alive, and happy and not…” He didn’t need to finish, several amongst them had seen the body, what was left of their teacher, she had the last breaths haunt her thoughts.

The silence once more hung in the air, Kirishima had pulled in Mineta for a hug, and Momo had turned completely and collapsed into a shocked Todoroki who obviously had no idea how to comfort her with his hands hovering awkwardly in the air as she cried into his shoulder, as glanced around at the others his eyes making the clear message ‘What do I do, I’ve never had this happen before’ if it had been a less serious situation Kyouka would have started smirking, as she was sure some of her classmates would have as well.

He glanced at Midoriya and Bakugou with a panicked look, Midoriya jerked his head forward, whilst Bakugou mimed pulling his arms in for a hug, again if the situation hadn’t been so emotionally high she would have laughed at the three’s actions.

Todoroki had seeming cued in on what they were telling him as he gingerly wrapped his arms over her back whilst she cried into his shoulder. It kept getting better as Katsuki mimed rotating his hand, clearly trying to communicate to his dense friend to try and soothe her by rubbing her back, to which he could only look back confused and answer aloud in full seriousness.

“Why are you insinuating that I need to clean a window, can you not read the room?” He asked bluntly, breaking the silence.

She swore that every single face in the room was about to descend into a fit of ill-timed giggling, the only question was who would crack first. As it happened that was Mina whose sobs had turned to a giggle still interspersed with crying.

“Todoroki you are so bad at this man” She shook her head still giggling, a few snorts could be heard, as Todoroki made a face that she couldn’t quite read, as he responded again.

“Truma, It’s not like a pressure point can just fix it, I know that much, I offered last time,” a collectively confused glace could be felt, “tears and scars are not healed through applying pressure, wounds are closed with pressure, well tears can be stopped with pressure from the eyelid, but the loss of someone dear, will always sting”

Those last words rang like a bell, a bell that had rung before, he looked more comfortable now right arm rubbing the small of her back as her sobs began to subside, Kyouka would have gone to console her best friend but Todoroki was closer, and in any case, she wasn’t tall enough to hold her up.

The class had once again gone silent thinking over what he had said, the room felt not light but sort of floaty, Kyouka hated that silence it wasn’t the nice calming one but the overpowering silence that felt like putting on ear defenders but still hearing everything if muffled, of course the classes spark would put a stop to the feelings of dread.

“You know,” Said Kaminari, his voice lacking its humorous jaunt, replaced by a clear serious tone, “The last thing Ms Midnight taught me might have been the most important thing I learned from anyone” His voice took on a wistful sound.

“She told me, ‘If saving the world if too much to handle, think about whatever it is you hold most dear’ and that gave me all the motivation I needed to keep pressing on, to keep fighting, you guys asked me how I didn’t collapse after expending so much energy” He gave a quick turn.

“I followed her advice, kept what was most important in my heart, and got it done, and if she were still here, I think she would tell you all the same thing” his signature neon smile was like a lighthouse guiding them out of the murky dark, leave it to the resident class idiot, all though they all knew he was far from one, to keep them entertained and distracted.

Ojiro tilted his head thinking before asking a question directed at his yellow fellow, “So what exactly is the thing you hold most dear Kaminari?” The others' eyes once more looked to him with eager curiosity, to which a light pink glow trickled down his neck.

“Ohh, that’s unimportant now, It’s not like I need to, I mean the world was saved right? No need to tell you guys!” He shook his shoulders and arms out, a few hungry grins appeared, either to rip into him or into actual food, they had been talking for a while.

“Yeah Kaminari, what was so important to you that you keep your brain on after powering a flying island?” Asked Mina, eyes full of mirth as opposed to hurt.

“What could do that?”

“Hey now” Said Sero, “could be a family member, come to think of it you’ve never actually talked about them dude, was it one of them?”

“Well no, not really” He said scratching the back of his neck, “But I mean I did think of my little sister, but she wasn’t, you know, at the forefront.”

“You have a sister?” Asked Tsu with a confused expression.

“Yeah, Denkichi, she’s ten,” He said with a smile, “But it wasn’t her, or my brother Akiteru , or my parents, or my Uncle Iroh”

“Are we not going to talk about how his Uncle is named Iroh?” Yelped Mineta,”I expected that from Todoroki, not you!”

“Why would you expect that from me?” Asked Todoroki again genuinely confused, at which Momo had to stifle a giggle into his shoulder.

“Because you look like Prince Zuko” Stated Shinsou matter-of-factly, to which a few of them snorted.

“Okay okay, if it wasn’t one of your family members, who was keeping your head in the game?” Asked Mina once more, all eyes had moved to Kaminari once again.

“If I had to guess” Put in Tokoyami dramatically building up.

‘Poor guy, Though Kyouka, that’s just cruel, that like being forced to do a presentation you don’t want to do’

“That’s enough, no need to go prodding, considering he just pulled us out of that rut, can we eat now” She took on a voice of reason that she wasn’t quite sure she had, she could have sworn that Tokoyami was grinning, again, ‘What does he find so funny?’

“I agree with Kyo, as funny as I think it would be to rip into Lemondrab over here, I’m hungry and I get hangry, so please, food.” Snarled Bakugou.

“When are you not angry in some way?” Asked Todoroki in full seriousness. This elicited more giggles, to which the blond flapped his gums.

“When people are quiet and not fucking with me!” Came the reply.

“Soooo, never.” Pointed out Sero.

A few chortles could be heard from this, to which their blond mate could only respond.

“Touche”

Chapter Text

There are a surprising amount of thoughts circling Kyouka’s head, she’d heard that conversation that Kaminari had told the others, but he had seemingly omitted something, ‘ The wording, it’s wrong, I’m pretty sure she said person not thing, why would he leave that out? ’ 

She heard that whole exchange, she had heard the little hitch in his breath after stating “ That would be ”, and she had sworn that he had turned, turned back towards them, would it be too much to say towards her?

Was that wishful thinking?

She hoped not, she sounded like such a sap in her head, wanting herself to be the thing that kept him going, that thought was nice and warm though, but it was hard to believe that he thought of her that way, even after Mina’s declarations.

‘ Had to have been people that were the most important to him, not person, or at the very least that’s what he seems to have though, he is such a good friend, I doubt there wouldn’t be a moment where he wouldn’t of not thought of any of us, I don’t need the special treatment ’

‘ But you want it ’ Snarked a little voice in her head which she swore sounded Mina, that was awful.

Sighing internally, she decided to tune into the rest of the conversation, which was now about Kaminari’s family members.

“So you have an uncle named Iroh?” Asked Mineta.

“Yep mom’s side” 

“Wait, so does that mean his last name isn’t Kaminari?” Enquired Ojiro.

“No, it’s my mom’s family name” 

“So, that means, hang on, your dad took your mother's name?” Todoroki looked interested in this development.

“Yeah he sure did, I mean Mom’s cool but I have no idea why he went all in.” 

“I didn’t know you could take your wife’s last name” He still looked rather puzzled.

“Yeah, it’s not like there's a rule that you have to take the husband's surname, did you not know that?” Now it was Kaminari’s turn to look confused.

“I just wasn’t aware you could, carry on”

“Right so yeah, my Uncle Iroh, yes that is his name no bullshit, his quirk is Plasma Generation, so he taught me a few tricks with my quirk”

“Did he?” Bakugou gave him a deeply doubtful look, which was returned with a hurt expression.

“Yes he did, he taught me how to control the generation thank you very much!” Kaminari pouted.

“Not redirection?” Asked Midoriya innocently.

“No, all though I wish he did, would have helped with Nine, man that hurt, but yeah he taught me the basics, all the rules, Fleming’s Right Hand, never to put energy over the heart, all the good stuff.” He said with reverence.

"So what about your siblings, anything they taught you?” Asked Kyouka.

“Well not really my older brother Akiteru works in costume design and support gear, I was going to ask him to make mine, but he was away in France for a conference so it was moved to one of his coworkers, he’s a bit of a genius,” He said with a bit of a smug glint.

“So, how exactly are you related?” Sniped Mina, at which the other tittered.

“Funny, very funny, but no he taught me a few skills so I know my way around some machinery, hence why I could fix the blender after it took five of you to mess it up even further” He said with an obvious glace at Bakugou, Midoryia, Iida, Uraraka and Ojiro, who all looked to be various forms of guilty.

“Seriously how did you get the blades to spin so slow, what did you throw in, a brick?” His hand is out in front of his face in futility. 

“But in terms of quirk, there wasn’t much he could teach me, his is rather different, his boosts his intelligence by coating him in electricity, it also makes him strong due to the Galvani Principle, but it has the side effect that he could cause something to explode if he holds it.” 

“Bang Baby” Snarked Sero.

“Funny, but Denkichi basically got a version of my uncle’s, a plasma generation one”

“No quirk from your dad?” Asked Midoryia.

“Nope, he’s quirkless, worked as a mechanic in the States, moved over to work as a mechanic at my Mom’s agency, he even taught me how to drive, kinda” He shook his hand side to side at this last comment.

“Wait, you can drive?” Asked Shoji.

“Yes, but not well”

“I know this is very interesting but I would like to finish eating, in some form of silence… Please?” Snapped Bakugou.

Hagakure and Ashido exchanged looks before retorting.

“With Class A? NO WAY!”

“Keep going Kami, you said your dad worked at your mom’s agency, is that how they met?” Smile Mina.

“Yeah, they were both around 23? But Dad came to work as a mechanic, seeing as there were barely any heroes in Mom’s agency who had quirks that could work for long-distance travel so they had cars for long-distance response, so Dad went over for a bit of work-study, and didn't leave.” He explained.

“Hang on, Interrupted Todoroki, which hero is your mother, assuming she’s still active?”

“Ohh yeah, have any of you heard of Catenary?” He asked, leaning forward.

“Wait!" Yelped Jirou, "Catenary is your mom!”

“Yeah? Did I not tell you guys?”

“NO” she again yelped, earning a few glances, she looked around with a slightly embarrassed expression before stating.

“What? She was one of my favourites as a kid, I wasn’t like Midoriya or Bakugou level fanatic but a strong fav, you didn’t tell us she was your mom”

“Yeah well I wasn’t really expecting you guys to know her,” He said, placing a hand behind his head.

“The only person I was expecting to know her was maybe Todoroki” 

The Icey young man tilted his head obviously seeing if he could recall the name.

“She was working with Endeavour and Rocklock whilst we were out on Nabu, was part of the team that chased down the LOV’s armoured car, well no it was a truck, but yeah, she did get pretty banged up, as did the car, wrecked the Chevy, Dad was pretty devastated that he had his wife, son and car all come back in varying states of ouch” He shrugged this off, “But yeah she’s super cool”

“It’s nice that you can be proud of your heroic mother,” Todoroki said in a low voice, that silenced the happy atmosphere, “Not just of their achievements but for their treatment of you, the way you speak of her, I couldn’t say the same things about my father.”

“WELL!” Baulked Bakugou, looking back up from his food, “This is the reason I wanted silence, I do not need trauma dumping whilst I eat!” 

“Arg, what is it with people and not respecting that slight boundary? Can’t a man eat without the spectre of trauma past trying to sour his taste buds!”

“I don’t know why you had to describe it in the most eloquently angry way possible, but yeah” Concurred Shinso.

“Bigg yikes,” Muttered Uraraka, “I always feel sorry for you, your childhood always sounds so awful.”

“I'm coping,” The red and white-haired boy said to his plate.

“Aren’t we all,” was the response from Tokoyami.

“Man” Said Sero, the others looking at him, “We all seriously need therapy”

“Yeah okay, I’m calling girls night in my room” Piped up Mina, “No more trauma talk today, agreed?”

The others gave slow nods.

“Sweet, now, EAT, in silence” Roared Bakugou.

~~~~~~~~

Chapter Text

Monday, yet another day of school, yet another day of the new students trying, read: failing, to interact with the members of 2A, due to the surprising amount of video footage from the fights, the students had gained quite a few, fans or admirers, the ones with the most trying to crowd them were to absolutely no-one's surprise Todoroki and Bakugou, it was plainly obvious to all of them that the latter hated it, having the screeching voices of new students hang in the air like smoke, the echoes of Dynamight-Senpai could be heard from across the school, to make matters even funnier for the rest of the class the boy couldn’t even do anything himself to quell the hordes, so had opted for a very different strategy, have Mineta tag along with him.

Minoru was not unwise as to why the human incarnation of a Pomchi (Pomeranian Chihuahua cross) with anger issues had gotten him to tag along with him when walking through the school, he had a reputation of being a serial threat to women's safety, which his classmates were all currently trying to fix, Kirishima had apparently been building up a power point to educate him, but he knew that would hang over him like a raincloud, he’d even been made aware that he was the sole reason why all of the girls in their year wore shorts under their skirts, he had no clue if that was something to be proud of, or deeply ashamed for, he decided that it was the latter, which had been what he said when he first learned of it. 

With six women who had been the targets of what normally could have led to a likely expulsion for him, he was still in absolute awe that he hadn’t been to Nezu about it, or had legal action happen, somehow none of that had happened. 

But regardless he had built up a respect for the girls, which was partly out of fear the six of them were invariably terrifying, and had no problem with making his hero name a physical description, and it wasn’t a new thing, Tsu had attempted to get rid of him early on, attempting to drown him, and succeeding would have done them a world of good, in terms of what he’d heard them do, none of them were to be taken lightly. 

Even Hagakure redirecting lasers, No Thank You, the idea of someone invisible silently ending his life was a terrifying prospect, again Tsu who could also do that, and whilst the idea of frog powers was underwhelming compared to ‘I am I living Nuke’ Bakugou, she was still scary, her limber powerful limbs likely had enough strength to turn a lesser man into a pretzel, not to mention her massive list of other random abilities that could be thrown out in any situation, a living frog based utility belt in her body. 

In terms of pure power Ashido and Jirou were beasts, he’d witnessed Mina shrink the size of Machia’s hands, an armoured hide so thick nothing the cohorts of pro’s who’d attacked him had even really made a dent, and she had made an acid that ate threw it like Sato and Yaoyrozu at a banquet, and she was fast, agile and strong, he’d once seen her flip Shoji in training, and he was the biggest in the class, he shivered remembering the amount of force she’d flung him with during join-training, and now could tell you that being a Pin-ball ball was not a job that anyone would want.

And Jirou, yikes, Tokoyami had given them the rundown on their fight with All For One, she had been the one to deflect his attack on Hawks and then briefly incapacitate him with her sonic attack, and she had kept fighting after she’d had a chunk of her ear taken off, he’d been on the receiving end of her jack stab, it was one of the most painful sensations he’d ever felt, being stabbed and then the vibration that it set off that rattled your very bones. There was also the likelihood of being turned into a fizzy puddle on the floor, courtesy of Denki, and he wasn’t about to do his man in like that.

But if you wanted top of the heap in terms of terrifying war achievements, Yaoyrozu and Uraraka were high up there, both having taken out armies of Twice, Yaomomo ploughing through them like she was Captain Fordo in a War Machine suit, and Uraraka lifting over 100 people with her quirk, needless to say, Mineta had grow wise as to why he shouldn’t attempt any further fuckery with the girls, he had a feeling he would be atomised, even if they didn't do it themselves, he figured that some of the guys might turn him into paste, and now that Yaoyrozu had actually hit him in the head with a book, he had no excuse not to keep his impulses in check.

Lucky for him his, what you could call a partnership with Bakugou meant that should he lose his war with his hormones, he had heavy artillery to back up the logical side of his brain, by which he meant, Bakugou would yell at him grab the scruff of his neck and power yeet his grape shaped ass to the Moon before he could say boobs, he’d hopefully come to his senses as he entered the upper atmosphere.

In any case he was in class at the moment not walking with the boys as their Hobbit like bodyguard, the light chatter filling his ears as the bell sounded that they were dismissed, Todoroki and Bakugou made haste out of the room, trying desperately to get out of the classroom before the first years descended, and they almost made it.

“DYNAMIGHT- SENPAI!” The sound of multiple girls approaching at speed saw the two boys spin on their heels under the doorframe, as another cry of “TODOROKI SENPAI!” came closer, the two made haste out the door, the group of girls crowding it seconds later, the rest of the class sighed, some shook their heads with mock smiles, Minoru was going to follow but was, surprisingly fed up with this annoyingly common occurrence, as a few of his classmates made for the door, he took his moment to make his mind known.

“HEY FANGIRLS!” This gained the reaction he wanted. Five of them stopped their pursuit, stepping into the classroom, this let Shinsou and Shoji slink out, Kaminari, Ashido, Jirou and Kirishima followed suit, probably going to try and give the boys a hand with the bevy (Learned this is the technical description for a group of girls) of girls.

The rest of the class took this as their cue, leaving the room, whilst Midoriya, Uraraka were busy talking and didn’t notice the commotion, Sero and Yaoyrozu stayed put watching him with interest, what the hell was he doing?

“Why are you swarming those two stereotypical pretty boys!”

He said rising up to full, unimpressive height, pointing behind him to where Midoryia and Uraraka where the former was sitting, intently listening to the girl talk about something that wasn’t exactly important, he had a message to convey.

“When the REAL, HERO you should have the hots for is over there waiting for fan attention!”

Yaoyorozu, had to do a double take at what she’d just heard, her ponytail whipping violently around her head, Sero’s face now bore a look of pure, WTF, the two black haired students advanced on him.

“What, hang on?” Sero could barely express his shock.

One of the girls spoke up, “Well, it’s not that we don’t have any interest in him.”

“Yeah,” another put in, “We just knew that he was taken and we didn’t want to intrude on a seemingly nice relationship.”

The three second years paused looking from one to another.

“Wha?” Vocalised Mineta.

“I’m sorry, could you please repeat that?” Asked a puzzled Yaoyorozu.

“With who?” Sero said, his cheshire smile contorted into a perplexed look. 

The first girl pulled out her phone, “Here, take a look.” Handing it to Mineta, the taller students standing behind him looked over his shoulders at the screen, which had a video on it.

“Uraraka’s confrontation with Toga Himiko?” Whispered Momo, slightly confused.

“What the hell happened thereeeee?” Drawled on Sero eyes stuck to the video as it played the footage of the airborne fight.

“AND THEN I FELL IN LOVE WITH IZUKU MIDORIYA! AND NOW I’M TRYING TO STOP YOU!” The video of Uraraka was hard to hear but they all made that out, the three looked between them, back at the two other students who hadn’t at all noticed the video playing in the background.

‘ Does this mean ’ Minoru wondered in his head, ‘ You reached the promised land? ’

He turned back around whilst his classmates' surprised looks were still caked on their faces, and handed back the phone to the girls.

“Thank you for enlightening us ladies, but please, leave Todoroki and Bakugou alone, they can’t take that kind of attention” He said with a shake of his head. “Chase boy’s, or girls, I ain’t one to judge, of your own age, probably easier.”

“Also” Put in Sero having recovered from that revelation, sliding himself around in front of Mineta, “We are like 90% Sure Bakugou is gay, so you gonna have no luck in that department I’m afraid ladies” Raising his hands to a ‘What’ll you do’ position.

“To add on to that, pretty sure o’l Todoroki only has his dual coloured eyes for Yaomomo here, so you aren’t gonna get far.” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at her, with a snark that made the young lady blush, as she tried to swat away Sero.

“Stop it Sero, I’m sure he has more important things on his mind than me! But from what he’s told me he’s fine with people coming to talk to him,” She turned back to the girls, “He just prefers to be spoken to one at a time is all.”

“But hey, the rest of us did plenty during the war, and we’ll answer any questions posed, no need to try and get stuff out of them”, Chuckled Mineta.

Sero stuck a line of tape to his back, hoisting him up like a crane.

“Please don’t, we don’t need his head any larger than it is” He shook his head, “Anyway, you girls have a good day now.”

The girls thanked the three before leaving the classroom, at which they all huddled in.

“So, do we, you know?” Sero whispered, pointing over his shoulder.

“I don’t think so, if she hasn’t said it to his face I say we shouldn’t ask, let them work it out on their own” Yaoyorozu shook her head.

“But you know,” Puzzled Mineta still hanging from the tape, thumb and finger under his chin, “We could tell the others” The two black haired students looked at each other, then at the two still talking behind them, then back at Mineta, smirked and nodded.

“Hey!” Sero called out as they made their way to the door, “We’ll see you guys at lunch, or after it, all down to you two honestly.”

“Kay!” Replied Uraraka, barely registering what had just transpired in the background, too busy chatting with Izuku.

The three made their way into the hallway, Sero put Mineta down, and the three made a speedy break for the cafeteria, not running but definitely power walking at a brisk speed.

“Okay, what do we tell them?” Asked Sero looking at his companions.

“Just tell’em, that we have confirmation that Uraraka confessed to loving Midoriya, job done” Smiled Mineta.

“You took that better than expected” The lanky boy commented to which he shrugged in response.

“Always figured there was something, also do you not remember when she shot down Denki first week to go talk to him? Besides Izuku is a great guy, I’ll be happy for him not matter what, we know he deserves a bit of happiness, especially with that awful haircut” He grimaced.

“Please don’t tell him I said that.”

“Ohh I might, but we have others to inform first” Hanta shot back.

“Are you two sure this is a great idea, Mina might-” Interjected Momo.

“Yaomomo, this is Mina we’re talking about, doesn’t matter if she’ll spill, only a matter of when, let's be honest.” Joked Sero.

The cafeteria doors came into sight, and the three burst through them, earning glances of some in the room, Sero spotted the table most of them were at, the apparently entitled ‘Bakusquad’, no idea who called them that, he like Bakubrigade to be completely honest better alliteration, considering the man whose name made up the head was for all intents and purposes was a Grenadier it fitted better thematically, but that was semantics said had nabbed a table and were enjoying lunch.

“Oh hey you guys finally showed up, what took you so long? Mineta you left the Pretty Boys without an escort.” Laughed Kaminari from his spot at the front of the table.

“You guys are not going to believe what we just saw, slash heard.” Cut in Mineta.

“Quite the revelation,” Yaoyrozu added.

“Okay, right, Momo spill that tea girl!” Mina exclaimed.

“Why would I spill tea, that’s a waste of a perfectly good beverage” She said tilting her head.

“I mean it as a turn of phrase tea being information” Mina sighed.

“A better thing to say would be, Pour the tea, but very well” 

“We learned something rather interesting, or at least had our suspicions confirmed” She said with a grin.

“And that was? Don’t try and drag this Ponytail, tell us what you found or don’t” Snarked Bakugou.

“We have IzuOcha conformation”

“NO WAY!” Shrieked Mina slamming her hands to the table forcing herself up, “Are you sure, how?  Why did you see them? They aren’t here yet, don’t tell me they are!?”

“No, sorry none of what your thinking” Sero shook his head, “We just got confirmation about Raka’s feelings for Deku”

“Wasn’t that obvious though?” Asked Jirou, “I’m pretty sure Todoroki could have caught onto that.” She sneakily nabbed a bit of chicken off Kaminari’s plate.

“No no!, like full on conformation” Mineta practically vibrated.

“Did you hear them in class?” Enquired Kirishima.

“Well, no,” Sero admitted, scratching the back of his neck.

“So, how did you get confirmation then?” Bakugou questioned.

“Have any of you seen the video of her fighting Toga?” Said Mineta.

“No” Jirou simply said, “Pretty sure I was there to be honest, what did she say?”

“Well, amongst the fighting, she told her straight up that she’d fallen in love with Izuku Midoriya, no frills, not like, or grew a crush, Nah, straight up, I’ve fallen in love with him.” Sero said with finality.

The five looked shocked, Bakugou’s eyes were wide, but his true emotion was betrayed by a massive smirk, Kirishima looked pretty perplexed, Mina’s lamp like eyes took up a shocked look blinking semi rapidly to account for the new information, Kaminari had an expression that could only be described as smacked on the top of the head with a hammer, and Jirou’s mouth hung open in shock, she pinched another piece of chicken from Kaminari’s plate, he noticed this time out of the corner of his eye.

“So she said she loved him on TV, and hasn’t told him in person?” Kirishima stated.

“No clue,” Shrugged Sero, “I assume she didn’t think that it would be recorded, hence why she hasn’t told him”

“Sounds about right, but Oh my god, she really, like Loves him?” The three nodded.

“Apparently so,” Sero replied.

“ohh damn, Ochako, go get your man” Giggled Mina.

“How do you feel about that Bakugou?” Asked Kaminari, “Midoriya’s winning, he could get a girlfriend before you man, you gonna let him do that?” He said smugly, thieving a potato from Jirou’s soup in retaliation. What went unnoticed was Yaoyorozu’s sidelong glance. 

“I could care less about that sparky, I’ll let him get One Win, just this once” He said, glancing up from watching the two’s game of picking food, with a shrug and a smile.

“I may have also just cut down on that possibility” Sero said with a sheepish look.

“What did you do, Scotch?” Bakugou groaned.

“Well, I got those fangirls of your back”

“And you did that by?”

“... Telling them you were gay? ” He tensed.

The table exploded, Mina banged on it in hysterics, whilst Kyouka and Denki howled with laughter clutching each other's shoulders trying to stay upright and not faceplant into their food, Eijiro was trying his hardest not to start roaring with laughter his face muscles tense in a trial to keep poker.

Katsuki looked like he’d been told his pet just died.

“ ...You did what?” He said with a glower.

“I said we were 90% sure you were gay, and that they would possibly be wasting their time” Sero’s shit eating smile had returned.

“Should have told them we were 100%!” Jirou laughed, as Kaminari buckled into her.

“Ohh Fuck you guys!” Bakugou roared.

“He’s not denying it!” Yelled Mineta.

“Okay, what exactly is so wrong if I am” He snarled.

“Nothing man, if you like dudes we’re not gonna judge” Smiled Kirishima.

“It’s just reaaallly funny that Sero chose that to get them off your back!” Giggled Ashido.

“I will admit that was a bit of a cruel thing to say if you aren’t indeed gay” Yaoyorozu grimaced.

“Don’t fret Momo, we were all sure he was gay anyway” Chuckled Jirou.

“What could have given you that impression?”

“His walk” Stated Mina.

“That doesn’t say much Kaminari has a little gay walk” Jirou jabbed him in the side.

“It’s Transmissible!” The blond exclaimed, “and why are you watching how I walk?” She didn’t respond, looking away from him sharply to their blond friend who as usual looked ready to kill.

“Also his weird relationship with Midoriya and Kirishima” Mina listed again.

“Hang on, our relationship isn’t weird, is it?” The red-haired boy looked puzzled.

“You two are the physical embodiment of the phrase, ‘Two bros chilling in a hot tub, five feet apart because they're not gay’.” Chided Sero.

“But it’s not gay to do that with your homies, gotta give them space when soaking”

“Sure Eij, there's also the obscene amount of time he spends on skin and hair care products”

“Hey, if you quirk involved vast amounts of sweat you would too!” 

“Hey I have acid to clear my pores thank you” She retorted.

“Ohh, and his sparkles!” Jirou burst out.

“How could I forget his sparkles!” Mina gasped, “You could outdo Aoyama in terms of Twink-iling, with your snatched waist”

“My waist is not snatched!”

“Uh Hu”

“But yeah, I’m surprised you haven’t taken Escanors Pride Flare and incorporated it into your arsenal” Sero said snidely.

“You watch your mouth Sticky Boy, before I show you a cruel sun!”

“What’s wrong over here?” Asked Todoroki sidling into the conversation.

“Ohh nothing Shouto,” Answered Kaminari, “Just discussing whether or not Bakugou is gay is all”

The boy turned to him, “Are you?”

“So what if I am, Ice-pack!”

“Good for you, anyway, Yaoyorozu, Sero, lunch?” He handed them two trays oblivious to the scowl on his friend's face, “It seemed like you hadn’t grabbed it yet.”

“Ohh cheers Roki, totally forgot about that, ohh damn you even got my fav’s!”

“Thank you Todoroki” She elicited a light almost negligible blush around her neck.

“Anything else new?” The stoic boy asked.

“Ohh yeah my thermometer is like friend,” smirked Mineta.

“We learned that Uraraka, loves Midoriya”

“This is new?” The icey boy asked.

“See, told you he’d say that!” Cried Jirou, “I knew he would say something like, ‘They weren’t dating? I thought they were?’” She said in her best impression of the young man.

“You know I was joking, right?” Todoroki said, Jirou pausing stunned, “As Mina would say, Got’em” He retorted in his deadpan way, as Kaminari howled with laughter knocking her shoulder, Sero and Ashido joining in, whilst Yaoyrozu and Bakugou tried their damndest to hide their smirks.

“You sly guy, who knew you had that in you”

~~~~~~~~

Chapter Text

It was after lunch and a free period between classes, Denki was headed to the support course with his costume securely in it’s briefcase, he’d had one or two ideas he wanted to implement and was going to see if Hatsume could implement them for him, they had training that Wednesday, nothing too complicated or too combative mostly it was to get most of them used to their changed quirks, not that his had anyway, if he wanted to keep pace and be on the front next time. 

‘ I need to get better, faster, more accurate, even with the shooter I’m still more of a liability than anything else in combat, and I don’t want to be a power bank forever, this should at least give me the edge’ 

He thought strolling down the corridor, oddly he didn’t hear something buzzing or ticking, oddly Hatsume’s workspace seemed to be open with the door ajar, which was weird, he couldn’t recall ever seeing it like that, unless she’d just blown the door of it’s hinges, even weirder, the lights were off.

‘ That’s really weird ’ The slowly approached the door, stepping out into the opening into the dark room, light pouring into it via the large windows illuminating two people, one was obviously the coral pink haired Hatsume, who was at up on work bench on the right side of the room, legs around the waist of a rather tall student with an undercut, said student had dark blue hair and glasses, and looked to be going in for a kiss.

Denki’s eyes widened, he dropped his case on the floor in surprise, the noise altering the two.

“Huh! A Customer!” Hatsume exclaimed, whipping her head around over the shoulder of a completely mortified Iida, he wasn’t sure how but the class rep looked like a statue.

“What, ho, wahaah” 

Was all the blond could muster as the girl swung her legs out from around him, letting go of his tie in the process hopping down for the table, and bounding towards the intruder, Iida didn’t even turn, staying as still as possible employing the Drax technique of invisibility.

“What can I do for yah, what was your name again, Malarky?” She said looking past him to his briefcase.

“Uhh yeah, uhh firstly” He said trying to regain his utter lack of composure, “Kaminari, and I was wondering if you could modify my Shooter?” He said hefting the case up onto a nearby table, and opening it, and pulling out a piece of paper.

“What were you thinking, making the discs smaller, reducing the weight of the device?” She began asking to look over it.

“Uhh no, not exactly the discs are the perfect size, I was wondering” He placed the paper on the table pointing to the drawings he made. 

“Could you modify it to fire a cable? Possibly strong enough to use as a grappling hook?” he motioned, turning to look over, Iida was still standing in front of the table unmoving, and Denki had to stifle his urge to laugh at the poor guy.

Hatsume seemingly paid no mind to him in the background as she spoke again.

“Well in order to do that, I’d need to construct a whole new shooter, and it would have to be far bulkier, likely with a harness so it doesn’t rip your arm off when the motor starts, which for ease of use would run off your electricity, you want it to fire the cable on a discs?” She said pulling the device apart almost immediately.

“Oh yeah that would be great, and do you think you could make the wire, cable whatever you choose to use, be contactable, gives me a grapple in two ways”

“Yeah yeah of course, nice challenge this, anyway you can go, I’ll have this too you soonish, when do you need it?”

“Wednesday” He replied, as she started work immediately, ignoring his presence, “Right kay I’ll be heading off now, thanks Hatsume, I’ll see you in class Iida” He said sheepishly to the engine hero, he walked up just behind him. “Sorry for, uhhh, interrupting you” 

Iida again didn’t respond, but he did move which was a first, even if it was only his neck, staring Kaminari down, he felt a spark of panic shoot down his spine.

“Uhh see you dude” He waved before stepping out the door and making a fast paced walk down the hall, not running but really wishing he could.

“No one is ever going to believe me I swear” He muttered as he wandered back towards class.

“No one’s going to believe what, Zappy?” Came a voice from his right, the purple hair of Jirou coming into his view, there was that feeling again, hair standing end on end he swivelled his head, ‘Man why does she have to be so pretty, Come on man keep it to together, you just saw her at lunch!’.

“Ehhyyoo Earth to Jamming-Whey, what might I not believe? That you recently gained a brain?” She giggled.

‘ Damn it why does she have to be so adorable, I keep losing track of my thoughts, stop being cute for five minutes will you! please ’

“Okay so,” Kaminari finally getting his brain jogged, “I went to Hatsume to get some support item mods yeah”

“Right”

“But when I got there, the door was open and the lights were off”

“Was she not in there?”

“That’s the wild part she was, but she wasn’t alone”

“I think I can see where this is going”

“She was sat up on a table with her legs around Iida’s waist”

“So not where I thought this was going” She said with a start, “Are you sure it was Iida?”

“He was nearly six foot with an undercut and glasses, do we know anyone else in this school who fits that description?”

“Okay, so it was Iida, didn’t think he’d dig the eccentric mechanic chick, didn’t really seem his speed, actually, maybe it is” She pondered.

“You know what this means right?” Kaminari turned his hands outstretched.

“That he’s dating a girl and the rest of the guys aren’t?”

“Yes, but also, I might have just cockblocked him” He whispered, she instantly pursed her lips and flinched at the words taking a moment to consider.

“Pfffffffffhhaha, OHH YOU DID OH LOL, Denki he is not going to let you forget that!”

“I know, what made it worse is that he didn’t even acknowledge me, he just sorta stood there.”

Jirou had to stop as she burst into a peel of laughter hand over her stomach, it was adorable, well it would have been if it hadn’t been at the expense of the class rep, and by extension Denki himself. 

“Kyouka stop laughing! He’s going to kill me!” Unfortunately for him this just caused her to laugh louder.

“I’m serious! Do you not remember what he tried to do to Stain?” he panicked, “what if he Shadow The Hedgehog Roundhouses me!”

“Shadow roundhouse! OHHH He might pffffhaaha, I don’t think he’d do that, he tried to kill Stain for almost killing his brother, did you kill his brother?” She said back at her full height pointing at him with a mock accusatory tone.

“no” he said meekly to her.

“So,” She said, giving him a push on the shoulder, “You’re not going to die, but you are gonna get it from him” She shrugged.

“Ohh I can’t tell anyone else, me might actually kill me then”

“Yeah he might”

There was a brief pause as they realised that the two of them were just aimlessly standing in the hallway, alone, they had to get back to class.

“So, what were you going to get modified?” She asked as they started walking again.

“My Shooter, wanted to adjust the design to be a bit more practical, you know greater utility and all that”

“Oh yeah”

“You not going to get any gear upgrades Jirou?” He asked, to which she puzzled her face ‘ Why does she have to be so CUTE ffffuuuucccckkkk ’.

“You know not really, only real gear change has been that prosthetic, but I was thinking about asking to have that adjusted” She said playing with the gold earring sitting below her torn ear.

Denki felt a sharp pain in his heart, several of them had gotten new scars from their battles, it would be wrong to say that she lost the most, Midoriya had his arms disintegrated for crying out loud, and Bakugou, well he was legally dead for who knows how long, but still they lived, Midoriya was lucky, Eri’s repreve had enough time, three minutes, there was enough time to help him, she couldn’t do it for Jirou, the jack had fallen on the battlefield and there was far to much time between the event and them returning for there even to be an option to rejoin it, even if the little girl had said she would have.

There was still something really quite, well profound about what Jirou had said to her, his thoughts trailing back to just after that most dreadful conflict.

—

“You know, I still only have one, a piece of my ear being sliced off is better than not standing here with you, I can still sing, I can still comfort you, I can still make you smile, yeah?” Eri nodded, to which Jirou smiled, her arm on the little girl's shoulder, knelt down to look her in the eye.

“Then I haven’t lost anything really have I? I can still smile, I can say, well it’s better if he says it, Midoriya could you?” She asked, he seemed to get what she wanted him to do.

He cleared his throat.

“ I AM HERE! ” He proclaimed in his best impression of his mentor, his face warping into a terrifyingly accurate version of All Mights face..

“Yeah, I’m still here,” She turned her head to look at her classmates, “You wanna know something? I only needed one to royally piss him off, he thought I was the weakest link, boy did I show him” Eri gave a small giggle, as Jirou gave her a smile.

Kaminari watched her with slight sadness, was she putting on a brave face for this girl that had already seen so much harm, maybe, no that was her heart, she still had it, that was her power her heart, her heart could shake the earth, stop demons in their tracks that heart was a power all of it’s own and she hadn’t lost it. 

That could make him smile, but still he’d lost it, well tried to when he saw her like that, he was far to depleted of energy to really fully crash out, he would have liked to have sent his full wrath into that in Bakugou’s words, Ballsack headed piece of filth, but Tokoyami had done it for him, the corvid headed young man wasn’t amongst them, he like several of their number were still in hospital beds, most of them who could get out of bed had come to see Eri who had come to see them with Aizawa and the Big Three as escort, in all honesty Midoriya shouldn’t have really been there but no-one was going to stop him from getting there, and he himself was still a little fuzzy but he had been recovering well all things considered.

‘ Might go check on him ’ he said to himself, “Hey gang, I’m going to be headed back to my room now, take care, hope to see you soon Eri!” The little girl seemed to remember something and quickly sped over to where Togata was standing holding a package, grabbing the basket she scrambled over to Denki.

“You're going to Fumi right?” She said holding up the basket containing some apples, two books, a healthy amount of Dark Chocolate, all decorated with little black and purple cranes, that she handed it to Kaminari. 

“Could you give this to him please?” She said looking up to him with a pleading expression.

“Of course, but don’t I get one too? Nah I’m kidding” He laughed as her eyes widened in panic, “I’ll tell him his apple buddy picked them out for him, only the best” He smiled back ruffling her hair slightly which made it stand upright with the static that he emitted, at which she smiled again.

“We have got one for you,” Answered Nejire, “We can come and give it to you later if you’d like”

“That would be nice, thanks, right I’ll go drop this off then”

Denki turned walking down the corridor, passing by the room that Jirou, Yaoyrozu and Hagakure had been given, the former two didn’t exactly surprise him, ear lobe chopped of and the sheer amount of energy drained, but Hagakure had sounded odd to him, turns out it was because her quirk had glitched allowing her to be visible  and they were running a few tests to see what had caused it.

He waved at the two as he passed, Yaomomo reading a book barely noticed but Hagakure who was awake and upright grinned at him, it was still really weird to actually see her face and not just floating clothes, he did have to admit that she was very pretty with her iridescent green hair, she got Momo’s attention, who promptly looked over and smiled as he passed.

He continued down to the room he and Tokoyami were sharing, he had been seriously roughed up and was taking his recovery more seriously than the others, not going out of his way to wander the hospital, only getting up when necessary. Denki came upon the door, knocking twice as he made his way inside, his birdheaded friend was sat up in his bed with a few people, Denki must have not seen them come in or at least they must have passed him whilst he was with the others saying hello to Eri, it was incredibly surprising considering that one of them was Hawks, they should have noticed him, the now retired No.2 was stood at his wards bedside in a button down and jacket, devoid of his massive red wings and bomber jacket.

Also at his bedside where what he assumed were his parents, the one who was clearly his father a tall Raven headed gentlemen, he said gentleman purely of his clothing and mannerisms, a well tailored deep green suit with tails and the matching green trousers, he was stood next to Hawks his hand on his son’s shoulder, sat on the opposite side of the bed closest to Kaminari was who had to be Mrs Tokoyami, a shorter ebony haired woman wearing pale yellow, he’d assume her to be not much taller than her son, maybe about 5’4, she was playing with Dark Shadow speaking to them softly as if they were her child, well they were really, Dark Shadow was less so a Stand more conjoined twin made out of pure darkness, Kaminari approached the group.

“I come bearing gifts!” He placed the basket on the bedside, “Apple and Chocolate picked out by your fellow apple conisure” He said with a flourish.

“Thank you Kaminari, I believe you’ve met Hawks?” He gestured to the blond man beside him who raised his head in greeting.

“In passing I think, never directly,” He offered his hand out shaking the pro’s, “I’m sure you’ve heard it from them but thanks for bringing this guy back in one piece, class really wouldn’t have been the same without him”

“Just doing my duty, we all were but he didn’t really need my help, honestly,” He said turning to his parents, “Fumikage has gotten me out of more danger than I’ve gotten him out of, your son is one of the finest heroes I’ve had the pleasure of working with.”

“So we’ve been told” His mother said, “All Might said he’d make a fine hero at the Sports Festival, it looks to be that he was right” She smiled at him.

“I can’t say that I should take all the credit she should,” He said petting the shadow, “Shadow does most of the heavy lifting, I’m just the guide, I’m the barrel she’s the bullet”

“Don’t say that Fumi! You’re still strong, you're still the one doing the thinking and fighting” Dark Shadow chided him.

Now that Denki thought about it, Shadow did remind him an awful lot of his sister Denkichi, the little sister tagging along with her brother, he had to wonder if she ever got into mischief and Fumikage bailed her out, not that she could go that far he had to assume.

“You know, Kaminari you should also thank Hawks, for helping me keep up my promise to you”

“Ohh”

“Yes, without those feathers, she might have lost more than a jack” He said with a solemn tone.

“ It’s a miracle that no children as a part of the hero courses were lost in this conflict, at worse scars that they can live with ” Tokoyami’s father spoke, a rich deep and calming voice, it reminded Denki of the actor Sir Christopher Lee, he could hear where Fumikage got it from.

“ Ah, apologise, I don't believe that we have introduced ourselves, Outo Tokoyami ,” He held his hand out for Denki, who shook his in kind, “ and my wife ” He nodded over the bed.

“Haruka Tokoyami, pleasure Kaminari, I Fumi has told us good things about you.” She smiled.

“Ahh my legendary exploits have made the rounds, legendary exploits of idiocy mind you but glad to hear they’ve made them nonetheless.” Denki chuckled, as did Haruka who turned to her son again.

“I must say Fumikage, you were quite right, he is rather funny” 

“I wouldn’t say exploits of idiocy, were you not the main reason the Coffin was as effective as it was?” Asked Hawks.

“I guess you could say that” Kaminari rubbed his arms, “But it was, you know, disheartening not being able to do more to help my friends, all this well, power, at my fingertips and I could only watch,” The five around him giving what could be described as pitying looks, “But hey, I got to them all in the end, even if I wanted to have a few cracks the, I heard Shigaraki was a gamer so the Raid Boss, a railgun was fine by me.”

Fumikage clearly was itching to say something, but seemed to be waiting, his father picked up on this.

“ Well we best head out dear, we’ll leave our children to recuperate shall we, rest well Fumikage, Reimu, we will see you overmorrow ” 

“Bye chicks, be good for me, don’t eat too much of that Chocolate” Said Haruka giving the two a kiss on the forehead each, Dark Shadow or should Denki refer to them as Reimu? Waved them off as the two left arm in arm.

Denki had a moment of, quickly trying to decipher the last things he’d said ‘ What? Who’s Reimu, ohhh is that Dark Shadows name? She has a name, does that mean that Dark Shadow is like her hero name? Huh, didn’t think of it like that, neat, Overmorrow, isn’t that like, the day after tomorrow, of course the Tokoyami would speak all cryptic, make sense ’

The Tokoyami’s departure left only the heroes in the room, Hawks turned to speak to Kaminari again.

“That feeling you were talking about, not being able to do anything to help them, your desire to help people, help your friends, wanting to jump into the fray without a thought to yourself, it’s what makes us heroes no?” Denki half expected his head to rotate sideways like an owl, but it only tilted slightly.

Denki took a moment, recalling something he had heard from Midoriya, or maybe it was All Might about heroes bodies reacting before they could think, he wanted to react, but he couldn't because a barrier was in his way, all he could do was think. It had been like a storm cloud, thick and humid frozen by something out of his control.

 “Yeah, yeah it does, but it then doesn’t, I know it’s stupid I know I did all I could, but at that moment not doing anything, one of my friends died, I didn’t feel exactly like a hero, I felt like a scared child” He admitted.

“Every hero was once a scared child.” Hawks replied, taking a moment to look at the ceiling.

The two students remained silent, contemplating that.

“Well I best get going too, work to attend to, rest well Fumikage, good meeting you Kaminari, take care.” He nodded and left, raising his hand in goodbye as the former Winged Hero exited the room.

Silence hung in the room as the two contemplated, Tokoyami broke that silence.

“I’m sorry Kaminari”

The blonde had to take a moment to comprehend what had warranted such a response.

“What is there to be sorry about?” He asked, looking over at Tokoyami, who’s eyes looked slightly wet.

“Before we went out to fight, you asked me something, do you remember what that was?” His face held a solemn sadness that Denki had never seen on his friend.

“I asked you if you could look out for Jirou for me…” he answered, eyes now fixated on the bed sheets.

“Yes,” His voice broke, “you asked me if I’d watch out for Jirou and keep her out of harm, keep her safe, I promised you that one thing,” His voice was now submerged in chokes, it was awful to hear, Fumikage was one of the most serious and stoic of the whole class, an anchor of relief in times of sorrow, and here he was nearly in tears in front of Denki, apologising for something he shouldn’t been.

“And I failed” Defeat, he spoke those final words with defeat, and that killed Denki, he was 16, he shouldn’t be kicking himself like that.

“Fumikage,” He had to hold himself back from sobbing, “It wasn’t your fault, okay? You were facing insurmountable odds, you weren’t facing a man, but a monster and you held out, she could have been hurt worse, really I just wanted you to make sure she came back alright, and that included you remember? Please don’t, don’t, just don’t beat yourself up over this, she’s alright,” He had to pause, breath, continue, “Your alright, neither of you came back in body bags, you did everything you possibly could have, and for that alone, I’m grateful, Fumikage thank you.”

The Jet Black hero could only look tearful at his friend.

“Thank you Denki, I needed that” He sniffled.

“No what you need, is a hug” He responded wrapping his friend is his arms, who could only say “Thank you”

—

“Hey Jamming-Whey still with me or did you short?” Jabbed Jirou, bumping his shoulder.

“Yeah,” He shook his head, “Sorry I had something on my mind.” 

‘ Man she’s pretty ’ 

“Was it perhaps the fact we need to get to our next class?” She asked. 

“Not really, sorry my mind's a bit askew at the moment, a lot of stuff on my mind.”

“So having a competent conversation with me has become too complicated for you, wow” She stated with heavy sarcasm, at which he bit back.

“I have so much on my mind and you being one of them makes it slightly more difficult” He blanched at his misstep, realising rather quickly what exactly he’d just said.

“Huh? What do you mean by that?” She looked at him confused.

“Umm Uh, well uhh, aaha,” She stared him down with a very confused expression, or was that embarrassed. He couldn’t tell. “I don’t have a good answer to that.” He fumbled over his words.

“All I heard was that I was on your mind” Her eyebrows raised, what Denki couldn’t see was the pink end of her other jack.

“I’m not sure how to answer you Jirou” His hands bent over his neck.

She looked at him for a few moments, before speaking again.

“You know, if you wanted to go out with me again, you could just ask” Her voice slightly waivered.

“What, no I wasn’t going to, how did you come to, no I was just, uhh, uhh no that wasn’t shit uhhhh” He was still reeling from that burst of, ‘ well that wasn’t really confidence on her part, is she trying to make me squirm, she actually sounded rattled, also is she suggesting we go, that’s weird I’ve never had a girl ask me out for lunch, Holy Shit Minoru was RIGHT!’

“So is that a, noooo or?” She asked again, winding her jack around her finger.

“I mean, do you have a place in mind?” He asked.

“Not really I was thinking we could go to Eatna, but if you, you know have another place we could go then I’m open to options” she was desperately trying to quash down her blush, not that Denki could see that being as he was currently looking at the floor, when an idea struck him.

“Ohh, I know a place, it just depends on whether it's not, you know, rubble” he spread his hands.

“Sounds good to me, so uhhh, Saturday sound good to you?” Fake confidence desperately trying to keep this situation alive as she put her hands behind her back and lifted herself up and down fidgeting on her toes awaiting a response.

“Uhh yeah, sounds good”

“Sweet,” The two stood awkwardly in the hallway, “Sooooo, back to class then?”

“Yeah, ohh uh, you’ll have to excuse me, I need to head to the bathroom real quick”

“Okay, see you back in class then”

Denki quickly made a turn and headed for the nearby bathrooms.

‘ What just happened? Did I just ask out Kaminari? Holy Shit! I Did! Ohh Shit I just asked out Kaminari, do I tell the girls or? ’ Kyouka’s mind was now a mile a minute, her face a blushing pink mess as she stared at the floor clenched fist to her mouth. 

She didn’t see the approaching floating uniform that signified Hagakure was now making her way down the corridor towards her.

~~~~~~~~

Chapter Text

Toru could clearly see Jirou blushing like mad, and she had a feeling she knew why, having seen a shock of yellow hair disappear down the adjacent corridor, but like all good detectives she needed confirmation.

“Heya Miss Rockstar, what’s got you all pink?” She giggled as Jirou’s head shot up, pure embarrassment painted across her face like a graffitied wall.

“Nothing!-” She answered rather quickly.

“Ohh wow your face is the same colour as your shirt, your all salmony girl, what did Kaminari say?”

“As I said” She still looked stunned, “He didn’t, when did you see?  He didn’t say anything! I did”

“And you said something that made you turn the same colour as Mina?” Whilst she was currently invisible Jirou could practically hear the raised eyebrows. “So what did you say, or rather,” She said with a non visible smirk, "ask him?”

That did the trick, her eyes got wider, ‘ Gotcha! ’

“Uhhhh, okay I’ll tell you, but not right here, okay?” Her eyes darted around as she shook her hands out in front of her.

“You look like Ochako doing that, you know?” She pointed out at which Jirou paused.

“Knock it off Toru, do you want me to tell you or not?” she pouted.

“Oh of course I do, come on!” She grabbed the girl's hand and sprinted down the hallway to the classroom.

Said classroom was rather empty; the only people in there currently were Shinsou, Koda, Todoroki and Yaoyorozu, Momo’s eyes perked up from her conversation with Todoroki as she spotted Toru drag a pink Kyouka into the room.

“It’s healed nicely, it won’t look too bad especially in comparison to some of the ones the others have gotten, Ohh hi Jirou, Hagakure, what’s the news?” She smiled at the girls, turning to face them.

“Kyo has something to talk about, apparently it’s secretive” She whispered, talking behind her hand away from Todoroki, Momo picked up on this and promptly turned to the boy.

“Sorry Todoroki, could you please excuse us for a moment?” She smiled sheepishly at him.

“It’s not a problem, I’ll talk to you in a bit” Their twin coloured classmate stood up and walked over to the front of the classroom where Shinsou was sitting to go talk to him.

“Wow he just kinda does what you say, what kind of spell have you got on him?” Toru enamoured at how little fuss he had made.

“No spell, just ample respect for each other's boundaries, simple politeness is understood by all.” She said in that occasionally used voice that made her sound like a professor giving a lecture, it was endearing but a tad annoying at times.

“Okay, well what’s the sitch Jirou?” Hagakure asked, putting her unseen hands under her chin.

Kyouka breathed in through her nose, readying to tell them.

“Ohh wait I know! You were chatting with Kaminari, one of you, likely Kaminari said something to the effect of liking you or maybe thinking about you, and as such you overreacted and asked him on a date, did I get that right?” She quickly ran off the possible ideas leaving the purple haired girl looking like a stunned mullet.

“How did you do? WHAT! TORU NO WAY YOU DIDN’T HEAR THAT!” Her fingers were curled into themselves in surprise as she lambased her friend.

“Is what she said correct?” Asked Momo likewise stunned.

“Yeah but, how did you know that!?”

“Dad’s a private investigator, did I not tell you guys that?” She asked genuinely perplexed.

The two shook their heads with wide eyes.

“Ohh, I swear I told someone, weird, I swear I told you guys, did you just think I got good at sleuthing via, like just trying and failing? No I’ve got the tricks of the trade, body language and voice, I can work out some neat stuff”

“I would not have pegged you as having a parent in something like that” Momo said, “Not that I don’t think you could, it just seems a bit, you know, odd is all”

“Really? My Mum’s a investigative journalist”

If it wouldn’t have hurt so badly Jirou looked like she was about to faint onto the floor as she swayed slightly side to side, her hands clasped against her skull trying to absorb that deluge of information.

“Okay just because your parents are both investigators doesn’t mean you can just instantly surmise what happened based on cursory information!” Jirou exclaimed, throwing her hands from the sides of her head, out in front of her.

“Oh no I just had a few ideas, I didn’t actually know any of thatI Just figured with Kaminari being the motormouth who tends to say something out of pocket and you would probably jump to conclusions when it comes to boys, I just needed to hit the buttons and you’d confirm it for me” She giggled.

“ You played me ,” She whispered.

“ Like a fiddle , which I do not play, just thought I’d clarify that” She added.

“Ohh using Cunningham’s Law?” Piped up Shinsou from across the room, “Yeah that works a treat, I’ve managed to get people far too easily with it, it’s incredible how fast people will try to correct something they know is wrong” He mused.

Hagakure giggled in response.

“So anyway, where are you going?” She asked the girl again.

“Huh?” Jirou replied, trying to play it off.

“You know, your date with Kaminari, where and when?” She leaned in.

“I don’t know where we’re going, he said he’d check if a place he’d like to go isn’t in shambles, but Saturday” She finished, her cheeks nearly aflame with embarrassment.

“Ohhhh!” She squealed, grabbing poor Jirou with an enthusiastic vice grip, “Does this mean that-”

“No, you are not allowed to jump to more conclusions,” She pointed her jack at her with intent, “It could just be a nice lunch, like last time”

“The last time that ended up with you pressed up against his chest?” Toru had flashbanged her with that response.

“When did you? Mina ” She answered herself with a growl.

Hagakure giggled, “Yeah” she breathed.

“Why that pink, tea spilling-” Jirou started to build up in mock anger, at which point Momo stepped in grasping her other shoulder.

“I think you’re overreacting, Kyouka, what Toru should be saying is that she’s proud of you, right?” She shot the invisible girl with a look that could pack up Bakugou like a lunch box.

“Yeah of course, you go girl, sounds like fun, but who’s paying? ”

“Probably me, or we split the bill, he paid last time because he asked me, so it seems like courtesy since I asked him this time.” She explained.

“Also can I have both my shoulders back” The two swiftly unhanding her.

“Thank you”

“So, what drove you two to even discuss going out to lunch?” She asked again, obviously probing for more clues.

“Right so, I was walking back down from Present Mic’s class, I needed to talk about that workbook he gave us, and into frame wanders Kaminari talking to himself about people not going to believe him about” She waved her hand realising that what she was about to say could probably elicit a roundhouse kick.

“Believe him about what?” Toru implored.

“I can’t say, just something to do with the support course” She shrugged, but Momo looked slightly startled as if something had just stung her.

“Speaking of support, I was talking to one of the new first years, he works on designing quirk enabling costumes, I asked if he can make me one, so that you know, doesn’t mean I have to run around naked” Hagakure explained.

“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea, first year though? Isn’t that rather advanced for him?” Momo asked.

“He’s apparently really good at it, also he’s got this really cute accent, he’s an international student, Britain I think he said, he was also asking a lot of questions about my quirks functionality, something about radiation” 

“Yeah that sounds great, you want me to keep going or?” Kyouka asked tentatively. 

“Yeah! Keep it coming, I need all the details!”

“Okay anyway, I ask him what he’s on about, we get to talking, he said something about having too many things on his mind, including me”

“Ohh?” The two of them titled their heads.

“I got, well okay I got flustered, and kinda overstepped, overreacted, I don’t know what the correct word would be for that, anyway I overstepped and said, ‘if you wanted to go out with me again, you could just ask’ I did that whilst he was all flustered and trying to come up with a way to pick himself up from you know embarrassing himself and then I spring that on him, and I know he said he has a place in mind but then he made for the bathroom after we finished talking, so l don’t know if that means he’s just super flustered or maybe I overstepped and he didn’t want to and just said-!” She had been picking up speed throughout this breakdown, her voice wavering and its pitch slightly higher like she was a Nightcore remix of herself.

Momo had stepped in and grabbed her flailing hand by the wrist with an deceptive impressively strong grip, jolting the rambling girl from her panic.

“Kyouka, you asked him, I think he was just amazed that you asked him as opposed to him asking you, it’ll be fine, he’ll go with you he won’t shirk” Momo explained.

“And if he does, we can have Bakugou flambé him!” 

“I don’t think we should do that,” Momo stated, trying to be the reasonable one.

“Okay, okay, you guys are totally helping me this time, right?” Kyouka asked, looking between them.

Hagakure threw her arms around her neck, “Of course! Hey Shinsou!” She yelped over her shoulder, the purpled-haired young man turned around, “Ohh and Todoroki too, you two find out where Kaminari wants to take her, Kay?”

“Uhh sure” Todoroki responded, whilst Shinsou looked to respond but his phone buzzed, and he pulled it out reading the message on the screen.

“No need, Sero just sent me his plans” 

“What?!” Jirou and Hagakure yelped, “How has Sero got those?” Hagakure questioned.

“Apparently Sero ran into him in the bathroom and he started blabbing immediately.” Shinsou shrugged.

—--

“Okay that just happened, okay stay calm Denki, two very insane things just happened back to back, you're fine, just like splash your face, check if you're dreaming” The blond boy rambled to himself, as he opened the door.

—--

“I never wanna dance again, Guilty feet have got no rhythm, no it’s easy to pretend- Oh sup Denki”

“Hanta! Oh shit, were you just singing George Micheal?” 

“Yes, next question, why the hell did you just burst in like that, can’t you see I’m washing my hands here?” He rang them out.

“Great, I need you so slap me” He implored, earning a startled expression from his friend.

“What?” 

“I need you to slap me in the face, I think I might be dreaming and I need you to check I didn’t fall asleep at lunch” He said with conviction.

“Again what?”

“Ahhh,“ He sighed, “Bakugou would slap me without a second thought” 

“Yeah well of course he would, in that instance you're giving him the opportunity, again why?” He asked, flicking some water at him.

“Jirou just asked me out to lunch on Saturday!”

“Wohhh What?! Dude no way” He looked at him bugeyed.

“Yeah I know, I didn’t expect her to ask me, like that just seems insane!” He threw his hands out in front of himself.

“Yeah, honestly didn’t expect the badass punk rock woman who stunlocked AFO to be the one to make headway in a relationship when there is a heavily watered down Zeus, just didn’t seem like the outcome” Sero mused at which Kaminari looked at him with contempt.

“What do you mean by watered down Zeus?” He stared with eyes that normally could only be mustered by Bakugou.

“Womaniser?” He said with a straight face. “But like not”

“You, first of all I can’t turn into a swan, second of all I am not in a relationship with a heavily pissed off wife who is rightfully angry at her marriage being so openly disrespected, and thirdly I have been in as many relationships as All Might” He finished.

“Wait hold on, All Might’s never been in a relationship?” Sero paused him.

“Yeah apparently not, the No.1 is still a virgin at like, what 52?” Kaminari explained.

“How do you know that? Wait don’t answer that, Izuku told you”

“Yep”

“Why does he know that?”

“Why does Izuku know anything about anything about anyone, you know he’s been trying to work out how your tape works right?”

“Yeah he said something about my body making extra bones, skin and tendons, which were being turned to collagens to make the glue” 

“Uuhhh, that sounds a bit icky and weird, so your elbows are like a tendon factory?”

“Apparently, but that is not what we should be talking about, you got yourself a date dude!” Sero exclaimed.

“Yeah I DO!” Was the response from Kaminari.

“So where and when is Sparko?”

“Saturday,” He said was his exaggerated point, but this instantly waivered, “I have no idea where though” He said with slightly downcast eyes.

“Seriously, okay where did you go last time?” He asked.

“Uuuh, Have you been to Eatna Mode, in Midtown? We went there.”

“Oh okay, well do you have any other ideas?” He asked drying his hand in the dryer.

“Well, there is this really nice diner that my family has been to a few times near my home back in Saitama, American style and all that, maybe we could go there” He mused as Sero wiped the last of the water off his hands with a paper towel.

“Sounds good dude, hey you want me to send the plan over to her?”

“You can do that? You have her number?” He asked.

“Do you?”

“....”

“You, you don’t have her number, How do You not have her number?”

“I do have it! Why do you have it!”

“I don’t, I just figure she’s back in class, and Shinsou is there, and I have his”

“Are we really using Hitoshi as the messenger?”

“Yes because you apparently don’t have the number of the girl you're going out to lunch with, said girl is one of your best friends, how do you seriously not have it?”

“I do have it!”

“Then why aren’t you messaging her?!”

“I’m just, I DON’T KNOW? Nerves, it feels nice to have a messenger!”

“You did this fine last year! Why is this so difficult now?”

“I barely knew her at that point okay, and now like, what if she laughs at me or something? Like says my choice isn’t a good one”

“What the fuck are you on about, dude she laughs at you anyway, why do you think she asked you? You make her laugh, you’ve never shied away from stuff like this before, pull yourself together, right, okay, I’ll text Hitoshi to pass the message along, where are you going, what's the name of the diner? And she’s not going to call it stupid, okay, now Name”

—--

“What’s the place called?”

“Iron Bird, weird name for a restaurant I must say” Said Shinsou reading off his phone.

“Where is it?” Asked Hagakure.

“Hang on let me ask him” He responded quickly sending the message along.

They waited, the Five including Koji who had congratulated Kyouka, now crowded around the purple-haired youngman, awaiting the response from Sero.

                                      Where is it?  -

• Saitama City

“Ohh, okay, he’s planned a day trip by the sounds of it, a way to go to a restaurant, must be good” Noted Momo, as Kyouka puzzled the message.

“Okay but this begs the question, why is Sero texting Shinsou this, can’t Kaminari just do it himself, that is just rude, ask him that” Said Hagakure leaning over his shoulder.

                                      Why are you texting me and not Denki?  -

• He’s a pussy

The group had to briefly hold their laughter at the utter bluntness of the response, a classic indicator that it was in fact Sero Hanta texting them.

• Ohp he’s complaining that he’s not a pussy                                                                                    

• hey guys tell him he’s a pussy when we                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              get back to class

                                Copy  -

“Well you heard the man, call him a pussy” Chuckled Hitoshi.

“That seems really rude” Said Momo

“Why are we calling him a cat?” Asked Shoto

“You hang around Bakugou, and you haven’t denoted that as an insult?” Hitoshi asked, god Todoroki actually puzzled him.

“I’m only aware of it as a term for a cat, and the female genitalia” He answered, earning some well earned weird looks, and what might have been a flustered Yaoyrozu face, he wasn’t entirely sure.

“Oooookay, good to know” The purple-haired man really was going to need to talk to the guy more, he was such an oddity.

“So,” He turned to Jirou, “How do you feel about a date at a restaurant that sounds like the aircraft equivalent of the Iron Horse moniker for trains?” Todoroki seemed to perk slightly at the last words.

“Does sound a bit odd, I’ll ask him about it, isn’t Saitama where his family lives?” Her nerves became visible by the jagged look her jack now took up.

“I think so,” Todoroki answered, “I think he said something like that when I asked him where he was from, it’s been awhile”

There was the hurried sound of running, to which they looked towards the door to see who would be running past, and where on earth was Iida to deal with them, there was a skidding noise as to everyone's surprise Tokoyami slid into the open space of the doorway with a shocked expression, as the shorter man spun into the room, it was a burst of energy and movement the likes of which he had seemingly never shown.

“Please tell me your joking Yaomomo!” He squawked.

The crew looked towards her, Jirou in the form of what would have been daggers but the look wasn’t sharp enough.

“Jirou,” He’d cleaned himself up after his mad dash, straightening his tie and himself, “Did you really ask Kaminari out on a date?” He looked uncharacteristically excited.

“Yeeess?” She said slowly, “How do you know that, wait, Momo?” She said turning once again to her friend, “Did you tell him?”

Momo found this situation rather difficult, she looked to Tokoyami who suddenly looked rather ashamed, she had obviously intended to just message him to let him know of the development, and to be fair no-one in their right mind would have expected him to arrive at the classroom like, well there wasn’t a more fitting analogy than bat out of hell.

She made a little hiccup noise that didn’t really mean anything.

“Uhh well, I thought I would tell him, you know I was under the assumption that Fumikage would take it, well more, maturely.” She said, trying hard not to throw her feathered friend under the metaphorical bus.

“Uh Huh” Was the response from Kyouka, which didn’t really bode well.

“I umm, well I won a bet” Said Fumikage.

“No,” Kyouka said with the most unamused expression.

“I get an apple pie from Bakugou,” He said with a slight tinge of smugness.

Chapter Text

The contingent of 14 boys sat in the common room, taking up couches, chairs from the table and some of them sitting on the floor in silence, caring out innocuous tasks, Iida looking through his stack of papers, Bakugou again back on his gripper, Sero doom scrolling, and a pensive Todoroki who looked around at the silent room, before speaking up.

‘So, you guys heard about what happened today?” He asked the room at large, Iida frozen, whilst Shinsou and Tokoyami gave Kaminari smirks usually unseen.

Shoji was the first to respond, “No, why what happened?”

“Someone, has got a date” Taunted Shinsou. The boys all made amused expressions whilst Kaminari looked around the room at them.

“What?”

“Did you ask her or did she ask you?” Bakugou asked with an accusatory finger jab in the golden haired boy's direction.

“She did,” He said, mumbling to the floor.

“Sorry what was that, all the explosions have fucked up my ears, I’m pretty sure you said that she asked you out” He said his stupid smirk still chisled across his mug.

“YES OKAY, JIROU ASKED ME OUT, THERE, HAPPY!?” Denki rang out.

“Jeez okay dude no need to get aggressive, good for you” said Sero rubbing his ears.

“Ahh fuck I do owe you that pie” Bakugou griped turning to Tokoyami.

“I told you she would do it first, Yaomomo gave it 50/50”

“Hang on, where you guys are betting, oh which of us would ask out the other first?” Said Kaminari in shock.

“Absolutely-Yes” The two said in unison.

“You son of a bitch” Denki said, directed at no one in particular.

“You’ve never met my mother, how do you know she’s a bitch?” Katsuki asked in full seriousness, which elicited a few snorts.

“Bakugou, that is no way to refer to your mother!” Snapped Iida, Midoriya looked puzzled.

“I mean well, I wouldn’t call Auntie Mitsuki a bitch, buuuuuut” He petered off as Bakugou flicked his shoulder with a smile.

“Don’t let her catch you saying that, I only get to, it’s my privilege Izuku”

“So where are you going, Kaminari?” Asked Ojiro.

“A restaurant in my home town in Saitama, called Iron Bird,” Kaminari said with a blush.

“Iron Bird? That sounds less like a restaurant, and more of the Zootopia version of Iron Man” He responded.

That got proper laughs, as Denki spluttered like a Two-Stroke Motor, as he held his hands out in defeat at his friend's merriment.

“So, why go all the way out to Saitama for a date, that's an Hour and Half train journey at least” Said Todoroki.

“Well, we’d go to it all the time when I was a kid, and it’s such a good place to eat, the Milkshakes, god the shakes they are so thick you have to eat them with a spoon.” He started explaining only to be cut off.

“Hey so Iron Bird is an American style diner if I’m reading this correctly” Said Sato looking up from his phone having been looking up the place whilst the others talked.

“Yeah, it really captures that 60’s Americana, we would go because it reminded Dad of home, in a way, also that place gave me a love for cheeseburgers, I haven’t had a really good one since I moved into the dorms” He exhaled, “Their ones were just too good you know”

“I am not taking a train for an hour to get a cheeseburger man” Quipped Sero.

“But they're really good dude, you gotta understand” He implored.

“Well okay, but when it comes to a date like that you need to plan the logistics” Said Iida tapping Kaminari on the shoulder.

“Such as, who’s paying for the train rides, and lunch, do you have any further activities that you two will be doing? What do you plan to do on the train rides?” He asked the blond.

“Oh the train is easy, I can book it right now, I’ve got a playlist for the journey up, and a walk in the city sounds good, yeah?”

“Depends, what is on that playlist?”

“How much do you think she likes Tatsuro Yamashita’s music?”

-
Meanwhile, several floors up.
-

“So, okay, you’ve got a date, with Kaminari, that you asked for, and you're now panicking, Kyo, Girl you need to get a grip!” Said Mina sitting damn near the center of Momo bed.

The girls had of course gathered quicker than Sero could get to a Lemonade stand, Momo’s room was the clear gathering spot, and the girls had decided that they needed to prep Kyouka, who’s position put her sitting against the headboard.

“Look I don’t even know how I got in this situation, it was just, you know spur of the moment I really didn’t like to mean to, it just kinda happened, you know?” She said looking at the others.

She hated that she could feel the confusion pour of Toru like heat of the sun, with the others their confusion was far more evident, their faces were an eclectic mix, the normally described as stoic Tsu’s face held a perplexed look, Ochako well her eyebrows were furrowed like a field, Mina looked like someone just cancelled her favourite show, and Momo was to put it in simple terms, fucking confused.

“So, let me get this clear, you don’t want to go on that date? Kero?” Tsu said slowly, as the others tilted their heads awaiting the response.

“No! I do, but like, don’t smirk at me! This is complicated!” She said exasperated as her friends smiled at her.

“Oh so you did want to go on a date with him” Toru Giggled, god it was such a pain not to be able to see that smug ass face, actually it was probably better that she couldn’t that smirk, it would be awful.

“I’d say if that’s what you jumped to, that’s what you really wanted him to say, perhaps all this talk recently has got you itching for some action in the dating scene?” Asked Mina eyebrows a wiggle.

Kyouka held her hands together in front of her face, fingers interlocked, maybe at some point there would be another set other than her own, where had that come from?!

“Okay, well I’m not sure why I jumped there first, like the last time we had one was nice you know,” Mina still grinning in a Chershire way, “But, even so that was the start of first year, and so much has changed since then, I mean look at all the burns and scars that we have, a whole year ago, it’s kinda awkward you know, maybe if things hadn’t been so hectic I would have asked him at some point last year”

The grins slowly faded as they started considering what she’d said, Scars and Time.

“But hey, I mean I’ve got one, even if I didn’t fully intend to, it was sorta spur of the moment and all that” She shook her head at the blanket in shame. “Like I wanted a second date, just to see you know, I just didn’t expect it to happen like that, but hey I’m not going to complain”

“Where the hell did this Kyouka come from, I’m pretty sure the one we know would be swearing up and down that she didn’t mean to get a date with the in her words ‘Dummy’, who are you girl?” Asked a shocked Mina.

“The girl who is getting dates before the rest of you, bragging rights outdo shame!” She cackled at which the other girls broke down into giggles.

“Well that’s only partially true” Said Momo, a glint in her eye.

“WHO?” Toru and Mina’s heads snapped around in sync.

“Ohh I know! Denki was telling me about it beforehand” Kyouka’s head jolted up.

“How do both of you know this?” Toru exclaimed.

“Who is crying out loud, come on, tell us!” Mina shook Momo.

“Ohh, it’s not?” Ochako seemed to have had something dawn on her.

“It’s not who you’d guess,” Said Kyouka.

-
Jumping back down stairs.
-

“So the playlist is fine, I’ve got my phone for the time, train tickets are booked, looking into a reservation, and I’m planning my outfit, anything I missed?” Denki asked the room at large.

“No I’d say you’ve got most of it covered” Said Shoto, with a shrug and a nod.

“Make sure that you have something to eat before you leave, that isn’t a snack, you don’t want to be too hungry on the way there, and remember, water” Tenya listed.

“You’re really good at outing planning Iida, you sound like you’ve done this before” Said Hanta from the couch, at which the rigid student paused.

“Well as class rep planning must be my forte, careful planning is of paramount importance.” There was something in that tone, and Denki had a sudden realisation of why he was good at this.

“Well yeah, but date planning, is that not a different thing?” He asked, Iida was looking a bit rattled, his eyes locked in Kaminari direction, those red eyes saying one thing, Don't you dare.

“In any case you shouldn’t necessarily rush anything, take your time and have fun” He said relaxing slightly. “That’s the best advice I can offer”

“You know,” Said Bakugou, “There is still one thing you haven’t done, you haven’t talked to her about it”
-
That was unfortunately true, when Kaminari and Sero had returned, he and Jirou had given each other small looks, but had made it very clear as to not exactly talk to each other about it during class, their classmates in front of them were being very good at playing unaware, those behind and to the side of them, where not.

It’s very hard to focus on the task at hand with Bakugou trying very hard to not side eye you, didn’t even need to question Ashido, who had to force herself not to look, meanwhile behind them Tokoyami was watching like a hawk, Sero, Kirishima and Mineta were working, but glances were hard to control.

Poor Cementoss who was currently talking to them about safe disposal of building rubble hadn’t heard what had happened at lunch and was going purely of his intuition, he had a semblance of an idea about what could have happened, but he would need to inform his coworker.
-
Katsuki had this really unfortunate habit of both being an ass and being right, why couldn’t he be one?

In this case he was just right, he hadn’t talked to her, hadn’t gotten much more confirmation that that brief spur just over four hours ago, confirmation he had instantly bolted after he’d heard it, he needed to talk to her properly, because honestly everything else he’d done probably hadn’t cut it.

“So, what should I tell her?”

“Why are you asking us? This is Your date, you’ll know what to say, you have a large enough lexicon, if you want it to go ahead you jump and get it done” Katsuki said, dammit why did he have to be right.

“Okay I will, but not, right now okay, hopefully tomorrow, or maybe at dinner, actually could none of you mention it at dinner, I, nevermind you guys are gonna bring it up, why do I bother opening my mouth?”

“Cuz you can’t help yourself?” Asked Sero helpful.

“Shut it”

“Hey I was the one who sent those texts off, I want some recognition”

“Same here” Agreed Hitsoshi, “I was playing messenger for you, next time do it yourself”

“Hey look I just was really panicky okay, and thank you both, really”

“Still don’t know why you didn’t send her a text yourself, like do you not have her phone number?” Sero asked once more.

“NO! Of course I have her number! Here watch me text her!” He exclaimed, producing his phone.

“Put that shit up on the big screen” Katsuki said, the others seemingly thinking this was a grand idea as Denki quickly connected his phone to the TV.

His texts with her were, as to be expected, chock full of memes, little reminders and guitar videos from each other, the others snickered at his choice of contact name, Jirou Jack, in anycase the screen was now connected to the phone and the boys were watching with interest.

“Okay, start with a greeting” Hanta implored.

Denki wasted no time in typing up.

[Hey Jirou]

{Hi Kaminari, What's up?}

“What’s up? That’s your response?” Mina looked over Kyouka’s shoulder as she responded to Denki, the other girls had of course gathered over her shoulder after her phone had buzzed with the text.

“Don’t judge me here” She snarled.

{What can I do for you?}

[So about our date I’ve picked a place]

{Iron Bird, in Saitama yeah?}

[Yep I’ve got train tickets, and a reservation, and if we have time we could you know, have a jaunt around town]

“How forward, I must say I didn’t exactly expect him to be so organised when it came down to a date” Said Momo clearly impressed.

“Honestly yeah wasn’t expecting it”

-
Meanwhile in Mission control
-

“Right you’ve done the opener, I say you start talking about who’s paying for what?” Fumikage said from his perch.

“Gotcha”

[So are we clear on who’s paying for what?]
[Like I’ve got a train and possibly a reservation you wanna split this time?]

{I’d say I pay for the majority of the meal, but if you want extra treats?}

[Just so you know you will also want extra the Frozone shake is to die for, you have to eat them with a spoon!]

“Way to stick the landing” chuckled Mashiro.

“Shhh, she’s texting back!” Exclaimed Ejirou.

-
Back we jump to the Jumbo Bed
-

“Okay, so girls, how do I respond to that, big milkshake apparently” Kyouka turned to the others.

“You quite frankly can’t beat a milkshake, especially if it’s as thick as he says” Ochako says, finger pressed to her cheek.

“Think he’s saying you might have to share one?” Tsu puts forward.

“Ohh that cheeky mouse” Kyouka rolled her eyes, the other girls gave her a look, Mouse? Kaminari was anything except a mouse, unless you were counting the Pikachu nickname.

{You suggest that the shake is so thick you need help to eat them?}
{Or do you just not suck?}

[Ohh you're suggesting that we share a milkshake, bold.]
[And I’m not hearing that I suck, in fact the way you're putting it, I don’t suck at all.]

-
The Boys Bunker
-

“HOLY SHIT WHAT A MOVE!” Hanta exclaimed, as the other boys took pause, with impressed and shocked expressions.

“Think that was a bit much?” Asked Denki standing with a small smirk.

“Maybe, but wow” Fumikage shook his head with a grin.

“Hold up, watch the clap back” Katsuki leaned forward in his seat.

-
Man this is like a Tennis Match, anyway back up to the Girls.
-

“How, how do I respond to that?” Kyouka was still a light shade of pink.

“Be glad he didn’t say anything about Spaghetti, we would have lost you” Toru sighed.

“I don’t think there’s anything you need to cover” Said Tsu with a pensive expression, “Anything we might have missed?”

“I don’t think so,” Momo responded.

“Ohh there is” Smirked Kyouka, “I have to get him back”

{Your the bold one for thinking I’m sharing mine with you}
{What are you, a little baby who needs spoon feeding?}
{I asked if you didn’t suck because you needed to eat the shakes with a spoon Taser teeth}

There was a roar of laughter from downstairs, the girls had to snicker at the sound even muffled by four floors they could hear Bakugou’s mad cackle clear as day.

“You guys wanna see what they're laughing about?” Mina didn’t wait for an answer as she quickly leapt from the bed and made for the door with the others scrambling out behind her.

The elevator was neglected as Mina slid down the bannister of the staircase, occasionally putting down a film of base to keep her from sticking, Ochaco had a much safer alternative as she applied her quirk to the others, grabbing arms as Tsu’s tongue grappled to Mina, who pulled them down like a dumbwaiter.

Their arrival was almost drowned out by the continued laughter of the boys who were in various poses around the room, some chuckling, other like Bakugou and Sero laughing their arses off pointing at Kaminari, who was stood in front of the TV holding his phone with a dumbstruck look.

The girls managed to arrive rather unheard apart from Shoji who’s visible eyes held pleasant merriment.

In due course they noticed Kaminari’s phone connected to the TV, with their texts visible to the others.

“Ohh she gagged you” Laughed Toru, as Kamianri slowly turned around his dumbstruck expression now fully visible.

“Ohh I thought you had thicker skin?” Kyouka smirked.

“Usually I do, but not when you have everyone else laughing at you!”

“I was wondering why we could hear Bakugou losing his shit”

“Anyway, I believe that is enough for tonight” Tenya cut in, “Our next decision should be what’s for dinner?”

The class froze very quickly, no-one seemed to have an idea of what to eat.

“Egg” Put in Shoto Todoroki

“What?”

“Egg”

“Egg?” Momo repeated, “Just a singular egg? I don’t think that would feed as all”

“Sorry I have no idea what came over me I just needed to say the word egg” He clarified.

“This class is so weird,” Said Hitoshi with a confused expression.

~~~~~~~~

Chapter Text

Tuesday passed with Kaminari and Jirou occasionally throwing each other weird faces, not because they were trying to make each other laugh, no of course not, well maybe they were, but it was to throw off their classmates who thought it was very funny, Mr Aizawa didn’t exactly think it was a great idea and the two caught a particularly scornful look.

“Kaminari, Jirou, please, stop”

“Sorry Sir”

“Aye, Aye Captain” 

The rest of the classmates' faces fell, as Kaminari realised what he had just said, his yellow eyes now full of panic, Aizawa’s eye looked him dead on, instead of getting angry a small smirk appeared, now the students had seen this expression a few times before, DANGER!

“I can’t hear you” 

“Huh”

“I said I can’t hear you”

“Aye Aye Cap’n?” He said fully of fear, at which the smile widened, he cleared his throat slightly, recalling the opening.

“ Are yah ready kids? ”

The sheer shock that ran through the class room could have actually powered it. The students staring bug eyed at their teacher, what had he just said?

He tilted his head to await a response.

“Aye Aye Captain?” Kaminari whispered.

“I can’t hear you!” His voice gained an energy that normally wouldn’t be there.

Everyone else had apparently worked out what the hell was going on because in an instant, Kirishima, Bakugou and Ashido had thrown their hands airbourne.

“AYE AYE CAPTAIN!” They roared at the top end of their lungs, the other students finally catching on.

“Heh, that was fun, back to work .” He said with a dark undertone, as the class nodded, settling in after that utterly disturbing turn of events.

—

Wednesday morning however, Wednesday was hectic. It was a training day, and they started nice and early at 10am, which was really odd, normally these were in the afternoon as to conserve energy and wipe them out at the end of the day, but Aizawa seemed to consider it a fun challenge to see how long the class could stay awake after thrashing them in the morning, if it was any constellation the rest of the day would be formed of something likely relaxing, he might throw them in the pool, he might not and force them to stare at paper, Shota Aizawa could be tricky like that, maybe he would institute a class naptime.

‘ Actually that doesn’t sound so bad ’ The teacher thought to himself as he wandered to school with Eri, spotting his class heading for the gym, granted only the girls, the other might have slept in, or where still eating, he ignored that for the moment and simply focused on getting Eri to Toshinori for the day.

—

The girls were walking to the locker room to get started, talking about some of their plans, Kyouka’s main one was to train with Momo with melee weaponry, increase her close combat capability, Toru was saying something about her new costume.

“I hope they left it in the locker room at least, he said he would be getting that suit for me soon” She said, talking about the first year she had left in charge of making her a new costume.

“You know it takes awhile to make something as complex as an invisible material, I wouldn't be surprised if it takes him awhile to get it to you, even if he is as good as you say” Momo put in with slight sympathy.

“Yeah I know, but it would be a bit embarrassing yeah?”

“I guess that’s true, but you’ve been running around naked practically the whole school year, what’s with the sudden big issue?” Mina asked.

“The glitching from the overexposure to Aoyama’s navel laser, I don’t want to be caught out naked like that in the field again” She explained.

“That’s pretty reasonable to me” Agreed Tsu.

Kyouka was going to put something in when she heard a strange sound.

What sounded like aerosol can was approaching them, she quickly turned about face, it was possible that it could be some first year trying to get a peak at the girls like Mineta would, instead quite literally jetting around the corner was a student with a briefcase in hand and what looked to be a stretcher being hauled behind him, the two studs on his shoulders indicating that the student was from the support course.

The other girls spun around as the boy flipped from horizontal flight to vertical coming to a standstill about 7cm of the ground just in the front of the group with a startled look.

“Ohh Miss Hagakure, there you are. I am so sorry I couldn’t get this to you sooner, I was held up with another student asking for some modifications, terribly sorry” He babbled.

Toru had been right, Kyouka hadn’t met to many people from Britain but she gathered that was what his accent was, but again she couldn’t quite place it, his Japanese was a bit broken, as it was interspersed with English, it was rather lucky that they could all speak English rather well, else it would have been difficult to talk to him.

He slowly dropped to the floor, where she realised, he wasn’t that much taller than them, maybe 5’5, so he was still towered over by the 5’8 Momo, he wasn’t bad looking per say, with curly chocolate brown hair tied up behind his head in a scrunchy, his most interesting feature were his large eyes, yellow in colour, they were sort of bird like in their shape, reminding her of Hawks, interestingly the stretcher behind him hovered, it had to have been his quirk.

“Ohh thank you so much Wyn-Swep, I was wondering if I would be able to wear it today, you’re a decency saver!”

“That’s a new one!” He laughed, “Please, no need to use my last name, it’s a bit clunky to use in normal conversation, Lysander is just fine” He took pause, quickly realising who he was faced with.

“Oh wait I’m sorry sorry where are my manners, Lysander Wyn-Swep, Support Course First year” He said with a small bow.

They readied themselves to greet him too.

“Please, no need to introduce yourselves, I’ve read about your exploits, I’m well aware of your names” He said while giving the back of his neck a quick rub before pulling his hand forward with speed.

“Momo Yaoyorozu, Mina Ashido, Ochako Uraraka, Kyouka Jirou and Tsuyu Asui”, his hand flying in the direction of each student in turn.

“You all performed amazingly in the war, I mean all of you engaged in single combat in one way or another and won, like that’s seriously impressive.”

“As much as I would love to hear you explain what we did, I’d like the suit please” Toru said in a snippy way.

“Yes of course,” He said spinning the stretcher around in mid air, to reveal what looked to be a light blue leotard, looked like was the word because it looked more like a swimsuit with shoulders and cloth over the upper thigh, the area around her midriff which was partially open, with the edges of the opening studded with small crystal like objects, the sides of the costume was a light pink again the crystal like objects where in a few areas, the design was obviously done in mind to keep it consistent with the gloves and boots.

“So we can see it?” Mina asked slightly confused, “Isn’t it meant to be invisible if it’s going to work with Toru, she can’t turn her quirk on an off”

“Oh but she doesn’t need to, Miss Hagakure, if you would please place your hand on the fabric” He said gesturing to the suit.

Toru placed her hand forward, they couldn’t see it but the instant her hand touched the fabric it became invisible, slowly pooling out into an unseen mass, it was like putting a colour changing object under warm water, it simply seemed to melt at Toru’s touch at which she pulled her hand away and the physical colour returned to the area her hand once occupied.

“WOOH! How did you do that!” She exclaimed, “It couldn’t do that last time I came in!”

“What is it made out of?” Asked Momo utterly amazed.

“Well, the suit itself is made in a similar way to the design used by LeMillion, it’s mostly composed of Miss Hagakure’s hair follicles and skin cells” He explained.

“Okay but that doesn’t explain the visibility aspect” Momo continued as the others watched Toru place her hand on various parts of the suit to watch it become unseen.

“The hair samples were gathered whilst she was still partially visible, so they could be woven, once they were out of range of her body they could be seen”

“Explains those bright green hairs that we’d find” noted Ochako.

“They didn’t take that much hair, or skin cells for that matter, how did you do that?” Toru looked up from her poking.

“I didn’t need much, I’ve got a neat bit of tech that helps me, it’s called a Cell Fabric Integrator, or CFI for short, basically because of how quirks work, they are a part of a person's genetic makeup, so obviously they interact with all of us, like our hair, organs, sweat, skin cells, these contain the quirk signature, and if you can say extract or duplicate the system in the genes that causes the quirk to interact with certain parts of the body, and embed it into something, you have an item that will interact with the quirk the cells came from?” He explained, with rather liberal hand movements, they were sure he wasn’t Italian.

“Okay, so how did you make this then?” Mina asked.

“So I broke down some hair and skin cells, synthesised them, and wove them together with a material called Chiffon, same stuff that is sometimes used in the creation of see-through clothing articles, I would use something stronger but a lighter material is good for testing, so that made it a fabric that was composed partially of skin, so it has some of the qualities of Hagakure's skin, but is still wearable, because it is a fabric first and foremost, now I’ve got the design down pat, but I haven’t quite made it strong enough to embody all of the qualities of the quirk because of the base material it’s integrated with” He paused.

“So I had the material made when you came in, but it didn’t quite interact with your quirk when you touched it, so I agonised over it, and then a silly idea hit me in the face, what do you make Invisible Ink with?” He asked the girls.

“Lemon juice right?” Answered Tsu.

“Exactly,” The Youngman was practically bouncing, “Quirks often have little foibles that make them, well quirks, and I figured that since Citrus fruits seem to have interesting effects on some, like Iida’s orange juice, I though, ‘Hey Lemon Juice is used to make Invisible Ink, and becomes visible when exposed to heat, what happens if I dunk the fabric in the stuff?’ so I did, have a smell” He gestured again to the costume.

Mina put her head just near the suit, sniffed and then pulled back.

“Wow, okay that does smell an awful lot like lemon” She wrinkled her nose back and forth, as the others took small whiffs.

“So I found that Lemon Juice works as this weird bonding agent with the cells and fabric, which in turn reverses the effect of the juice, which normally becomes visible when exposed to heat, so now it becomes invisible when exposed to heat, so it interacts with her natural body heat, working like a second skin, thus integrating it into the area of effect for her quirk, for now there might be a few issues, but this is really a proof of concept.” he finished.

“What are the studs?” Kyouka asked, pointing at one of them.

“Those, those are infrared lights, they pretty much make themselves invisible to the naked eye, they’re meant to be manipulated by her quirk, similar to how she manipulated Can’t Stop Twinkling’s own laser” He said, there was a slight downturn at the name, they weren’t entirely sure where Yuga had gone, it wasn’t exactly secret that some of them did their best to keep in touch with him, but it still stung slightly to hear his name brought up so casually.

“Ohh sorry, sore point” Lysander apologised.

“No you're fine, just didn’t expect it” Mina answered for them.

“In any case apologies', but there is one more feature I’d like to show you” He said, grabbing the costume by the shoulders, and turning it around to show the back of the suit. Two large flaps of pink fabric adorned it running down parallel with the spine.

“Sideways capes?” Ochako was puzzled.

“Sort of, these are also made of what I’m calling Hagacloth, they also interact with her quirk, they can be used to cover objects” he said with a smile.

“You’ve made an invisibility cloak” Realised Kyouka, pointing forward.

“Indeed I have”

“WHAT THAT’S NUTS?” Mina put forth the general feeling as the others looked impressed and flabbergasted.

“They’re also meant to look like fairy wings!” he said with a massive smile.

“This is awesome, thank you so much Lysander” 

“No problem, I can’t believe they let you go to war in boots and gloves, it’s about as cold as old Blighty, that that place is frigid, I’d have half a mind to get them a piece of my mind for that stupid choice”

“Well the costumes are mainly designed by us” Put in Kyouka.

Lysander looked at the girls like someone had just dropped a brick on his foot.

“I’m sorry, you, a 14 years old, designed that costume, had it sent of to a designer, and they thought it was fine to let you run around, fully fucking naked?” The poor guy looked shell shocked.

“Yes, the Regulations have limits on exposed skin, but you can’t see my skin can you?” She asked.

Poor Lysander was losing brain cells by the minute.

“Japan’s stances on nudity are, well to put it as lightly as possible, odd to me” He said his eyes were hollow.

“So, to just distract you, what’s in the case?” asked Mina.

“Ohh this” He said while hefting the case, one of the costume ones that the students kept their gear in, this one emblazoned with the number 7 on the side.

“This is some modified gear and costume for Denki Kaminari, if I’m reading the name right” The girls smirked, Toru knocked Kyouka’s shoulders, who gave her a displeased look marred with a slight blush.

“Sorry, is there something funny I’m missing?” He asked.

“Ohh nothing for you to be concerned about” Mina giggled, “Are you gonna hang around to give it to him?”

“I mean, I don’t think I have anything to deal with right at the moment, so I can give it to him, speaking of, where are all the guys?” he said, turning his head to look down the corridor, which lacked the rest of the famed class A.

“I’m not sure, they should have gotten here by now” Momo noted looking down the corridor.

“Well I’ll wait here for them, sorry for disrupting you, I’ll leave you be now, good luck with training”

“Thanks again Lysander” Toru repeated as they left towards the door.

“Pleasures all mine Miss Hagakure, any issues please report them to me”

The girls entered the locker room whilst Lysander waited just outside, collapsing the stretcher, standing just next to the door to the male locker room.

—

Presently the sound of several young men echoed from the corridor, the group turned the corner at which Lysander stood up from the wall to greet them.

“Hey who the hell are you, Birdsnest?” Was the curt response from Katsuki Bakugou who was at the head of the group.

“Lysander Wyn-Swep Sir, Support Course, I’m just here to deliver some gear to Mr Kaminari” He said, looking between the group for the bright yellow haired man.

“Oh sweet new shooter?” He said, stepping forward.

“Yep, just as you ordered, with a few extra bits,” He hefted the case, applying some of his quirk to the underside allowing it to hover in place, he undid the clasps opening it up, revealing the design.

For one thing is was definitely slimmer than the previous version, lacking the antenna like open ends which dominated the previous version, this one was dominated by two round protrusions on the sides of the device making it look like it had wheels, it also had two launcher ends, one thing was apparent even whilst it was in the box, it didn’t look to have straps.

“Where’s the harness?” Denki asked the First Year who simply smiled.

“Just here Sir,” He pulled out a small bracer like object with two small hexagonal plates affixed to one side.

“Magnets” He said pointing at the equipment.

“Ohh that’s awesome, so the harness doesn’t go over the sleeves?”

“Yep, powered of the residual energy from your quirk, these are set as lower powered electromagnets, so when push comes to shove you can increase these to create a greater pull, if you wanna say stick to a metal wall or something” he said putting it back in the case.

“And the grapple?” Denki asked.

“Of course it’s been incorporated, with an extra,” He pulled it out of the case, “It fires in two directions, one just over your hand, and the other over your elbow, so it can function as a zipline, mhhh, might need a proper way of holding onto it when in that mode, well I’d say have a play with it first.” He said handing the shooter over to Kaminari.

“Sweet thanks dude, that looks awesome!”

“Not a problem, Hatsume did all of the work, I just brought up the idea of the magnets, actually there is one other thing I changed” He said leaning back fully upright, and digging a bit into the case.

“Which is?” Kaminari asked.

“I got you new shoes, seriously leather shoes with heels that big, why Kitten heels man?” He asked at which Denki’s face slightly fell, the other guys just looked perplexed, except Bakugou who started lightly laughing, that was only made worse by the sound of rampent giggling as the girls exited the changing room.

“Ohh HE DOES WEAR KITTEN HEELS!” Mina exclaimed with a roaring belly laugh, as she nearly doubled over into Kyouka who’s hand was to her mouth as she tried not to utterly lose it.

“KYOUKA YOU ARE GOING TO GO ON A DATE WITH A GUY WHO’S BEEN WEARING KITTEN HEELS INTO WAR!” Toru practically screamed.

“HEY” Denki retorted, “These were some of my Mom’s spare ones she used and hey I got through the whole war with these on, I slayed with them on!” 

“Momo wore high heels the whole time,” Tsu pointed out.

“Ffuuuuuuuuucccckkkk” His head dropped down.

“So uh, I swapped them for electric blue sneakers” Lysander said holding the shoes.

“thank’s man… that’s really nice” He said with utter defeat, as the giggles rolled over him in the background from the girls, and Katsuki, but they considered him one of the girls so, it was still the girls giggling at him.

~~~~~~~~

Chapter Text

The guys had all changed into their gear by the time the girls had already run through stretches the guys quickly joined them, Kaminari had switched to his new shoes as he needed more flat footed surface area for his new plans for the day, grappling swinging and freerunning, but for that he needed plenty of advice, and who better to ask than the undisputed UA King of Swing himself, the one the only, Hanta Sero, who he had just been discussing the plan with in the changing room not several minutes prior.

–

“So Han,” Denki starts, pulling on his shirt and now applying his new bracer, “Gonna need your help with this new kit” He says holding up the launcher, as Hanta pulls the arms up over his wide elbows.

“Yeah sure man, we can start small, don’t want your arm in a sling when you have your date this week, so no going to hard” He jabs.

“Are you kidding, I might end up going hard out, I have a lot planned for today, I have this swing grappling, then I have plans to train with Izuku, hope you still up for that Big M!”

“Yep!” Comes the cheery reply from the green hero with the mohawk.

“Sweet, yeah so the plan is, swing, superpower and if I have time and aren’t too knackered, Momo was going to give me pointers on using a bow staff” He tallied the list down in the air.

“Dude, are you sure you're going to get all of that done today?” Hanta asked his shoulder pads now on and his boots being put on his feet. “That sounds like something that should be spaced out throughout the week.”

“Ohh I have, well the superpower part I’ve been working away on that since Monday” He said, lacing up his shoes, and throwing his jacket on.

“So explain to me what this ‘Superpower Training’ is exactly?” He asked as he slung his helmet under his arm, Denki putting on his communicator gear, keeping the glasses up.

“Well I came up with the idea of using the Galvani Principle to increase my reaction time and strength, I had the idea when I was talking about my brother Akiteru, the electrical coating means that he has ridiculous grip strength and by proxy overall physical strength, if he uses it correctly that is, so I thought, hey if I can train up my strength and speed by learning that control, I can apply it to every other skill I have, and I can then close the distance between my opponent, meaning I use less electricity, which then means I can fight for longer” Denki explained animatedly.

“Yeah okay, that makes sense to me, sounds good dude, I assume once you’ve got the basics of everything down, you’ll work on your close quarters?”

“I have thought?” He responded, earning a strange look.

“Really?”

“Yes, ‘Really?’ I’ve been training with Mashi and Chaco, what you thought I was just training my output? No, I’ve been training hand to hand for ages, so has Momo but we get typecast as ranged attackers” He put in, a slight hint of annoyance in his voice.

“So you’ve been training hand to hand?”

“Yeah, well I’m not top notch at it but I can keep pace, It’s not like I need to be brilliant at it, if I can get close enough my quirk does the rest of the work, I don’t even need to contact my opponent you know, I just need to close the distance, but it’s just really satisfying to hit them with a taser fist you know” Denki says shadow boxing in the air in front of him.

“Sure Balboa” Hanta shook his head, “You putting that new launcher on or not?”

“Ohh yeah, let’s try this bad boy on then” He said, hefting the device, it was lighter than he expected.

Remembering what he had been told, he let loose a small snatch of voltage up his skin as he held it over the bracer, there was a sudden loud ‘CHUNK!’ as it magnetised to the bracer at which he flinched slightly.

“Wooh, that was a bit violent”

“It’s a magnet they can be like that,” Hanta pointed out as they exited the lockers.

–

Right back to the present then.

“Alrighty Sero my guy, how do you want me to go about this?” Kaminari asked.

“Well we’re not going to have you try and swing around straight away, I just want to see how discs work, because they might damage structures when fired” He pointed out.

“Ohh right they do dig in, mhh, well let’s see how this goes then” Denki said taking a crouching stance., arm pointed high at a roof rafter.

“Hey you're going to want to fire it horizontally so that you can use the shape to allow for a better swinging arc” Hanta pointed out, staring at where his buddy was going to fire it.

“Got it,” He responded, twisting his arm slightly lining up the shot.

“Activate Grapple,” He said, the device making a whirring sound followed by a click, announcing that it was engaged, Denki’s face looked like a child who just got exactly what he wanted for Christmas, well he had, granted it was very much not Christmas.

“All right, now you're going to want to jump as you retract the cable, you really don’t want to pull your arm out of its socket so you need to keep it semi slack as you ascend, just keep yourself steady and you're good” Hanta gave a thumbs up.

“Right” Denki readied himself, and sent a small charge into the trigger, which the shooter responded in kind with a good ‘THU-CHUNK!’ as the blue painted disc was sent skyward a massive spool of cable trailing behind it, there was a crack above them as it found its mark embedding in the emplacement for heroes with swinging abilities.

Denki gave a tug on the cable pulling it taut to see if it could hold him, the cable vibrating as it held fast, he smiled at Hanta before, sending another jolt to his equipment.

“Going up!” He yelled leaping upwards, letting a pulse fire down his legs which responded in kind and in a flash the cable started retracting as Kaminari was hauled skyward whooping in excitement, the other members of class looked to where the sound was coming from, spotting the torch like appearance of Kaminari in his black costume, yellow hair flying all around as he soared upward.

He was soon hanging just below the roof, the whole training room below him visible, some of his classmates running drills, eyeing Jirou, Tokoyami and Yaoyorozu sparing below him, the clang of sword strikes echoing up to his vantage, soon enough there was a swishing noise as a strand of tape hit the support not too far away from him and Sero hauled himself up not to far away.

“Your gonna want to pull yourself up, hanging from you arm is gonna hurt after awhile” He said his other arm letting loss a shot that wrapped around the emplacement as he swung himself under the support and on top of it in one fluid motion that Denki couldn’t hope to reproduce, instead he grabbed up with his left arm and hauled himself up onto the emplacement.

“Man this is what you see? An expanse where everyone looks like ants?” He asked, staring out across Gamma like he was atop a mountain.

“Sometimes” Sero puts in, “I wouldn’t call it an expanse, it’s like a big game of Risk”

“You’ve played Risk? Doesn’t that game take hours?”

“Meh I’m not sure I fell asleep that Sunday whilst Yaomomo, Roki and Bakugou were playing it” He said, doing his overhead stretch, “Now you want to start swinging?” he asks his friend.

“I’m not sure, considering it’s only on one arm that might strain it, but I’ve been getting better at controlling my musculature, so maybe I could do just one, but then there’s the release, I can’t pull off then swing again, I can’t really do that, you Tsu and Midoriya can, or well could, but I can’t do that I don’t have a second grapple, well I do it’s just out the back which doesn’t help unless this thing can rotate” He notes.

There was suddenly a whirl and a click from his shooter as something locked into place, the two stared at the device.

“What did it just do?” Hanta asked, pointing at it.

“I’m not sure, it did that when I told it to activate”

“Can you pull up some sort of manual and troubleshoot what it just did?” He asked a fair question considering if it had just done something to the grapple at this height, well, Denki trusted his friend to catch him should he fall in the, hopefully, unlikely case of that happening, but he wasn’t exactly trustful of the device at this present moment.

He did recall a little note in the case. He touched his hand to the black communicator, clicking the new little button.

“Diagnose on shooter” He asks, it makes a chiming noise in response, a little message appearing.

-Both Grapples: Engaged/Position: Forward Launcher-

“So apparently both grapples are in the forward firing position.”

The two looked at the grappler, at each other, then at the far wall, then back at each other, smirked and nodded.

–

‘OKAYSOMAYBETHISWASABADIDEAINRETROSPECT!” Denki shrieked as he rocketed across the top of the training facility, as the arc swung in a wide well, arc, it looked like he’d miscalculated his jump because he was going to slam into the far wall.

“HEY SPARKY WATCH THE WALL!” Came the yell from Bakugou who was standing observing Iida and Asui engage in some very kick based combat.

Denki saw that dratted wall incoming, he was probably going to hit it, ‘Come on ACT Do Something, you can’t go on a date looking like a Banana that was thrown against a wall!’

‘Well okay we make use of the second one then’

“FIRE SECOND DISC OVER SHOULDER!” He screamed at the device, which responded firing over his shoulder as requested, it wasn’t going to embed until after he had come into contact with the wall, so a bit of improvisation was called for.

‘Let’s hope I don’t go splat doing this’

Denki swung out his lower body as far left as he could, putting in just enough momentum to slew his body to be parallel to the wall, the first hit was going to hurt but hopeful lessened by what he was about to do, his feet hit the concrete with a thud, he quickly poured as much strength into them as he could, to keep his legs running forward in a desperate attempt to keep his momentum up.

He wouldn’t stay like this for very long but he was going to make it count, he was doing it, running along a wall, he’d always had this thought in the back of his mind that it would be the coolest thing he could do, even going into a school for heroes.

Well now he could say, yes, yes it was, but that came at the drawback of feeling his momentum dropping beneath him, he was coming off the wall whether he liked it or not.

He heard the chunk of the disc hitting one of the supports, and then the furious whirring sound of the one he’s just swung in on, retracting, it would have been fascinating to see them two wires change end, as they moved, the cables pulling along the partially open sides from front to back slotting through, the rear cable now being the forward one, and the forward now the rear.

This new arc he was travelling on was far wider, and lower, now the ground was rapidly approaching, he make the excellent decision to grab the cable to keep himself stead, he left leg outstretched, whilst his right was tucked just under him, like he was on a zipline, which honestly would have been the smarter idea, but he doesn’t have many of those now does he.

He could now judge that his cable was a bit long, the swing was gonna hit the ground, or skim it, you know as opposed to screaming he could do something more interesting, what was that old Disco song his Mom liked, something by Baltimora, Tarzan Boy that was the one, mhhhh, maybe the Tarzan yell?

“Oooh Oooohhh oooohhh OOOOHHH!” He hollered as he skimmed low to the ground, Ashido and Sato’s heads followed him crossing their vision like a yellow wrecking ball.

“What the fuck is he doing?” Remarked Bakugou, Asui and Iida pausing to look round at the swinging yellow student, currently making quite a noise.

“Is it wrong that I want him to crash?” He asked the two without turning round.

“Yes,” They replied in stereo.

Denki felt the swing slowing, and he stuck out his feet like he was on a swing set, he could see the small arena that had been set up for the sword fighting, Jirou and Tokoyami were getting ready for another match, standing on the rim side listening to Momo, the cable wasn’t too far from the arena, if he could time this right, ‘come on Denki be slick don’t mess this up, decelerate’.

In a well planned move he forced the cable to disengage, as he was nearing the rim they were standing on, holding out his left arm aiming to have his hand land on Kyouka’s left shoulder.

He landed on the platform with a thud, said thump was the sound of his feet hitting the concrete, joined by the thump of his arm hitting the girls back and shoulders as he came to a stop using her as a partial buffer, the zip of the line shooting back to him also sounding out.

“Ohh hey watch it, are you trying to throw me to the floor?” was the response from the snippy girl, he had just well, not exactly gently collided with.

“Hey I was rather in control there, I wouldn't have thrown you over, damn now I can’t use that pick up line I was thinking off” He complained throwing his head down in defeat.

“What? Something Tarzan and Jane related?” She asked giving him one of her mean sideyes.

“Damnit how didja know?”

“You’re very, predictable” She said slowly with an edge as sharp as the sword on her belt.

“You are a massive moron you know”

“So I’ve been told” He smirked at her.

“If I had been holding my sword you would have been sliced Kaminari, which I’m not sure would be as good as sliced calamari” She shook her shoulder at which his head bounced up.

“I wouldn’t have been sliced” He remarked meekly.

“You know I was all for them getting together but it might start getting annoying fast if they start doing this adorable stuff around me more often” Tokoyami whispered to Yaoyorozu.

“Pff, I’m mean sure, but I think it’s cute, even if their way of showing affection is rather, sharp tongued and physical” She said as Jirou ducked under Kaminari’s arm, causing him to yelp and fall forwards at which she caught the back of his jacket and hauled him upright.

“They do match each other rather well though” Tokoyami said with a nod as Kaminari started in about her being surprisingly stronger than she appeared, which got him a sock to the shoulder.

~~~~~~~~

Chapter Text

Kaminari was quick at switching over to his planned bow staff lessons, being Tarzan wasn’t as fun as you would first expect.

He had deposited his folded jacket on the rim of the arena, which he had folded and placed his glasses/communicator, and shooter gear on, his opponent as to be expected was Momo, who was prepping in kind, removing the bandolier, skirt thing (Seriously what the hell is that and why does it still have a fucking book strapped to the back of it?) and had pulled on her spare sweatpants and sports shoes, she wanted the edge and some safety.

It should have been weird to see his classmate thrown off her utility skirt.

-you know what sure-

But it wasn’t like they hadn’t not seen her in just the swimsuit adjacent costume, granted this time she was throwing on sweatpants, but he could be a man of his convictions and not stare too harshly, his eyes where else were anyway glancing at the rather flustered Jirou, who was joined by an equally flustered Tokoyami who in turn darted his head over to the left to avoid the compromising image, spotting Todoroki making his approach, he to got rather flustered as he walked over the arena.

‘Welcome to the club’ the bird-headed boy thought to himself. Todoroki wandered over the rim standing just next to Tokoyami.

“Yaoyrozu, would you like a smidge of privacy? I could put up a wall?” He asked, busy finding Tokoyami’s shoes interesting.

“Ohh no it’s fine, I’m almost done, but thank you for asking” She answered, shoes laced up, as she sprung back up, and rocked on the back of her heels, forcing them to look away again less their eyes fixate too quickly, she picked up the two wooden staffs sitting behind the rim wall and launched one over to Kaminari.

“Right Kaminari, your goal is to defend yourself from me, I’m going to tone back to about the level of an inexperienced attacker, and as I go I’ll get slightly better, you are to counter me, understood?” She told him, holding the staff in both hands and moving to a fighting stance.

“Yes Ma’am” He answered, also putting himself into a fighting stance.

“Tokoyami could you count us in, we’ll fight until one of us is hit, you then call the next fight” She told him.

“Will do”

The two stood back and brought their staffs to the centre above them, the distance was set.

“Begin!” the corvid commanded.

Momo struck first wheeling the staff around across the left side of her body, Denki swiftly pulled his forward into a block, to which Momo followed up by pulling the staff end straight back towards herself with her right hand her left sliding down free to which quickly changed grip bring it down in an overhead strike, Denki countered with the staff over his head blocking the blow with his own, Momo was ferocious in her assault following up again with an under blow swinging it upwards, which was again countered, but forced Denki backwards on his feet.

The three other students watched with interest, one as the referee and the other two, well if there had been railings they would be gripping them like lifelines.

‘They're both currently in the same boat’ Fumikage thought to himself, ‘JS Damn my Crush is Hot’ He smirked at that thought.

Refocusing on the fight, Momo made jabs at Denki’s chest which he parried, walking backwards spinning his staff and swinging it forward to catch his opponent off guard and aiming roughly for her neck, a swift movement of the staff over the body put pay to that move, but the gold haired boy wasn’t about to let that stop his counter as he advanced letting small sharp jabs at her legs like he was trying to sweep in an orderly fashion.

“Denki you have to go for bigger hits” Jirou’s voice came from the rim.

“Momo would counter those easily, much like she’s doing with these” Todoroki countered.

The two now with small glares locked at each other, those were unimportant to Fumikage as they stared around in front of him, he was more interested in how their outbursts would affect the outcome of the fight in front of them

Both had flinched at being called by their first names, Denki recovered quicker pulling an overhead swing from his left side which was quickly parried with an upward thrust.

“Okay but Momo Is going to get the first hit in” Todoroki scowled crossing his arms, “This is the sort of fight she’s well versed in, and she has better footwear for this scenario, I don’t think Kaminari is coming out on top”

“Well I don’t doubt Momo’s skill, Denki has the unskilled counter, by not having formal training, it makes him a more unpredictable opponent” She retorted, blowing a small raspberry in the heterochromatic hero’s direction.

Meanwhile, in the rin,g the fighting had slowed the smack of wood on wood now duller as they hit with less intensity, heads half-cocked in the direction of the two squabbling in the spectator position, they were seemingly more interested in what they had to say than fighting.

“Well she would still more effectively counter him, better skill can beat out untrained strikes if your skill is close to that of Momo’s” Todoroki rattled off, “Do you not recall her trouncing three of our classmates with an arm tied behind her back?”

“Yes I do but I’m just saying that she’s not invincible or untouchable” She rebuffed, There was a crack to insinuate this as Momo deftly dodged a strike blocking it just as quickly.

“But what of Kaminari, is he likewise not also just as not invincible or untouchable?” To this Momo retaliated and swept her staff at his legs which he leapt over backwards, as he started backwards whirling the staff to gain distance from his combatant, well it was also so he could listen in on the conversation.

This was distinctly new to Denki, it was par for the course for the others to somewhat doubt his abilities, or even belittle him, it didn’t bother him, he had a better read on people than most, Todoroki wasn’t doubting him, well he was but that was based on his current knowledge of what he knew, he respected the two combatants but Yaomomo was always held in a high regard by him, not that Denki could blame him, she was probably one of the most skilled and knowledgeable members of class, and one of the best weapon based fighters, so it didn’t surprise him that he though she would get the upper hand, he did as well, she very much had the reach over him, being that she was 5’8 and all.

But what was interesting was that he had Jirou in his court, granted there was something funny about that, he was always giving her pep talks or acting as hype man, but to have her do it for him, was really weird and felt rather good actually, that feeling of someone utterly believing in you, was that the feeling she got when he did the same?

Well if it was, he rather quite liked it, that feeling of someone having trust and counting on you, I mean sure Bakugou had seemed to imply that he did during the licence exam, only he made that known after Denki had gone through his plan, and it had been said in the belittling way that the walking talking bomb tended to speak, but it was still nice that he was trusted.

All of this introspective had left him rather open, at which Momo struck like a bird of prey making a small leap with a downward strike at his shoulder, he quickly tried to parry, kicking the bottom of his staff straight out, but the staff both collided with each other, then skin as Momo’s hit at the nape of the neck, and Denki’s slamming into the jaw.

There were two responding grunts as they staggered back, Jirou and Todoroki leapt up.

“HA TOLD YOU!” They yelped, pointing at each other.

“They hit each other at the same time,” Tokoyami said with as straight a face as he could manage.

…

“GOD DAMNIT!”

“Yeah we just sort of smacked each other at the same time,” Kaminari explained, nursing the area where he had been whacked, “I didn’t even plan to I just parried a bit too hard and hit Yaomomo, sorry about that”

“It’s alright, I didn’t quite expect to get it kicked into my jaw, but good move”

“Right then, round two, we’ll see who can get off the first hit without it being a tie then,” Jirou said, turning to Todoroki who nodded.

“Are we fighting or are you two?” Kaminari asked, pointing between him and Yaoyorozu, then to the two across from them.

“You are but we are simply putting forth who we think will come out on top,” Todoroki answered.

If brows could be weighed Tokoyami would be at least One Ton seeing as they were now so heavy on his face.

“Maybe the fight would go better if instead of distracting them, you simply gave them some cheers instead of insisting that they are better than each other.” He said massaging his beak.

“I mean we weren’t doing that,” Jirou said indignantly.

“We were cheering” Todoroki put in.

“Good Grief, no you weren't, from where I’m standing it just sounds like you're trying to get their attention rather than cheer”

“Okay but we weren’t intending to,” Todoroki said, sounding a bit hurt.

“Let’s just get back to what we were doing, yes?, Kaminari, Yaoyorozu, proceed”

“And you two,” He said pointing, “Sit, and no crush gushing or I’m leaving” He said with finality.

…

The two spluttered at this whilst there was a thunk in the background as a startled Kaminari was hit upside the head with the Bo Staff.

…

“Crush Gushing?” Todoroki asked licks of flame running up his eyelash as Jirou melted into the floor at the comment.

Tokoyami looked from the two now staring him down red in the face to the two in the arena, Denki staring at the floor rubbing behind his head, whilst Momo apologised profusely with red ears.

“Fumi you’ve done enough damage look at them” Dark Shadow put in hovering over his shoulder, “I suppose I have”

“What does that even mean?” Todoroki asked once again, the floor around his feet being a thin sheet of ice and his hair in flames.

“I’m going to leave you to work that out, you're a smart man, I’m going to employ a trick Hawks taught me”

“And that is?” Jirou asked from behind scarlet fingers.

“The Irish exit,” He said with aplomb as he took off.

…

“It’s not exactly Irish if he tells us he’s leaving” Groaned Denki.

~~~~~~~~

Chapter Text

‘Mina I fucked up I fucked up I fucked up” Tokoyami crowed as he decended to where the pink girl was standing.

“What did you do?” She asked.

“Uhh well, uhhh” He stammered uncharacteristically, “He made them glow bright red!” Dark Shadow answered, pointing at the arena.

“WHOOO! You are not kidding, is Todoroki on fire?” She asked, shading her eyes staring across the room.

“Yes, yes he is”

“So he catches fire when flustered, wait is Momo producing springs?” She asked again, leaning back.

“I, wait is she?” He turned around, sure enough Momo was staring straight at the ground with springs, well, springing from her arms, she was also rather red, the only one who wasn’t red was Kaminari who was still nursing being smacked in the back of the head.

“Again, what did you do man?” She asked.

“So I might have said something about crushing gushing?” He said reproachfully.

“Tokoyami, you are a fool,” She said with some acid, “You never tell your OTPs that you ship them or point out that their making googly eyes at each other, first rule of shipping” She said with an air of gravitas.

“Didn’t you semi consistently poke fun at Uraraka's crush on Midoriya?” He asked her with a side eye, to which she faltered.

“Uhh well I'm just saying you need to be tactical about it” She stammered.

“Really name one time you have been tactical about it?” He asked crossing his arms with a raised eyebrow, “Don’t bring up your conversation with Jirou the other day”

“How do you know that?”

“You are not the only person she talks to”

“Really now, what did she tell you?”

“Not much but she did say you were pestering her for details concerning their outing in the first year, not much else but I have an inkling that you might have been teasing her for” He said with raised eyebrows.

“Yes?”

“Okay fine she I did tease her about that, but saying full send, ‘Crush Gushing’ really? Look at them, they're as red as Kirishima’s hair!” She exclaimed.

“I will admit that wasn’t the greatest move I could have made”

“Damn right, you might have just set the TodoMomo timeline back a year!”

“It was going to take ages anyway, I simply didn’t think, they were starting to get annoying, so, I said what was on my mind”

“You have a conjoined sister, who loves gossiping, and it’s her brother who ruins the ships, your setting us back Tokoyami”

“How was I supposed to know they would start arguing about who would win based on who they have a crush on?”

“Well Duh! That’s what people tend to do, look at Kirishima!”

The two paused.

“Touche”

The two turned and stared back over at the group who seemed to have recovered, and now had Shoji moderating the fight, granted with Jirou and Todoroki still bright red. There was someone approaching, and there was an energy that could best be described as malice, Bakugou appeared with his scowling face, just as tight and unbearably almost angry as usual, joining him was Mineta, with roughly the same look, which looked comical on him.

“Birdbrain what the fuck did you do?” Straight to the point.

“I swear I did not mean to possibly ruin this”

“I wasn’t talking about, hang on, who are you referring to?” He asked.

“I assume you’re referring to the possible fucking up of KamiJirou?” He replied..

“What no, they’re on course, they have a date, their not who I’m worried about”

“Yeah they are on it, having talked to Denki, we are having no problems on that front” Mineta Answered.

“So it wasn’t just me pushing them,” Mina grinned.

“Ohh yeah I was working, was that what you were doing?” He asked.

“Totally”

“I have no idea what any of you fuck wits are talking about, but no, Tokoyami, really, your going to just go and possibly fuck over Candycane?” He growled.

“I wasn’t trying to”

“Hey if we’re gonna give him flak over that, get mad at Sero, he practically spelled it out to Yaomomo,” Minoru said looking up at Katsuki.

“You're right,” He replied, tutting his finger at his current partner in crime, “SERO GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE!” He yelled at the rafters.

The lanky figure of Hanta Sero descended on them like a trapeze artist, landing gracefully amongst his friends.

“How can I help us today Sir, what might I have done to deserve your ire Mr. Bakugou?”

“See that?” He said pointing at the group.

“Yes I do see Shoji, he’s hard to miss, as is Todoroki, his hair is awfully distinctive, but that doesn't answer my question” he said, grinning in his silly way.

“So you apparently told Yaoyorozu that Todoroki has a crush on her right?” Was the response, punctuated with a glare.

“Yessss… same time I told your groupies you were gay, how do you think I got them off both of you?” he said with a chuckle.

“Wait so you told her that he possibly has a crush on her?” Tokyami asked.

“Well I didn’t say that he had a crush on her, I actually said, ‘pretty sure o’l Todoroki only has his dual coloured eyes for Yaomomo’ so, why? What does that have to do with just about anything?”

“Well, who was more overt, him saying that he’s only got eyes for her, or Tokoyami saying that they were crush gushing?” Mina asked.

“Sero” Came the four pronged response with Dark Shadow joining.

“Ohh come on, you know they need a push” He said, throwing his hand up.

“Yes but that’s like Dracula throwing Dennis off that diving board in Hotel Transylvania 2!” Mineta said, clearly their tall friend didn’t have a clue. “It’s overkill and you can do it gently”

“That is an oddly specific reference” Dark Shadow put in.

“Look what can I say, Denki loves Adam Sandler, we had a run of watching Hotel, that was a difficult movie to watch” He said.

“I know Mavis is hot as hell,” Mina put in.

“See you get it!” he said pointing at her.

‘You know, dropping the perv act and just chatting like normal people, they like talking to me, and you learn all sorts, like apparently Ashido could be into girls’ he thought to himself.

“The attractiveness of vampires is almost guaranteed in this day and age, back to the topic at hand” Tokoyami nodded at the vampire comment, he knew a bit too much about vampires.

“Said topic being that you and I fucked up?” Sero asked.

“Yes, that is the topic, that you two might have messed up a possible relationship between two very awkward people that we call friends,” Mina said, throwing her hands to her hips.

“If it helps, I think they're on to it” Sero said looking between the motley crew.

“Why would that be?” Asked Tokoyami tilting his head.

“Well she had quite the response, let me see, I think she said something along the lines of ‘Stop it Sero,’ as the starting, I think she swatted me?” he said, tilling his head in his sarcastic way that he almost exclusively used to rile people up.

“She followed up with something about him having more important things on his mind than her? Bit hazy and it was finished with ‘But from what he’s told me he’s fine with people coming to talk to him’ so they have been chatting, possibly in private?” He said with his wicked grin.

“No that’s not his style,” Bakugou crossed his arms, or tried to at least, angrily grunting as he moved his right into place, “Does he look like Kaminari?”

“What the hell has Kaminari been doing?” Mineta piped up.

“Sneaking off to Jirou’s room to play guitar” Tokoyami smirked.

“Ohhhh” Came the response from the non-band members, who nodded their heads in understanding.

“So he’s been sneaking around?” Sero asked with a wiggle of his eyebrows.

“The Dawg” Mineta snickered.

“Wooh let’s not get ahead of ourselves here” Bakugou started with a look of shock.

“So how do you think things will progress from here?” Mineta asked.

“With what Tokoyami said?” Ashido answered.

“Well I’d say that Kaminari and Jirou might say something about it, Yaomomo and Todoroki? Are gonna bottle it, and when they start getting all weird with each other we send in Bakugou to smack them upside the head” She continued pointing her finger upwards.

“What makes you think I’d smack them upside the head, smacking people invariably doesn’t work, well it does but in moderation, but being a dense fool isn’t, well actually that does kinda deserve a smack, carry on”

“Right because if anyone can give an almost homicidal pep talk it’s Katsuki Bakugou”

“Homicidal? My words don’t kill people! I WISH THEY DID!” he snarled consideringly, which was a deeply odd sound.

“Yikes, I just meant you're so blunt when telling people things it could count as a murder weapon” Mina rolled her eyes.

There was a whistle from across the room, where Aizawa stood pointing at the group.

“HEY are we training or socialising!” He shouted

“Sorry Sir!” came the response, granted not exactly from Bakugou, his was more like “Uhhhrrgg Sir will do”.

“Todoroki, Jirou! Stop sitting around ogling Yaoyorozu and Kaminari, do you not have your own training?”

The two yelped jumping about five miles north, hurriedly apologising, as they quickly tried run off to do something, Jirou beckoning over to Tokoyami, who started back over, Todoroki made a break for Midoriya in an attempt to look busy, almost tripping in his hasty attempt.

One of the most powerful and competent members of class A almost falling over as he hurried to look busy, was what managed to get Bakugou cackling.

He turned to the still present members of 2A’s sailors.

“Yeah, on second thought, we might not need to do much” He smirked.

~~~~~~~~

Chapter Text

If you asked Denki about that night, he wouldn’t be sure if that was one of the worst nights of his life or one of the best, it’s events were simply too disjointed for him to really untangle them from each other simply because the events were linked together like a power cord, they needed to be connected for either to even make sense.

<*>

It was Red, all Red as Denki looked across the massive expanse from where he stood, high above the ruins of Mustafa aboard the Coffin and he couldn’t hear it, the explosions, the earth shaking, sky splitting roar of explosions no longer hounded his ears, Bakugou can’t have stopped fighting, he would never stop trying to turn such a villain into ash, as long as he drew breath.

That’s when it hit him, no breath was being drawn from his friend, what he was standing on was a coffin, just not for who they thought it would be for, his own breath slowed, he was shaking, that can’t have been but why would he stop.

He Couldn’t Help Him.

In an instant his view shifted, he wasn’t in the sky, but a charred field, he looked around the panic, fear and grief that had manifested in him on the coffin was still there like unmixed cocoa powder at the bottom of a shitty hot chocolate, a cold chocolate. It was foggy now, the red sky and fog was something you never wanted to see, it was a textbook horror movie poster. Denki started forward as he spotted dark shapes in the clouds, they advanced slowly as he caught a better sight of what beckoned through that horrible mist.

It’s all shapes and colours he’s seen so many times, the shapes and colours of hero suits in their Green’s, Blue’s, Pink’s and Silver’s make themselves known to his eyes, he looks to those eyes, the ones of the faces he knows but something is wrong so wrong.

The eyes that stare back aren’t the powerful confident hard eyes that he saw not hours before, worn and scuffed, they show no light, no cheeky gleam, their hollow and so unfamiliar to him, he looked to the closest one to him, the lanky form of Hanta Sero, his friend looked at him with hollow eyes, he shouldn’t be able to see them, behind that black plexiglass visor, but there's two massive chunks of it missing exposing his sunken eyes, the tape tearer the was fitted to the front only made the visual worse, his head looked like a misshapen skull with that broken helmet. His eyes widened in panic, no why was it, and his eyes caught red, red dripping ribbons piled at his feet from his limp elbows.

He Couldn’t Help Him.

He panicked looking away from his lifeless friend, only to see yet another, he was stood father away the small form of Minoru Mineta, his bloody eyes staring straight into his soul his head ever so tilted like a horrible purple lumpy owl, he couldn’t look at that, tears formed in his eyes clouding his vision as he ran into the mist.

He Couldn’t Help Him.

He bolted into the mist in an attempt to get away, only to stop and recoil in horror at the form of Uraraka before him, she hung in mid air arms and legs limp like she was being dragged into the sky by her waist, and she was bleeding, little brown birds stained by her blood flitted about her chirping a deathly mating call, her ghostly brown eyes barely visible.

He Couldn’t Help Her.

He just kept running, running further into the mist, he wanted to close his eyes, scream, call out to any of them, what was happening?!

His path ahead was blocked by more shapes, Midoriya, Todoroki and Bakugou, they were all pale, so pale like all of the colour had been removed from their bodies their eyes didn’t give off their normal shine, what would look like gemstones, bright full of life, Midoriya’s weren’t their brilliant emerald green, but sickly like an molded bread.

Todoroki was no different, but a closer look that he hadn’t wanted proved otherwise, both his eyes were as gray as stormy seas, gray and univiniting, there was none of the accumulated friendliness that had gathered in them.

And Bakugou, god Bakugou, his friend was bleeding from the mouth, and his eyes lifeless pale red, as opposed to their brilliant scarlet, he looked ready to crumble. 

As Denki tried to move forward to grasp them, ask them what was going on, they all suddenly writhed, Black Whip erupting from Midoriya's mouth, enveloping him in its horrible oil coloured silk.

Todoroki burst into flames, bright green and orange that blackened his skin like burning wood, his hair charred at the spread of the fire, his red scar, the only part of his body that the flames weren’t consuming.

Bakugou’s skin popped and crackled like he was being cooked at high heat, as parts of him erupted off his body, like a fragmentation grenade there was no cackle or scream, just fire and smoke, so he ran again.

He Couldn’t Help Them.

He kept running his head twisting around his environment wildly, he knew that he'd see more horrible visages of his friends, he just kept running hoping that he could block them from his sight.

He wouldn’t be able to as a flash of pink came into his peripheral, he couldn’t yell out to scream at Mina, as she limply stood near him her eyes ghostly white, her gold yellow eyes shining like the most horrible lamps he could ever hope to see, the longer he looked at her the more it look like she was melting, was that his tears making her pool.

He turned hoping that would stop or slow the inevitable, only to be meet with two pairs of ruby red eyes, they were in tatters, skin hung from Eijiro’s frame, some fell to the ground like lobs of pale flesh coloured slate, shattering as they collided with the ground, his hair was hung around his face, the tears in Denki’s eyes were so thick, as he cried turning away from one friend, only to be met with Fumikage, his whole outfit was in tatters, it was a scarred shroud that masked his body, more than could be given to the rest of his friends, there were fractures along his beak, he was whispering, the only sound in this horrible world, as he slowly sank into a pool of shadowy ground.

“I'm sorry Denki,” he whispered to him.

He ran, he couldn’t see them like that, more tears streamed behind him as he ran past them. Those haunting whispers clouded his ears much the same way the tears clouded his eyes.

He Couldn’t Help Them.

There was one more person standing in his path, there should be more, is what his mind was telling him, he had only seen eight, but the one who stood in his way was Momo, there was something different about her there was more life in her eyes, not much but enough for her to look alive in his eyes, she was holding a spear, seemingly stood vigil like the goddess Athena in Vienna, she stood aside, letting him pass her, there was nothing happening to her, her jet black eyes followed him as he made his way, not stopping him.

She Couldn’t Help Him.

Denki walked, tears soaking his cheeks, as he walked towards something sat at the edge of his vision, small and purple.

His eyes widened, and he burst into another run, he kept trying to yell out as he did so, trying to scream, at the figure, the whole while as he ran, he got to the figure.

To her.

He almost collapsed as he reached her, his voice still wouldn’t let him call out, or even whisper, as he put his hand on her shoulder, turning Jirou around to face him, at which his heart sank, that shoulder was as stiff as a boulder, her left ear was bleeding, and the face paint under her eyes streaked, her beautiful purple eyes, the most beautiful topaz he had ever seen, stared blankly back at him like neither him nor her were even there. 

The tears just kept flowing as he pulled her solid body into him, there was no beat of the heart, his hand only feeling cold unforgiving skin as he grasped the back of her head tears soaking her hair, he wanted to scream, he tried to again screaming at the crimson heavens, but they didn’t come, the only sound was the growing whisper, a chorus of voices whispering to him.

“I’m sorry Denki”

“Why weren’t you there?”

“Where were you?”

“I’m sorry Denki”

“I’m sorry”

“You could have saved us”

They were getting louder, as Denki pulled himself closer into the lifeless Kyouka as the voices of his bleeding and decrepit friends called his name, almost wailing in his ears, it was overwhelming they wanted him to join them. 

He Couldn’t Help Them.

He screamed to the heavens once again, his brain screaming as a roar of electricity erupted from his body, grief lightning, melting the images of what were once his friends as he cradled her head.

He Couldn’t Save Them.

He Couldn’t Save Her.

<*>

Denki awoke with electricity pouring off his body, the power emitted would have turned the contents of his room to ash, had his bed not been fitted with a rubber lined sheet which caught most of the stray volts, which he quickly had under his control, his breathing was rapid, to which he started taking deeper breaths to calm himself.

It wouldn’t surprise you that the members of class A had nightmares, but Denki Kaminari had them bad, a concoction of fear, grief, guilt and anger, but his nightmares were always about fear, fear of loss, the guilt of not being able to help his friends, that guilt kept telling him he was useless, regardless of the praise he got from his friends and the pro heroes, there was still intense internal outrage that he wasn’t never helping his friends when it counted, out for the count, he wanted to run, use his power to save others, but it was never when it counted, to him anyway.

He looked around for water, spotting a glass on his table, but it would have been a poor idea to try and grab that seeing as it had his contacts in it, and he needed them for seeing. The bottle of water next to it would suffice, and he drank a small amount rehydrating his depleted mind from the burst of power that had erupted from his head; it was unfortunate, that mind was still racing.

I-Island, his protection hadn’t helped them, he had become a hindrance, the training camp? He was in the classroom, he wasn’t there to help his friends being hunted in the forest, not even helping those unconscious in the forest, when he was meant to slow the League aboard Gigantomachia, he had hesitated, that split second, the relief that he wouldn’t hurt any of his peers only to be instantly taken out by that rock.

And the war?

And the fear of not knowing if any of his friends were alive, well had he been wearing his communicator, he would have been screaming their names, much like he had as his teachers fell off the Coffin, he just screamed, and he would have screamed all of their names until they answered him or until his voice gave out, but.

That guilt that he couldn’t do anything to really help when it counted, ate the poor boy up, Denki didn’t necessarily have insecurities, there was something his Mom had said. 

‘No one really thinks about others, well teenages anyway, they are too self centered to be really thinking about you, but you're not going to be meeting average teenagers.’

She had been right, and that drove his insecurity further, because he knew that his classmates were always observing, thinking, judging in some capacity, maybe not about him, preying on insecurity, but rather working out weaknesses, openings in fights, it didn’t sound like the same sort of thing, but that didn’t necessarily matter to the mind.

He was just scared, and that day, he was scared of losing his friends, and that made him want to fight harder, protect them, keep them close, but these thoughts and ideals were marred by what he believe to be the truthful belief held by his classmates, that he was a powerful coward, a glass canon, who didn’t last too long in a fight, that was his perceived perception of what he perceived to be their perception.

But wallowing in the dark wasn’t nearly as dramatic for him as it would be for say Tokoyami, with his purple lights, his mood lightly was the light given off by the glow of his luminescent hair, he’d gotten a bit of shit about that at the training camp, his classmates had buried his head under a mound of pillows so that they could sleep without Mr.Lightning Bug blinding them.

Lightning Bug.

She’d called him that, it had been brief.

“I guess poor Lightning Bug won’t get to flitter around the forest, might have gotten scared” She’d teased.

His eyes widened, he needed to see her, Now.

It was about 11 at night, and Kyouka was sat on her bed reading, sleep hadn’t come easy to her that night, Tokoyami’s words swirled in her head, they were mixing with Mina’s words, forming a cocktail made of roughly the same emotion, so she wasn’t exactly reading the words, it was more like the book was there to fill a void in which she could fein being busy to herself.

All of that swirl was concerned around one boy with gold hair, the one that she had a date with in the coming days, yeah that one, the one with the pretty smile, the one who always believed in her even when she was at her-

There was a knocked at her door, she jumped, no one was crazy enough to be knocking on peoples doors in the middle of the night, unless it was the insomniac that was Denki Kaminari, she’d summoned him by simply thinking about him, that was a bit freaky, but she was the one he’d come to most often anyway, he’d dropped by a few times in the evening to play guitar and make silly jokes with her.

She got off her bed and walked to the door, opening it to reveal Denki standing in the hall, with his glow in the dark hair and a blanket over his shoulder, her room's light highlighting his utterly sad expression like a kicked puppy, she stepped under the door frame.

“Hey what’s wrong?” was all she could ask before his arms were around her back and his head was on her shoulder, Kyouka’s hands hung in the air out behind him, she would have maybe stabbed or thrown him for that had she not wanted to hurt her clearly down, did she use the word crush?

“You’re alive, you’re not cold” he said half to her half to himself.

“Yeah I’m still alive, and I’m definitely not cold now” She said, bringing her hands to the back of his head and small of his back respectively. “What’s with coming to hug me in the middle of the night Jamming-Whey?”

‘Not that I’m necessarily complaining’ she thought to herself, he was always warm, a comfy warm like a hot water bottle or an electric blanket, now she was curious, would playing footsie with him be like messing with a hot water bottle? ‘Actual Thoughts Kyouka!’ She yelped at her internal monologue.

He pulled back with sad hurt eyes.

“I’m so sorry, I just, Nightmares” Was all he said, she didn’t need to hear much else, as she pulled back and grabbed his arm, lightly tugging him into her room.

She pulled him over to his bed, and hopped up sitting on the center, as he gingerly sat down, all of his motions were the exact opposite of his normal ones, normally he would have burst past her, unapologetically jump on the bed, all whilst smiling so brightly she’d swear that sunglasses were a priority.

They sat for a minute, before she broke the silence, Kyouka liked when there were moments of silence between her and Kaminari, but if he was going to be fully silent, she didn’t like that, if he was going to be quite with her, it would be well earned, not this sad display.

“Hey, You wanna talk about them?” She asked gently placing her hand on his shoulder at which his eyes turned to her, they were all puffy and red, something she hadn’t initially noticed, and it just made her feel awful, his eyes were so sad, and more brown than yellow she realised, simply looking into his eyes, sad and hurt, she’d never exactly looked to closely at his eyes, but they were fascinating, from a distance they looked gold or maybe even yellow, but up close the irises were mostly brown with a yellow ring around the pupil, the colour bled out making it appear yellow in some light, they were pretty.

Not that wasn’t a thought she’d had about him several times. There she went again getting majorly distracted by him, god fucking damn it Kaminari stop looking like a puppy!

He was also staring at her eyes, at which he got a little brighter. He pulled his feet up and spun himself onto the main part of the bed, turning his body to face her rather than look over his shoulder, giving her his full attention. She liked that, he always gave her his full undivided attention like someone had plugged a power cord between them and pulling back would cut the power.

“Are you sure,” his voice was quiet, mouse-like, lacking all of his pomp, a victim of his dreams circumstance no doubt, his head was slightly tilled and his fringe making a concerted effort to cover his eyes, which she would not have, she brushed the hair away from his eyes in one move cupping the side of his cheek, he flushed a slight red that was almost indistinguishable from his red wet eyes.

“Yes, now your going to tell me what happened okay, I’m not going to judge you I’m just going to listen, so tell me Denki Kaminari, what did you see that has you in my room at 11,” She looked at his acquired watch “42, with sad puffy eyes?”

“Right, I was on the coffin, and it was all red,” He started, “and I couldn’t hear anything”

“I wish I could get something like that” she interjected, he exhaled at that.

“I couldn’t hear Bakugou” He continued, at which Kyouka wished she hadn’t made that stupid remark.

“I couldn’t hear any explosions, there were none, nothing roaring in my ears, and it hurt because there's only one reason he’d stop doing that in the middle of a battle”

Kyouka slumped slightly, she like everyone else knew that Katsuki had been legally dead for sometime during the war, it was something they had been told after the fact, it would have crushed them had it been relayed in real time.

“And then it got worse it shifted, I was in a burnt field, and, and it” He started choking, to which she grasped his hand with both of hers.

“Hey, you’re alright, you're not in a field” He nodded.

“And then it just started getting worse and worse, you all started showing up, but bleeding and pale and broken, Hanta’s tape was all red and his helmet looked like a skull and then I saw Minoru, he was also bleeding, so I ran, but it just kept getting worse Uraraka was just floating and bleeding, and then Midoriya he got cancooned in his black whip, and Todoroki burned alive, and well Kacchan, he exploded, and I ran, I just wanted to keep running Kyo, but I kept being stopped, it was Fumi, Eji and Mina, she was melting Kyo, Mina was melting” He cried, trying to keep himself steady.

“What about Tokoyami and Kirishima?” She asked, squeezing his hand.

“Eij with, his skin was falling off his body in huge chunks and Fumi just kept whispering, ‘I’m sorry Denki’ to me over and over” He said, his head dropping again.

“I kept walking, I had to get out, and there was Momo”

“What happened to Momo?”

“Nothing, she was just holding a spear and she let me pass” He said as he recalled further.

“It was like she was standing guard, I’m almost certain that it was because my subconscious knew to a point that she was alive,” He said, still not exactly looking at her.

“Standing guard over what?” Kyouka asked, there was an unease to her voice.

“You,” He said his voice quavering, “You we’re sat at the edge of my dream, I got to you, you were cold, so cold and stiff Kyouka, you just, you were in my arms dead, no heartbeat, no glint in your eyes, I just screamed, and Fumikage was still just whispering to me, everyone else, they were pleading with me to save them, I woke up, and my arms still just felt cold” He sobbed as he looked back up at her.

Kyouka removed her hands and placed them around his neck and back pulling him into her which elicited a gasp of shock, less so a gasp but more a hiccup, but the semantics didn’t matter, simply a pained surprised sound made its way out of his throat.

“Hey, I’m here in the flesh, you're fine, I’m fine, everyone else is fine, I can hear them breathing if I really wanted to, you're okay Denki” Her breath was very warm in his ear and he practically melted into her in response.

They stayed like that for a while, simply arms wrapped around each other, soft warm breathing in their ears, Denki’s breathing slowly returned to normal, it was just about midnight by the time one of them even made some sort of sound, and that was him making a small chuckling sound.

“Hey Kyouka, I have a question” He said in something just above a whisper.

“Yeah?”

“Are you familiar with the works of Rick Astley?” He asked her.

She responded with a small laugh.

“Are you planning on Rick Rolling me after talking about your nightmares?” She giggled.

He breathed a smile.

“No, now tell me, because I’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking”

“Ohh the rare Denki thoughts, was it a little taxing on your poor under working brain” She cooed into his ear, to which he just brushed his nose over her jack in response, which did absolutely not make her heart vibrate in an odd way.

He took a deeper breath, as he started softly singing, “ Are we lovers, or only just friends, come tomorrow will I be lonely again? ”

Kyouka pulled her head off his shoulder slowly to look him full in the face.

“What?” Clearly taken aback.

But Denki was undeterred as he continued his song.

“ When you see me, is that love in your eyes? What your feeling, deep down inside ” He said slowly getting louder building his voice into an approximation of Mr. Astley’s Northern English accent.

Kyouka had to breath a smile, this was so stupid, he was so stupid, and then it hit her, Mina had said something about this.

“So if he were to do the same thing again but for you, what would you do?”

And here she was being confessed to, IN SONG!

‘Well guess we’ll get our answer’ She thought to herself, she wasn’t going to ruin this, she’d let him finish pouring his heart out, then give him an answer, but she would be kicking herself if she wasn’t going to enjoy it, as she kept her arms around his neck and pulled back to give him room to breath.

“ Do you think about me? When I’m far away? ” He sang, taking a moment to stare at her eyes.

“Yeah, yeah I do” She said just above a whisper.

“ Do you dream about me? ” 

“No but you do,” She teased, poking his nose with her jack.

“ Can I find a way? To make you want me? ”

“ The way that I want you ” She sang back before he could do that line. 

Denki had been trying to keep himself composed, at least as composed as you can be singing Rick Astley at Midnight whilst you have a who you consider the most beautiful girl around your neck, but this time he let it loose a bit after the previous comments, she was singing back to him.

He hoped that she meant it.

“ ‘Cos I think I love you ” He replied staring into her eyes, he gave a really pretty smile even with his puffy eyes, “ Could you love me too? ” 

She could only smile back at that, she didn’t know if he was going to keep singing it, it would have been sweet, but as he was about to start into the chorus she put her index finger to his lips  

“I think I’ve heard enough” She said with a tinge of laughter in her tone.

“You don’t want me to continue to sing an Astley Classic to you for my wildly unplanned confession?” Kaminari replied with mock puppy dog sadness from behind her finger.

“No because I want to talk about this wildly unplanned confession”

“It’s bad isn’t it, I’m getting rejected”

“What? No! I thought you were confessing because you were comfortable just saying it?”

“Wait so I’m not having my badly executed advances rejected?”

“No Dummy, you think if I didn’t care about you in a similar way I wouldn’t let you into my room near midnight and attentively listen to you, whilst holding your hand and brushing hair out of your eyes? You think of that?”

“I mean, kinda?”

“Kinda? Denki Kaminari I am now very close to possibly rejecting you” She pouted, removing her arms from his neck.

“Ohhh, sorry, umm I mean you know I’m sorry, I know it’s a bit much and that-”

Jirou just laughed.

“Denki take a second, and just for once, shut up and listen, kay?” She told him with a smirk of mirth.

“Okay” 

“Right so if I’m getting what you just sung to me, you love me?”

“Yes, I love you”

That made her feel giddy, to hear that full face not that she was the fainting type or overly romantic girl, but hearing him say it with some conviction was wonderful.

“Okay, okay, that’s pfffh okay” She was bright red, normally super stoic, but now she was blushing intensely.

“You alright?”

“No you dummy, you need to stop making me feel like I’m on fire!”

“Sorry”

“No stop apologising you are making this more difficult”

She dropped her head quickly as her jack performed a little spin in place.

‘ Fuck that’s cute ’

“Right okay,” Kyouka had pulled her head up, still pretty red, “When did you work out you loved me?”

Denki took no time answering.

“Well it was more of a crush at first, I think the first training exercise was like ‘Hey she’s pretty, and cool, hope I get to talk to her more’ but that was at first, and then it got bad, I don’t think I even realised it, you know wanting to cheer you up, get you to do something you were good at, you know the Festival, you were in your element, you were so passionate about it, and I thought it was the best thing in the world.”

He paused, catching his breath a bit.

“But I think when it clicked for me it was at Gunga, I was terrified, I wanted to be back with you guys, and you know what Miss Midnight told me?”

“That If saving the world is too much to handle, think about whatever it is you hold most dear, that’s what you said she told you” She answered.

“Well yes, but no, in large part it’s correct but I changed the wording to keep me in the green, she really said, If saving the world if too much to handle, think about who it is you hold most dear to your heart, is what she said, and do you know who was the first person on my mind was?”

She looked at him with a withersome gaze.

“No I want you to say it” She pouted again.

“Ohh common Kyo you know what I’m going to say”

“I know but I prefer to hear you say it”

“You just sound like Mina, this is being petty”

“Come on I know you want to tell me”

“Sigh, I saw you, just you, you simply told me either ‘Get it Done Chargebolt’ Or ‘I know you can do it Chargebolt’ honestly I don’t quite remember which wording was correct” He shrugged.

“So you remember the little vision you had of me, but not what I said?”

“Look I was super panicked sorry, but all I needed was to see you and tell me to go kick ass”

“Sounds about right, you can be so simple sometimes”

They paused for a second simply smirking at each other.

“Hey so when did you fall in love with me then?” He asked, tilting his head.

“I, well I don’t know, the girls would tease me every so often about you, I don’t think there was a set point, I think it was an accumulation, just the fact that you spent so much energy trying to make me laugh, just being so nice to me, even when I called you all sorts of names”

“I was under the impression they were terms of endearment”

“Possibly, who knows”

“You do”

“Not the point, you always thought so highly of me, you know when I was in middle school I’d always see these serious types, all their slicked back hair and dark eyes, those were the guys my friends liked, I thought they were boring, all flash and no substance, you ask them a question that their eyes would glaze over, no personality so to speak off”

“They never really had an interest in me, you know I didn’t exactly fit their version of a girl, which didn’t matter to me, they were boring so I kept reasonably to myself, I had an idea of what I wanted and boys were temporary”

“And then I came to UA, and my seatmate was this frizzy, spiky haired blond guy, yeah he was all external flash, but there was substance he could hold a conversation, he was funny and talked to me, all the time, yeah his eyes would glaze over when someone would say something to him, but it was more endearing than annoying, because you knew he might be thinking about how to come up with a witty response for you”

“Why are we talking in the third person now?” He asked with a half cocked grin and an eyebrow that sat in his hair.

“Ohh be quiet and let me finish” She tutted, to which he raised his hands in surrender, placing them back on his lap, indicating for her to keep going.

“As I was saying, the only thing that really sort of held me back, was my own image of myself you know, it was a bit of a damper when these personalityless boys paid no mind, but then you had this pretty one, and he was almost as bad, and you know I could guess his type, he made it obvious, swimsuit models with enough chest to break a pillar-”

“Woah Woah Woah, I know you're talking about me but I do not care if you look like a supermodel, that is the fashion industry's perceived standard, Dorky chicks like you turn me on just as much!” He implored.

Kyouka glowed bright red at that remark.

“Sorry too much?”

“Yes,” She moaned from behind her hands.

“Ohh sorry I interrupted your story about what you found dashingly handsome about little old me” He laughed.

Kyouka suddenly lurched her head up and tackled him into the bed.

“HEY! What was that for?” He complained with a head in his chest, Kyouka popped her head to his level.

“So that you would shut up, again let me finish!” She half squealed, pinching his arm.

“O‘Course” 

“So I got a bit jealous that he would flirt with everyone else, but not me, well until I realised that he technically had been and that I couldn’t work out that he was, but perhaps that’s because he was a dumbass, but a dumbass I cared for”

“And I realised that the same time as you did, Gunga, I was so worried about you, shorting out, well dying, and then you had to go get knocked out by Compress you dumbass” he punctuated this with a jab to the cheek.

“Oww I didn’t mean to, wait is that why I was being carried by you instead of Yanagi?”

“Well yeah, I came and got you, and she sorta handed you over to me”

“What Yanagi knew you had a crush on me?”

“I think a lot of people did”

“Yeah, Tokoyami definitely knew”

“Ohh Momo as well”

“You know it was Fumi who gave me a several good pep talks revolving around you”

“Really now” She cocked an eyebrow.

“Yes, really” He laughed, nuzzling his nose into her cheek.

“I’ve just realised something,” Kyouka said, jerking back.

“Yeah?”

“He was in the same hospital room as us after that, and I was sitting on your bed”

…

“Did you think he thought?”

“I think he was complaining in his head that we weren't doing anything”

“Ohh that must have sucked, seeing two people who you know are crushing on each other not doing anything, whilst one of them is sitting on the other's hospital bed, that’d drive me nuts” Denki laughed.

“Well are we going to sit on each other's beds or make it official?” She asked.

“What? Me being your official boyfriend?” He asked with a smile.

“Yeah, but you don’t get to brag about it”

“What?! But that’s the best part, I get to brag that I’m dating the coolest girl in the school, scratch that the world, Of course I’m going brag that my girlfriend fucked over the most powerful villian in the world and looked good whilst doing it” He said making a purposeful decision to look straight in her eyes.

“Denki! See this is what I mean you are just going to keep embarrassing me!” She turned a shade of pink

“I have no idea why you would be embarrassed about shutting down one of the greatest evils the world has ever known, or is it me objectifying you accidentally? Or is it me being quick to call you my girlfriend?” He said falling into panic.

“It’s not objectification? Where did you get that idea?” She looked at him like he had just said Fish swim in air.

“I figured after your outburst about Mineta objectifying people you didn’t like being objectified?” he said with a tilt of his head.

“Well okay I’m not cool with being objectified, it’s just I’m not exactly used to having people be so, I guess so eager to show me off?”

“But why wouldn’t I? You’re like 10 times cooler than I’ll ever be” He said.

She sat up at that comment.

“Okay, First Rule of this relationship, do not talk down about yourself, I will not stand for that, you’re cool” She said with a point at him.

“Huh! You think I’m cool?”

“Let’s not push it Sparky”

“Okay, Okay, anything else you want to lay as a ground rule?” He asked, propping his head up with his left arm.

“Mhhh, for the moment, we are keeping this a secret”

“Really, why?”

“Well how would it look if we got together before the date?”

“Honestly the date is more of a formality, we already know each other, what else are we going to have it for than to have a nice time, I already know and trust you Kyo”

“I know that, but I just don’t want to be public yet, it’s a bit to much pressure”

“Fine by me,” He murmured, snaking an arm around her waist, “More cute flustered Kyouka for me” He grinned.

“Ohh you sly devil” She didn’t throw him off, she was utterly enjoying this.

“What am I not allowed to?”

“Oh you are, just not in public”

“So no PDA?”

“No PDA, and I know you want to, but no Kissing” She said.

“What?” He jolted upright, sending shivers down her spine as a spark ran up it and along with his very warm hands being forced up her back by the sudden movement.

“Not tonight anyway, I know that’s how it usually goes but if you were to kiss me right now I don’t think I’d be able to sleep” She admitted.

“Ohh okay, not that I wouldn’t have been okay with not being allowed to kiss you, it's just I really really want to” He answered sheepishly.

“Maybe tomorrow” She smiled softly.

“I think you’ll find M’dear, that it is tomorrow” He said, pulling his arm off her back so that she could see the time. 

12:10

“Well later tomorrow smart ass, because we need to sleep”

“Right then I best get back to mine then,” he said, spinning to get off the bed and grab his blanket but before his feet could even touch the floor he had a jack warped around his arm.

“Um Kyo, shouldn’t I really be going, we’ll get in trouble if someone finds out we’re-” She shushed him.

“That’s a problem for future us, besides, ‘ Come tomorrow will I be lonely again? ’ remember?” She smirked. “And besides, we had that whole confession, the laws of fan-fiction dictate that we must”

“When did you read fan-fiction?” He said, tilting his head.

“Maybe you do need to ask me more on our date” She said her eyebrows and smug grin making her amusement palatable.

“So you’re against PDA but totally fine with me sleeping in your bed, with you?” He asked, dipping his head at the last comment.

“Well that’s not PDA is it?” she snickered.

“Touche, Kyo” He said with a smirk as he rolled back into bed grabbing around her waist in the process tumbling the two onto the duvet giggling, both lightly dusted with pink.

“So just to make sure you’re completely okay with me being here right?” Denki asked again as Kyouka pulled the blanket over them.

“Yeah, so long as you don’t try anything”

“I would never, I swear” He answered, throwing his hands up.

“Good, now I want to sleep, night Jamming-Whey” She said, booping him on the nose with her jack.

“Night Kyo, love you” He replied, nuzzling his head against hers.

“Love you too” She murmured sleepily, tucking herself into the crook of his neck.

~~~~~~~~

Chapter Text

Kyouka stirred slowly awake snuggling into a very warm object to her right, this was nice but what time was it?

Also what was she snuggling into?

Her eyes shifted slightly open to see herself tucked under the chin of Kaminari, why was she under his chin, why was he in her bed? Ohh right he was her boyfriend now, she felt a little buzz at those words, like she’d been put into front of a fireplace after a night in the cold, she really wasn’t cold considering he had both arms over her back.

“Mhhh, kkkkkkkyyyyyyy” He murmured into her hair.

“Yeah” She mumbled back.

“Yoourrh haaiir smeeel niece” He mumbled.

“Mhh, maybe, but I would smell better if I could have a shower” She replied in a sleepy way.

“Nooooooo, that means I‘d have to get up” he whined into her hair.

“I know but we have school” she responded.

“But if we get up I have to let go of you” He complained.

“Ohh that’s right, we’re not going to make it public yet” she tittered into his chest.

“Why are you laughing?” he complained yet again.

“I think it’s funny that you’re so cut up about having to let go of me”

“Do you not remember what we even talked about last night?”

“Yeah I do, I’m just messing with you” She laughed as she flicked his ear with her jack.

He pulled her closer still muttering into her hair.

“Hey so, how do we leave?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Like, if anyone finds out that I was in your room, in your bed, all night, I don’t think we’re going to be super secret like you want” he pointed out.

“Okay, do you have your phone on you?”

“Kyouka, why would I bring my phone to your bedroom?” he asked, his eyebrows raised near comically.

“Touche, right our main issue is going to be Toru” She started sitting up, the sudden disruption of contact caused Denki to whimper mournfully.

“You are so Pathetic” She sighed, as he grumbled like an attention seeking puppy, she moved backwards to lean on his stomach.

“So what’s the plan Jack?” He said, jolting upright, not helping the dog allegations.

“I leave first to distract Toru, you take your blanket, it can’t stay here, wait till I give a signal, Kay?”

“What sort of signal?”

“Uhh a codeword, can’t be too distinct” She mused.

“Hey, what's the name of your book?” He asked, grabbing the paperback from the bedside table.

“Not important but that’s the code” She said, taking it from his grasp, not that he could actually see what it said.

“The name?”

“No just book”

“Okay, right you do that, I try not to get thrashed by Iida”

“See you in a bit then” She said over her shoulder as she exited her room Denki purposely kept to the right of the door to obscure him from the line of sight.

Kyouka was now in the hallway where she heard the groggy yawning of Toru from the end of the hall.

“Ahahwayayah morning kyouka” she grumbled, “sleep well?”

“Yeah I’d say so, you?”

“bllehe”

“Fair, you want breakfast?” She asks as they walk to the elevator.

“I could really do with some”

“Ohh Toru, wanna hear about the book I’m reading?” She asks abruptly as the elevator door closes.

With the ding of the elevator Denki peers around the door blanket over his shoulder, looking down the corridor once, twice, three times, as he quickly and as quietly, for him, got back to his room, he was incredibly thankful that the floors didn’t creak and that Iida was likely already down stairs as he went for morning runs, but you had to be careful, luckily Ojiro and Iida were either still asleep or were as aforementioned downstairs so crossing to his room was a piece of cake, he opened the door and threw his blanket on the bed, taking a moment to neatly put it back on as opposed to leaving it in a lump that he would likely curse himself for later had he not done it now.

He grabbed his uniform and toiletries so he could go have a shower, pausing to think only the most stupidly rational thoughts that one would have after spending the night in bed with your girlfriend.

That sent a tingle down his spine and a fizz to his balls, which honestly is a thing and not just a bi-product of his quirk, it’s a guy thing, could he not get the fizzy balls right now, why was he cursing his balls, that’s a Mineta thing.

Dear Lord he was sidetracked, and he needed a shower, there was the nagging thought that it would wash away the very nice smell of Kyouka, a sniff of his arm told him that he was foolish and should have a shower no matter what his hormone addled brain told him, which honestly good call brain.

He spun to grab his contacts, staring at them he decided that he really wasn’t in the mood to put them on, so he’d grab his glasses case instead.

Denki hadn’t always needed glasses, well that was untrue, he’d needed them for ages, turns out reading the dark even with bioluminescent hair is not too terribly intelligent as a roughly seven year old Denki learned when he got his thick framed reading glasses, he had not liked them in the slightest they made him look dorky and a nerd, which was deeply ironic considering that one of the best adjective that could possibly be used to describe Denki Kaminari is in fact Dork.

He’d fallen back from them, he’d started wearing contacts when he turned 12, you’d think notoriously scatterbrain Denki Kaminari would struggle keeping up with the regiment of using them, turns out when you are dead set on looking cool you’ll accomplish quite a few things, but his contacts weren’t going to hold out on him forever, the greater use of his quirk after joining UA had made his vision slightly worse, all that bright light, hence the blue tinted glasses he wore with his costume.

He wasn’t quite sure how he’d mistake that glass of what was just water for his contact case, which within it’s two compartments the contacts sat in their saline, he was going to forgo them, he needed glasses more, he’d been wearing a different prescription after his encounter with Magicians Rubble when Mr. Compress had launched a slab of stone at his head, now a good bit of head trauma can screw up your vision so he had had to wear different glasses to correct his vision, so had Sero after he’d been hit it the head by flying debris whilst fighting Nine.

He didn’t exactly need those now, as he left for the downstairs showers, and promptly turned back around and grabbed the blue case.

~

Walking along that long corridor was marvelous, the anger, fear and distraught at not being able to move, their seized up limbs unable to respond to stop the intruder, he walked through the prison with deliberate movements this was the sweetness of freedom, not is the way you would expect, freedom of choice, he walked further inside the prison towards the block he wanted, the Enhanced block, where they prison kept their cybernetically enhanced offenders a rarity in their quirk driven society, he walked through C block the inmates also paralysed apart from one, a chocolate haired woman who at his presence turned into a mass of yellow dough and smacked against the window.

“What the hell are you doing to my body!” She yelled slamming her fist into the reinforced glass which shuddered at the attack.

The interloper turned his fully bright red eyes directly towards her at which she shrank back to her human form from the shock. Impressive, she could move.

“You’re going about that the wrong way madame, concentrate all of your force to a single point” he said in a chipper distinguished tone, “You will want to take on your, globulous form, my quirk is currently negating your movement, haven’t got a selective function for it you know”

The woman looked startled, then smirked as she once more took on her massive form forming the right arm to a pike like shape, and launching it at the glass, the red eyed man stepped back as glass pelted out from the assault, it wasn’t exactly a wide hole but that wasn’t a problem as she became a snake like form and slithered over to him.

Mercious- Released

“Thanks” She grunted, forming her human appearance, her limbs taking a more doughy texture as she walked alongside him, obviously adjusting to moving in this half human half dough form.

“You’re most welcome, you’ll be perfect for what I have planned” he said with a coy smile, ignoring her own autonomy for the present moment.

“And that is?”

“How do you feel about organised crime? Of the unstoppable kind?” he asked off handled as he walked down the hallway, as if the comment was something that didn’t need much thought, like he was asking about a cheese platter at a party.

She had to look up and down at this deranged man, with his bright red eyes, agrentette hair whose silver sheen glinted in the artificial lighting, a black cardigan and matching leather shoes, he was deeply unsettling with fluid movements and completely contrasted his quirk that made people statues, if that was even what it was.

“What and who the hell are you?” she asked, trying to keep up with his swift movements.

“Ohh I’m just a man who knows what he wants” he answered looking back.

“And that is?”

“To see fear on people's faces, especially those, new heroes, you know the ones” He said scrunching his eyes.

“That sounds basic, and suicidal, you have to have seen what those students did, they killed most of the League of Villains, you think your Cardigan wearing arse is going to stop the youngman who sent a storm to the states?” She said placing a hand on her hips at this outrageous stance he was spewing.

“You want my full motives?” He paused looking back with a questioning look and unspoken asking of her name.

“Kawahara,” she answered “Kawahara Yukina”

“Well Kawahara, do take a moment to think about this, the war is over, the country is in turmoil, there are more injured heroes than there are ones in active service, crime is down, but that means security is down, yes? What heroes are left to fight, well a good chunk of them are provisional students, and as strong as they maybe, they are still children, they have school, and what authorities that are left, can’t stop me”

He monologued as he walked down the corridor.

“Why can’t they stop you, Mr?”

“Akamatsu Madame, Ruki Akamatsu, you may call me by my alias, Gridlock” he smiled.

“Well Gridlock, what’s your plan to be unstoppable?”

“Simply, my quirk a little number called Stop Light, you will have felt it earlier, it paralyzes your nerves, no one within 12 feet of me can move, except those who can bypass their nerves, like you”

“So your plan is to just use your quirk to stop people moving, then what?”

He turned around to face her.

“Whatever I want” He said, his eerily red eyes cutting right through her, Kawahara didn’t like the deep unease that fell over her, that unease told her he had done whatever he wanted, and gotten away with it, the ideas of what he could do with such a quirk made her shiver at the notion, what had this man accomplished to have such confidence, her mind instantly wondered the horrible thought of how many had possibly been defiled by this man, that air of swagger, she didn’t like it.

The two walked into E Block where several inmates were near the glass, these ones seemed to be able to move as they smacked against the walls, they could obviously feel the effects of Stop Light but they could move, one thumped at the glass.

“Hey! Cardigan!” Yelled a man with what looked to be large wrist cuffs, he had sharp swooping eyebrows and a low V shaped hairline with a flat top.

“What the hell is your quirk doing?” He snarled as he stepped back in a slightly shuddering movement.

“Simply, my quirk is stopping your nerves” He replied in that same chipper manner, “Now please do tell, who is best to release first?” he pondered to the gathered inmates.

“You’ll want the tall guy in Cell 5” Came a the reply from a tanned individual in Cell 2 his arm smoothly motioning two cells down on his side, “He’s got an electrical quirk, could shut down all the systems here”

“Thank you kindly Sir, Ms Kawahara, could you do the honors please?”

Kawahara moved to the cell’s glass wall, sitting on the bed was a lanky man with large shoulder, said shoulder had large braces over the top, along with warty/pimply skin easily visible with his choice of tank top and waist wrapped jumpsuit, he stood facing away from the glass, his face hidden by close cropped brown hair.

The woman expanded in size pulling her arm to the point like form it had taken earlier, and smashed into the glass, the shattering sound erupting through the prison as her dough form pummeling the shattered glass which gave away near instantly, the tall man standing at the back of the room turned and walked through the shattered wall taking care to avoid the shards, he stretched his shoulders and neck.

Tesla- Released

“Thanks, glass really hampers my style” He grunted sparks flowing between his two hands, “Let’s see about getting the rest of you out” He smirked building power, the lights flickered and pulsed as he charged up, it came to a head and there was a sudden quiet hum as the power to the security systems came offline and the doors and restraining systems came off, and with them the Prisoners came out.

The man with the large wrist cuffs in Cell 1 instantly produced two serrated metal lined whips from them, which he flicked at the glass slashing in two downward strikes following up with two horizontal strikes, the whips cutting through the glass like a pair of scissors cutting paper, the glass shuddered the cut section falling forward.

Rip-Cord- Released.

The sound of shattering glass rippled around the room as the inmates broke from captivity, the man in Cell 2 cracked his knuckles before bringing his hands out in front of him, at which two saw blades appeared from the tops and bottoms of his arms, in one clean circular motion he cut it like a Circle Cutter, as if he was a diamond removing himself from his display case.

Balisong- Released.

Cell 3 was much the same, there was less tact or finesse, simply applied power as his right arm's end closed into a point and he thrust it into the bottom corner, the whole wall crashing down instantly from the well placed strike.

South Paw- Released.

In Cell 4 an Orange haired woman glared out at hallway, before breathing and activating her quirk, the barrier of energy expanded from her body, the glass wouldn’t be strong enough, as she simply walked through it, the wall of glass rupturing and parting like water.

Repulse- Released.

In Cell Six the largest of the group was using his quirk in a less, immediate, way shall we say, Inmate Ooshimo had removed the mattress from his bed and placed it in front of himself, activating his quirk, a simple one in name, Strengthen but one with startling applications, the placed the mattress ahead of him, his hands placed firmly against it as he charged forward using the mattress as a large shield, first hitting it with the top left corner the pressure of the enhanced bedding punctured the glass and the rest of it fell away under the force of it crashing down, Ooshimo stood and brushed the glass of himself.

Ironclad- Released.

The Final member of the E Block to get out would be a man by the name of Haruki Hijikata, Hijikata was a patient man, and one of simple wants, and simple plans, he squeezed his hands and a boom echoed from his cell as glass shrapnel embedded itself into the opposite Cell Eight, he cracked his neck as he stepped out of the cell.

Piezo- Released.

And just like that, Ruki Akamatsu had just extracted Seven Villains in under the span of 10 minutes, the man who would soon be known to greater Japan as Gridlock, and he had his sights on taking out the new heroes, even if that endeavor would likely be fruitless, it was going to be a damn hard fight, and he and his newly acquired team were getting to work before the new heroes even had their boots on.

~

It was midway through breakfast at Class 2A, some of whom were now putting their shoes on before they headed for their 8:40 English Class, a few stragglers made their late appearances downstairs, one of whom was Kaminari who made his slightly jumpy appearance from around the corner from the showers, a pair of red glasses adorning his face.

“Ohh hey sorry I’m late, is there any toast left?” He asked rounding into the room, some taking passing glances at his glasses as Sero from the kitchen answered the request.

“10-4 Buddy we have Toast to go. What will be your spread? Peanut Butter, Cheese like your name is Aoyama or one of the various jams at our disposal.” He asked, rotating the large wooden plate that the spreads were stored on, a lovely one made of cherry courtesy of Ojiro.

“I myself would have the Peanut Butter, chunky, that’s where it is at” Hanta claimed, hefting the glass jar.

“I’m good, Lemon Curd my good man” Denki replied as he got to the counter.

“Ohh no fun, you're going to end up all sticky” He laughed as he pulled the yellow filled container from its place on the plate, it was reasonably used, not many of them ate the curd, apart from if your name was Kaminari.

“So what’s got you back wearing the reds?” He asked, pointing at Denki’s glasses, the Youngman was currently spreading the thick lemon paste/jam thing on his toast.

“To be honest Han, I could not be fucked to put on my contacts this morning” Came the response, “I do not have the patience for them today”

“Why might that be?”

“Nightmares” He responded looking up from his concentrated toast spreading.

“Ohh, what sort?” He asked, leaning his elbows on the counter top, the fact that this was a casual question would be, quite frankly disturbing to anyone who had not been fighting for you life at 16/17, but it was uncommon enough that the other students milling about all listened in, apart from Bakugou and Kirishima, the former angrily accepting assistance in getting his shoes on, and berating the latter's way of lacing them up.

“Everyones dead bodies doing things that dead bodies should not be doing” He responded in an alarmingly calm way.

“Well, that’s, well no other way to put it than majorly fucked” Kirishima piped up from his place on the floor, getting a thwack on the leg for stopping.

“Ooh it was, you had your skin falling off of you, it was freaky as fuck” Denki shivered before biting down on his toast.

“Welp that is an unfortunate image I will have to live with now, thank you so much Denki” Ojiro groaned while massaging his temple.

“You are most welcome, if it’s any consolation, I don’t think you were in that one, at least I don’t think you were?” he mumbled through his lemon toast.

“That one” Ojiro considered under his breath, that wasn’t scuffed at all.

“Did no one ever tell you that you don’t talk with your mouth full, let alone eat with your mouth open?” Grumbled Jirou from his right side.

Kaminari swallowed, “What? Not going to knock my shoulders and further chew me out Jack?”

“No,” She rolled her eyes, “If I wanted to get lemon and breadcrumbs on me I'd make crumbed fish, and the only one doing any chewing is you” She finished with a head tilt.

The other students had tapped in further now, mmmhhh KJ tension a wonderful after breakfast delicacy.

“Fair play Jirou, the rest of you guys had breakfast?” he asked the room at large.

“Course dipshit, you’re the last one we’re waiting on” Bakugou grumbled standing back up.

“Oohh come on you guys didn’t need to wait on me” He laughed.

“As funny as it is to watch you run to class like a mad man, it’s easier to make sure you're on time with us red vines” He shrugged.

“Ohh so you do care” Mina laughed, thumping both his and Kirishima’s back.

“That is not it” He growled.

“Ohh come on Tinkerbell don’t be such a fake give a fucker about it” She snarked from over his and Kirishimas shoulders.

“What the fuck is that meant to mean Wataame!” He snapped.

Kaminari was busy wolfing down the rest of his toast, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

“Hurry up, we're going now,” Jirou said, still standing off to his right.

“Yah, gib meee a sec” He grumbled through his mouth of toast and lemon curd.

He’d just swallowed the last bite when he found a shoe directed at his head.

~~~~~~~~

Chapter Text

There was grumbling and giggling as they walked to English they hadn’t ascertained who’d thrown Denki’s shoe at him, the boot hadn’t hit it’s target thankfully but he was bemoaning this situation to Jirou who was still half laughing, half looking around at the group with eyes like snake fangs, a message of warning.

Now for this morning, Shoto was feeling oddly chipper, one might even identify a pep in his step as he walked with a light smattering of a smile, of course it wasn’t long until someone took notice.

“Hey Roki, what’s got the wind in your sails my guy?” Sero asked as he moved to his left.

“I’m honestly not sure, today just feels good” He replied.

“Well that’s all you need to have a good day I guess” He shrugged, “Anything on your mind?”

“No, not really, apart from that cloud, it looks like a cat right?” He pointed at a large drifting white cloud.

“You know what, yeah I can see a cat” He agreed, shading his eyes and staring at the cloud in question.

The two walked in a peaceful silence as they walked with the rest of the group to class, it was a minute or two until Shoto turned to him again.

“Hanta”

“Yeah Buddy”

“Can you kill women with a smile?”

“Noo? If that were true there would be dead bodies wherever I walk” He laughed.

“Why, what’s got you asking?” He tilted his head to the right.

“Just something Mt.Lady said ages ago now, I’m not the type that hurts those who don’t deserve it, I don’t want to accidentally hurt the people I care about, and if my smile kills women, that’s awful.” He said truthfully.

“That’s really sweet Sho, I don’t think you're given enough credit for how much of a sweetheart you can be, you’d be winning girls hearts in no time”

“That’s what happens when you have a childhood like mine, you become more wary of hurting others” He said not quite appearing to have predicted what Hanta was going to say.

“Ohh, shit, I’m sorry I thought we were going a different direction there”

“There’s nothing for you to be sorry for, you and everyone else aren’t to blame, the blame rests on very big shoulders, I don’t know why you brought girls up?”

“Removing your father from the conversation, well you asked if your smile is killer, any ladies that caught your eyes, or forcing you to smile more?” Hanta asked, pretty sure of the answer.

“I’m not sure why you're bringing all this up?”

“Ohh come on Shoto, with all these girls running about trying to get your autograph, I’d imagine at least one would catch your eyes, and lift them lips?” He said, cocking an eyebrow.

“Who said any of the first years caught my eye?” He responded with his own eyebrow.

“Ohh Mr. Top Dog Todoroki likes the third years. I see how it is,” Hanta nodded, at which his shoulder got a swat.

“Really? I’m not into either” He pouted in response.

“Ohh so girls in our year, really narrows it down” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“You are insufferable,” He said in a mock tone of annoyance pointing a finger at the lanky youngman.

“Thank you I really try, over a year of pissing Bakugou off will make you the best in the school”

“I think Monoma might have beaten you on at least one front,” Shoto countered.

“Okay but he’s only better at it because he has a mental condition, I am the best at pissing him off without one” Hanta corrected.

“That is a strenuous title at best Hanta”

“Ohh it is, but in all seriousness, if you have a crush on any girls I won’t tell” he said shrugging his shoulders.

“That is the face of someone who has and will tell someone” Shoto peered at his friend.

“That’s just my face Shoto! You know it’s stuck like this” he laughed.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t see the conniving behind it” He answered with his full face, the skin of his scar creasing in devilish ways.

“Okay, you know what, I’ll tell you who I have a crush on, and you do the same kay?” Hanta compromised, pointing from himself to Shoto.

“And you know that I’m just gonna not answer you, how?”

“Because you are a deeply honest person who would tell your friend things?”

“I'm noticing that you didn’t say best friend, most people would say that” He lifted his chin at the comment.

“Are you saying that you consider me your best friend?”

“Maybe”

“Ohh I know what you're doing, you’re throwing me off so that I’ll forget that I’m trying to get you to spill, that will not happen icebreaker” He tilted forward to drive home the point.

“Okay you got me, now as you said, you go first” Shoto shrugged.

Hanta took a breath, pointed his head skyward in a weird silent prayer, then breathed out and straightened his shoulders.

“You gonna tell me because that doesn’t look like your gonna tell me”

“Give me a second man, I need to steel myself”

“Aren’t you the one who even suggested this whole song and dance?”

“Yes I am and shut up!”

“I’m waiting”

“I am going to drop you down a hole at next training”

“You will try” Todoroki helpful corrected him.

“Argggh, okay, I have a crush on Togake, cool, that’s out of the way now you tell me who you have a-”

“Hold up, hold up, Togake? As in 2B’s recommended student?” Shoto asked, confusion streaked across his face.

“Yes? Why? What's the big deal about that, I think she’s cute, smart and funny. That's what I look for in girls” Hanta bristled.

“No, nothing wrong with that, I just thought you were gay is all” Shoto shook his head.

“I’m sorry you thought, I was gay?” Hanta looked incredulously at his friend.

“I meant statistically we should have at least five gay people in our class, so I was running the numbers and-”

“I’m sorry, not that I’m offended that you thought I was gay, I’m friends with two-” He started before being cut off again.

“We have two, that’s good, who?”

“Kirishima and Bakugou, not the point Roki” He responded whilst Shoto nodded his head like it all made sense now, “Why did you think I was Gay?”

“The hair honestly”

“WHAT?! WHAT DOES MY HAIR HAVE TO DO WITH IT!?” He yelled.

“Why else would anyone cut it like that?” He questioned motioning to the choppy long hair that covered Sero’s neck.

“Because some people cut their hair as Mullets, Shoto, have you considered that?”

“I mean yes, but also, I don’t know, what did Aoyama call it, joie de vivre?”

“Are you saying my general attitude to life gives off, gay energy?”

“You know I think this topic is a bit frivolous, and I’m going to distract us by playing up my end of the bargain”

“Ohh you may, but we are talking about the gay thing later”

“Okay, you wanted to know, it’s Yaoyorozu-”

“FUCK YEAH CALLED IT!” Sero exclaimed, pointing two fingers over his head at Todoroki.

“I’m sorry, what did you just say?” Shoto looked rather betrayed by the outburst.

Sato and Ojiro looked back at the two lagging behind the rest of the class, what the hell were they on about?

“Sorry, Sorry, I just figured you had a crush on her, I mean did you or did you not offer her a foot massage to help with her nerves after passing the final exam?”

“Yes, but that was to get to a pressure point that alleviated crying-”

“Did you not bring her a bento box when she was in hospital after the attack on the training camp?”

“I was doubtful that hospital food would be as filling for her”

“You hyping her up at joint-training?”

“I just didn’t want anyone to underestimate her abilities which I knew to be top notch”

“Shoto, you referred to her by her full name”

“And I’m not sure where you're going with this” His glacier of a face didn’t show so much emotion, but Hanta knew enough about his friend to know that the small lick of flame on his cheek was a sign of him being flustered or embarrassed.

“Do you recall anyone else referring to someone by their full name?”

“You should, Tetsutetsu did, you got the answer right to the face, he said Kendo’s full name” Shoto countered.

“And what are they now?”

“Dating?”

“Yes, now consider my argument in that you’ve shown so many signs of interest in her, you are always looking to her during exercises, or when on missions, where you are not the First, to say ‘Yes Ma’am!’ when we were going out before the Gollini Incident?” He questioned turning his body and nearly crab walking to get in his grill.

“She’s the near defacto commander, why would I not be awaiting orders?” He answered.

“You’re as bad as Kaminari,” Hanta groaned.

“Okay enough with your verbal lashings, let's say you’ve worked out why I like her, did you not, strap a Grenade to Tokage during Joint-Training?” He cocked his eyebrow in the most impressive manner.

“Yes, and I will admit, not a great way to start or gain interest in a relationship, but consider, how many people has Bakugou blown up and is now friends with?” Sero shrugged and tilted his head to receive an answer to his final point.

“I don’t think that’s something you want as a correlation”

“But, you must see that it is a correlation, I know you love your patterns”

“Patterns are fun”

The two were fast approaching the classroom where the rest of their classmates would hear this utterly confusing conversation.

“Hey you guys okay back there?” Ojiro turned and asked.

The two jumped slightly on the spot.

“Peachy,” Hanta answered, throwing a smug grin at Shoto.

“Gar-Ate” He grinned Ojiro, his annunciation odd but a dig back at Sero nonetheless.

Ojiro simply looked at the two, shrugged and walked into the classroom, whatever they were talking about really wasn’t worth his time.

“We’re going to finish this conversation later,” Shoto finished turning to his friend after that embarrassing exchange.

“Agreed”

The two solemnly half marched into the classroom, to the peaked interest of some, if by some I mean Mina and Mina alone.

~

There was a lul in the class as they had 10 minutes to chill before the second period, which happened to also be English.

Shoto appeared at Hanta’s desk with a want for answers.

“So”

“So” the taller student leaned back in his chair.

“What’s this about Kirishima and Bakugou being the gay percentage in our class?”

“Seriously, have you not seen them interact? I swear I feel slightly homophobic every time they’re together” Sero groaned.

“That’s not good”

“I know, I’m not a homophobic person, but they just make me feel ill” He said, throwing his hands out in front of him.

“Have you considered counselling?”

“No Shoto I simply try getting away”

“Okay explain what they do that makes you feel that way” He said, grabbing his chair and sitting with his arms crossed over the back.

“Are you-”

“Yes now explain”

Hanta didn’t take too much convincing to start complaining his woes away.

“Have you ever noticed that Kirishima seems to be magnetically attached to Bakugou shoulders?”

Shoto considered.

“Not really?”

“Come on they’re next to each other all the time”

“Standing next to someone isn’t exactly shipping is it?” He asked, sitting up.

“How did you learn that?” Hanta’s face screwed up in confusion

“Mina, I taught her how to better use her quirk, she got me up to date with slang and terms”

“You are a dangerous man” He waggled his finger at the two toned student.

Shoto smiled in a way that you only can when you're the youngest sibling.

“Expand”

“So you’re telling me you haven’t seen Kirishima with his arms all over Bakugou? Like his arms are connected by a magnet, were you not paying attention to the fact that he had his hands around Bakugou’s waist!” He asked, bending his body over the table, “During the Pre-Gollini brief, it was the same one you instantly ‘Yes Ma’am!’-ed, you have to have seen it.”

“I mean sure, but does that really?”

“Shoto, how many people do you see hanging onto someone's waist for dear life?” He deadpanned.

“I’ll admit very few”

“I’d imagen, also have you noticed how he’s the only one who can get him to do anything?”

“Is he?” Shoto tilted his head puzzled.

“Yeah, I guarantee if you or I tried to get him to come to the pool, well for you he would have declared it a challenge, and he would have brushed me off, unless I put his ego at risk, but for him, sure he’ll do it, he’d smile with no scowl if Kirishima told him to.”

“I don’t think that’s really?”

“Shoto, where did you find the two of them on I-Island?”

“Why? You weren’t there?” He said his head still tilled

“Denki told me, now humor me, where did you guys meet up with them on I-Island?” He rotated his hand.

“80th floor”

“What floor were they meant to be on?” He ducked his head.

“First”

“Why were they on the 80th Shoto?”

“I have no idea”

“Why were they confused about the situation, when I could hear that siren across the city? What were they doing in the elevator, Shoto?” He said standing to his full height with his hands pressing down on the desk.

Todoroki had to pause to think, neither had noticed that Hanta had been getting progressively louder as he ranted, and that the rest of the class were now intently looking at the two after his last outburst, most of all Kirishima and Bakugou, who were unsurprisingly at the latters desk, and exchanging near panicked looks.

“Hang on yeah that is mad suspicious” Mina butted in.

“What were you two doing in the elevator?” She asked pointing at the two to which the rest of the room's eyes followed, even Present Mic’s who had pulled his glasses down the bridge of his nose, now this was teaching.

The two looked between each other trying to decide what to say, Kirishima spoke first in slight panic.

“I was just helping him fix his tie, you know he hated to tie it up properly” He nervously laughed looking for agreement amongst his classmates.

“Ohh yeah Eji, did you look deeply into each other's eyes as you did it, your ruby irises locking?” She had cocked her eyebrow up her face with the pointed question.

“I have no idea where the FUCK you would get that idea bubblegum!” Bakugou snapped his ears bright red.

“Oohh I just remembered something!” Jirou piped up.

“Go on do tell Jirou” Mr Yamada leaned forward on his desk, fingers interlocked in front of him.

“Sir really?” Kirishima yelped, his hands which were on Bakugou’s shoulders instantly dug into the youngmans jacket, as he flinched.

“I know your not used to this, Shota isn’t nearly as interested in his students lives as I am”

“In fairness Sir, most of the time our lives are in grave peril” Shoji helpfully pointed out.

“True, now spill Jirou, what do you know?” He said, leaning back, in a Blofeld manner.

She looked at the two pairs of red eyes looking at her with bottled rage and anxiety.

“So,” She said, putting her steady voice to use, leaning forward.

“Bakugou let Kirishima tag along as his plus one to I-Island, considering he won the sports festival and all that, now I assume he thought it would be just them on the Island, because he got Pissed when we all showed up” she smirked with the force of a thousands suns, blissfully ignorant of the high powered stare of death emanating from across the way threatening to melt her.

“Ohh?” Sero breathed, turning his body.

“You're killing me here” Bakugou grunted, they weren’t sure if that was him threatening them or Kirishima’s hands being forced into his shoulders, you’d think he’d have his hands off.

“Also, weren’t you guys in the couples suite or something?” She asked offhandedly.

At that point the room practically exploded, as Mina tossed her table forward, it was lucky that Shinsou had moved to stand next to Tokoyami otherwise he would have been brained by a flying table as she leapt to the otherside where the two boys stood, Hagakure following in lockstep, Jirou smirked once more, and turned to Kaminari whose mouth was in one of the widest smiles he could muster.

Midoriya had fallen to his knees clutching his head a low whisper of what sounded to be excitement, he was joined by Iida staring down at him trying to work out what was going on, Uraraka was shocked looking from one classmate to the next, as she suddenly shook Todoroki in place.

“YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS!” She threw the poor boy back and forth, Todoroki experiencing a fit of Fujoing out from his chestnut haired friend.

“THIS MEANS NOTHING!” Bakugou roared at the class.

‘BULLSHIT!” Mina replied with the same energy as she grabbed his desk and shook it.

“Hey Mina, watch his arm,” Kirishima implored.

“Quiet yourself Queereshima!” Ejiro recoiled at this most outrageous remark, “Now Katsuki, tell me right now, there has to be something going on with you two, there is too much evidence!” She yelled at his face, his hair being sent backwards from the force of her shout, Kirishima’s heavily gelled peak stayed straighter than he was at the outburst.

“Pres!” Bakugou yelled at Iida, “she’s harassing us, aren't you going to do anything?!” But it was futile, Iida was busy trying to get Midoriya back up off the floor, who was currently mumbling something about hiking.

“No help from the president, now are you dating or not, answer me or I take acid to both of your hair and skin products” She glared at them, Hagakure's impossible to see skin being used as a makeshift interrogation light as she refracted the rooms lighting at them.

The two stiffened at this dreadful threat, they both looked at each other for several long agonisingly gay moments, occasionally making nose and eye movements, wordless communication, at last the two broke contact.

Kirishima sighed, “Yes, okay, we have been for over a year” he admitted as the class's collective pupils widened, none more so than Izuku Midoriya, who balled his hands into fists and pulled back sinking to his knees.

“YEEEES!” He screamed, “I KNEW IT, FINALLY!” The rest of the class was now looking at him.

“Izuku what the fuck” was Katsuki’s first and honesty logical response.

“You don’t understand” He shook his head with the biggest grin, “I’ve been shipping you guys for so long it’s actually insane, and now I find out you're actually dating, this is almost the best day of my life!” He squealed that last sentence.

Mina and Toru looked between each other and back at the Izuku who looked to be vibrating.

“One of us,” They whispered to each other.

“Ohh it’s been forever you know I just from you two interacting there was this level of trust and mutual respect and admiration that I’d never seen Kaachan display, so I was thinking to myself, ‘Well he never had any real interest in girls when we were growing up’ and then it just kept going, all of the physical contact and the hiking, you never went hiking with anyone other than your dad, and here you were bringing Kirishima along” He paused to take a breath, the rest of the class enraptured by his word vomit, which they could understand and keep up with.

“And then I-Island, so many things just slotted together, I had no idea if you two were in a relationship, just that you were abnormally close”

“Midoriya, it should have been obvious, they said some of the gayest things I’ve ever heard” Sero piped up once more.

“Such as?” Mic asked from the desk.

“The Cavalry Battle?” He said with utter disdain.

“Ohh when he said, yeeeeaaah” Mina groaned.

“What did they say?” Koda asked.

Sero cleared his throat doing an impression of Kirishima, “I’ll be the Unbreakable Horse!”

“That’s what he said, I swear to god one of the gayest things I’ve heard in my life, this is what I mean Shoto, they are gay in a way that makes me feel Homophobic and I don’t like it.” He grumbled.

“I think you need to see someone about Sero,” Mina said, ever so helpfully.

‘I’m aware,” he grunted through his teeth.

“But this now begs the question, what were you two doing in that elevator?” Hagakure stared at them, expecting an answer.

Bakugou looked around the room as his classmates all waited with bated breath.

“I am not required to tell any of you what happened in that Elevator” He harrumphed with an upward head tilt.

The other students blinked at this answer.

“THEY TOTALLY MADE OUT IN THE ELEVATOR!” Mina Yelled at which the class erupted in a cacophony of overwhelming shouts and yells as smoke poured from Bakugou’s ears and Kirishima became Red, really Red.

~~~~~~~~

Chapter Text

Saturday, the energy in the dorms were, different, well they had taken all of Thursday to get used to the news of Bakugou and Kirishima being together, and all of Friday for the two of them to pry Mina off them as she desperately tried to see them being cute together, that went as well as could be expected.

“OHHH FOR SUCKS SAKE YOU OVERGROWN PILE OF COTTONCANDY!” Bakugou snarled at her as she tried to sneak up the corridor behind him and Kirishima, only to have him notice her, she quickly tried to saunter away whistling Bakugou nearly set of down the corridor like a missile and would have hit her like one had Kirishima not grabbed him by the waist and hauled him off away like a misbehaving cat, telling his boyfriend that trying to maim one of his longest friends wouldn’t bode well for him, at which he went limp in defeat.

No but this morning Denki had bounced out of bed, his hair a mess but his eyes shining, today was the day, prep the tape deck lover boy, let's start a montage!

Ohh hang on you’ll need this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B-hedph6Qs

There we go, got the tune in? Let's go.

Denki flew to his closet in search of an outfit, he really should have done this sooner.

Kyouka had no such issues as she looked at the options available, it could be said that her wardrobe was mostly purple, but that wasn’t a massive issue.

Denki was considering the option of an overshirt but found that idea laughable, he’d look like a misplaced lumberjack next to Jirou-Jack, and that wasn’t okay.

There was a flurry of action as Toru knocked on the door to offer her advice, suggesting a sundress if she had one.

The Belt with a Thunderbird emblazoned on it was a bit much, as would be the cowboy boots, but on the other hand, bright blue trainers weren’t the way to go if he wasn’t even sure of what his primary look would be.

Somehow Toru had convinced her that the white dress with the dotted patterns wasn’t a bad option, small discussion ensued over whether or not you needed the purple frills on such a date.

Meanwhile, Denki was still struggling to come up with something that would look good, luck for him Style Guru Hanta knocked on the door to provide his insight, and started pulling items along the coathangers to find options for his hopeless dresser that he calls a friend.

Heels were wisely forgone for the walking in the city, as were the possible larger military boots, apparently they clashed with the pre established style, her pre established style was punk, it would move into Punk Pop with the boots.

After berating Denki’s utter lack of style, Hanta picked out a dark blue button down shirt, and a pair of black dress pants, further rifling found a bright yellow tie, he grimaced, shaking his head before throwing it on the pile on Denki’s arms.

Toru was now bounding after Kyouka downstairs, promising to do her make up for her, she was told to not overdo it, simple, classy, not really the Hagakure style.

Mashirao arrived at the ajar door to offer his own advice, a jacket nothing too flashy, or tacky he added, Denki cut back asking why he would need a jacket, he could self regulate heat, only to be told that it wasn’t exactly for him.

By the time Kyouka’s shower was finished the other girls had appeared and were soon enough busied helping her get ready, a massive reversal to their usual dynamic, when it came to getting into Hero Gear apart from Toru’s, her’s took the least amount of time to get changed into, it was loose fitting unlike the full body and skin tight outfits of her friends, so she would help them get ready before herself, it was fine, she didn’t mind helping them, but she would often be struck with bouts of dysmorphia.

It wasn’t their fault, they weren’t comparing themselves to her, but her brain did, and it sucked because they were her friends and she knew they would never judge her Mina had even said that she had a general style that a lot of boys liked with the most devilish expression, but at this moment, dysmorphia could kick rocks because she had a date.

Ochako had left the room to assist with breakfast whilst Mina stayed to make sure everything went perfectly, Toru doing her makeup, and Tsu her hair, now this was going to be great.

Whilst Kyouka was trying to chill before heading out, the boys had developed quite the opposite plan for Denki as he found himself in the lounge with the boys, Bakugou hand managed to acquire a recliner from god know where, Kirishima’s hands over his shoulders and the other boys standing close by.

“Right, Sparky, you look like shit, and we know damn well you cannot put yourself together for the life of you” He said from his position on and being used as an armrest.

“That’s, that’s just rude man, don’t expect my help getting into your stupid hero suit” Denki replied.

“I don’t need Your assistance” he made emphasis on the word, which made the others grimace.

“So we're going to help you” He smiled, oh god he had no idea how the hell Kirishima found that attractive, that was the smile of a man with a demon's sense of mercy.

“Set the shower to high heat, scrub him down, Sero,” He motioned, “Cologne, not too much I want a functioning nose” Hanta nodded.

“Ei, do his hair, it’s worse than yours, but lay off the gel” He said, leaning his head up.

“Ohh I would never, could you imagine his hair slicked back, he would look awful” He laughed.

“You guys are the worst” Denki groaned, “I don’t need babying, I can prep myself”

“Ohh we know you can, this is just funnier” Ojiro chuckled.

“Okay Blofeld and Friends, I’ll agree to your ‘Preparations’ just, don’t burn or mess me up too bad before this date, Please?” He responded by pointing his finger at them, air quoting, and finally pulling them into a prayer pose.

“Gentlemen,” Bakugou commanded, “Ready him” His voice steady and sharp as Kirishima and Sero advanced on Kaminari.

The girls heard a scream of panic from nearby and looked up like grazing deer.

“What on Earth is that?” Tsu asked, stopping mid-way through brushing.

“Sounds like someone being tortured,” Toru responded.

“OHH GOD THAT’S SO HOT OWOWOOWOW!” Came another scream, as they looked between themselves.

Then followed yet another.

“AAAAAAAHHRRHRHRH THAT’S FREEZING HANTA YOU BIIIIIIIIT-OHHH MY BALLLLS!” That was undeniably Kaminari screaming at the water temperature as he was hosed down by his friends.

“Sounds like your dates getting ready, ribbit” Tsu said which caused the other two to burst out laughing.

“Ready?” Toru asked with tears in her eyes, “It sounds like he’s getting tortured”

“HOLD STILL BRO I NEED TO COMB YOUR HAIR!”

“I AM NOT YOUR BOYFRIEND KIRISHIMA I AM NOT COMFORTABLE WITH YOU AND A COMB IN THE SHOWER!”

“What the fuck are they doing” Kyouka asked as the shouts echoed from the showers.

“I have guesses but you won’t like’em” Mina responded stepping over the threshold, “HEY KEEP IT DOWN IN THERE!” She yelled at the wall.

“MINA HELP!”

“Sorry you're on your own Denki!”

The screams subsided over the sound of running water.

“Hey Kirishima! Don’t kill my date before I leave will you?” Kyouka called over.

“Trying not to!” Sero called over, “But he’s making it difficult, try running again and I tape you, you do know this is water activated?”

“Why can I not shower in peace?” Denki’s mournful exclamation came.

“Tsuki told me too.”

“Bakugou’s orders,” they replied, they couldn’t see either of their faces, but the girls were very sure that disgust had streaked across Sero’s face.

“Well, I would like to clean my hair without my plums blasted by the concept of winter” He complained.

“Who calls them plums?”

“Old British Car Presenters, now let me shower, by myself”

“Kay man, but we are taking a comb to, all this” The girls assumed that Sero was motioning to his hair with the comment.

“Boys are actual weirdos,” Tsu commented with a tired expression.

“Why did they think that was a good idea?” Toru asked, returning to using the eyeliner.

“No clue, comedy and hazing?” Mina shrugged.

Toru and Tsu shrugged and continued in their tasks.

Whilst they're all doing that I assume dear reader why they have this Saturday off, normally everyone in Heights Alliance would be headed for Home Economics, well UA had taken today as a Teachers Only Day, mainly it was to plan upcoming lessons for the year after most classes had been messed with by the war, up until now they had been running off the lessons they hadn’t been able to teach, so the teachers were constructing new lesson plans and part of the curriculum, which meant that Saturday was an off day for the students.

“Look Shota all I’m saying is that we will need to bring up Sex Ed as a topic, no-one really wants to talk about it, but we have too, their priorities are changing with a general lack of villain attack, and they are peak condition, extremely hormonal teenagers, within close proximity to each other” Hizashi said, to the faculty but in particular Shota Aizawa who looked even deader inside that he normally did.

“Then I suggest getting rid of the close proximity”

“That will not stop them and you know it, it is better to make it known and get disgusted looks and startilling knowledge from Mineta than removing the dorms from them and getting very angry emails” He explained.

“You talk the guts that get people going eurgh! Rather than getting angry hate mail, you have to employ the lesser of two evils, same thing as in radio, also I really wouldn’t want Bakugou on our doorstep” he finished.

“Why specifically Bakugou?” Cemmentoss asked, slightly perplexed.

“He’s dating Kirishima”

“Okay forget what I said, pencil in a Sex Ed, do not bring up the dissolution of the dorms” Aizawa groaned, just one more year and his class would hopefully be Snipe’s problem and he could smile smugly as the calm and steady Nara came back to him in the teachers lounge with horrified looks that would have been hidden to the students under his gas mask, ahh that would be the day.

Meanwhile back with his ridiculous classroom of fools Kirishima and Sero had gotten Kaminari in underwear and a towel, Sero standing menacingly with a small bottle of cologne.

“Okay before you overwhelm me, what’s the scent?” Denki asked with a tight face of fear.

“Ohh this? It says, the smell contains top notes of, uhh hang on this a bit hard to read, Bergamot? Red Currant, ohh Coriander!” He squinted at the bottle, showing that he likewise needed those glasses.

“I don’t need the full run down just spray it”

“Well be glad I picked one that has a major smell of berries, if it was Kirishima, you would be smelling like wood, or WD-40” He said with a head bob.

“No, WD-40 is Tetsu’s preferred smell” He was corrected.

“God I pray for Kendo’s nose” Sero quipped with a slow head shake.

“Right now let’s get you smelling like citrus shall we?” he said as he grabbed Kaminari’s wrists, spraying one on each one, three on his neck and one each behind the ears.

Denki sniffed at the air, which smelled more like lemon and oranges than before, his top lip pressed up as he nodded.

“Erry Noice” He stated at which his friends looked at him funny.

“Let me guess, Old British Car Presenters?” Sero asked.

“Yep, now you may leave my gentlemen, I have some final tasks to perform,” he said with the utmost swagger.

“Okie dokie lemon tree man, don’t get your clothes wet” Kirishima replied over his shoulder as he and Sero exited.

Denki sighed dramatically grabbing his hair dryer and comb, this was going to be good.

Meanwhile in Camp Calm, Kyouka was fully dressed with the only ongoing adjustments being done by Toru with eyeliner and lipstick.

“Okay,” she breathed, “How do I look?” She asked.

“I will answer that, but first how do you feel?” Mina replied.

Kyouka took a moment to compose herself, jeez what was she feeling, anxiety was a major component, if this had been her several days ago, it would have been worried about looking good enough, but today none of those thoughts mattered, she knew she looked good.

“Fantastic, if a little anxious”

“You know, that’s good enough for me, even if I would have gone with sexy, but you do you girl” Mina shrugged.

“KAMINARI, get your ass in here!” Came the yell from the lounge interrupting their conversation, and the whirl of the hairdryer being blaster over the divide.

“Coming!” he yelped in reply, speeding off to the sound of Bakugou.

And here he was back in the living room with the other guys still standing around with skeptical looks, his outfit was slightly disjointed but kept in theme, he was wearing the dark blue shirt and white pants that Sero had picked out, his chunky black digital watch on his left arm and his face adorned with his red glasses, to finish the look waiting by the door where his lets be honest here, brown cowboy boots and a black leather jacket.

Bakugou surveyed Kaminari like he was looking over a car he was considering buying. What sort would he drive, he wore pretty big military style boots, maybe German? Something like a BMW, maybe a Porsche?

That was irrelevant to the conversation as Bakugou started talking again.

“Well you look like a dork despite the best efforts of your stylists, you’re lucky she didn’t agree based on dress sense” He shook his head.

“Hey fuck you I look great!”

“That remains to be seen,” Sero said with suspicion.

“You picked this outfit!” he yelped, at which Sero just shrugged.

“I did the best I could”

“You guys are the worst,” Kaminari grumbled.

“Why are we the worst, we didn’t even do your hair” Sero quizzed.

“That is because I cannot trust you guys to do my hair, it’s specific in how it needs to be dealt with,” Kaminari said with an upturned nose.

“And that is?” Shoji asked from the Kitchen.

“Hair Dryer, static burst and then comb, it’s a whole process” he explained.

The group of boys gave each other side eyes, normally such tasks would be a source of slight ridicule, as it is for boys to do, but that would be throwing stones at glasses houses seeing as they all had morning rituals, like the fact that every so often one of the sinks would run red with the horror of hair dye.

“So better question, you ready Kaminari?” Ojiro asked.

Denki exhaled, this was merely a formality for him in some respects, his classmates didn’t know that he and Kyouka had already come to a conclusion about dating, but a date, now that was nice, a whole afternoon with just him and her in the city he grew up in now that was something~

The boys stared at Kaminari as he dreamily looked off into the middle distance.

“Can, can he hear us?” Kirishima asked as the boy with bright blond hair did nothing in response.

“Uhh no, I think he’s entered Jirou Dreamland” Mineta said with an utterly disappointed face, as if he couldn’t believe the nerve of his friend, which he couldn’t but, details.

“That’s a thing he has?” Ojiro asked the Krillin sized student.

“Yeah, you’ll notice it every so often, his eyes glaze over a bit and his smile becomes this soft affair, if he’s really in it his eyes will close and he looks like he’s having a peaceful sleep” Mineta broke down.

“How do you know all this?” Midoriya asked, clearly impressed.

“You ain’t the only one with crack observational skills Midoriya, also he does this whenever someone even really mentions Jirou, he’s to put it mildly, downbad” He finished.

“Damn!” Sero nodded impressed, “Anything else that observation skill is useful for?”

“Yes actually I can work out the BWH of women” He answered.

“The what?” Midoriya asked dumbfounded.

“Bust, Waist, Hips” Bakugou answered his parents' clothes design teachings poking through, at which the boys looked at Mineta like, well you can guess how they looked at him.

“What!? It would be a fun party trick if I wasn’t a Pervert” He burst out with his arms spread.

“What would be a fun party trick?” Kaminari asked, returning from his stupor.

“Mineta’s apparent skill to-” Ojiro started before being promptly cut off by Kaminari.

“It’s the working out a girls measurements by eye thing isn’t it?” He groaned.

“Yep, so how are you feeling buddy?” Mineta asked, elbowing his knee.

“Umm good, good, hope it all goes well, just waiting on her you know” He said.

The other boys' faces pulled various smirks, a few crossed their arms.

“Well,” Shoji said, head glancing towards the hallway where Mina was swiftly walking to them, Kaminari started to turn but quickly had his eyes blocked by bright pink fingers.

“Uh uh uh, you don’t get to see first” She chided, smiling at the gathered group of boys as Jirou appeared from the hallway.

The girls had done a fabulous job getting her ready that was for certain.

She certainly looked gorgeous, she was wearing a white dress with purple ruffles on the hem and neckline, super out of the ordinary for Kyouka, it was a little cold so she’d picked out a pair of leggings, and a jacket these of course were both black, with matching choker, it wouldn’t be her style if they weren’t included.

“Now you can look” Mina giggled as she stood back, Denki straightening and a delightful shade of fuchsia clouded his face and his glasses as he let loose a slight stammer trying to come up with a set of words that adequately described this situation.

“Ahhh, the Jirou Rizz has broken Kaminari” Mineta groaned as he shook his head, “Earth to Denk-Meister, you gonna say something to your date?” He waved at the blond who looked positively stupefied.

“Uhh- yeah, uhh, wow, you look, super, really I mean, wow really really pretty” He yammered out, whilst his friends snort-scoffed at him.

“Thanks, uhh you too” She responded.

“Wow you guys are so awkward, I would rather stand in the same room as Mineta flirting with a 7ft Woman than stand here” Sero quipped, breaking the silence.

“Agreed, you too can take your adorkable shtick outside, you have a train to catch extras” Bakugou grumbled as he pushed the two of them to the door, the two slightly protesting as he shoved them to the front door where their shoes awaited them, and quickly put their shoes on.

“Right you two, have fun, Kaminari. If you so much as spill ketchup on Kyo I will make those bones of yours legally identify as powder, You Read Me Sparky?” He growled like he was Kyouka’s dad, lecturing the respective date.

“Uhh yes Sir” He jumped, “Will do no funny business, Door ma’Lady?” he asked, pulling it open for her.

“Ohh how kind of you” She jokingly responded as she stuck her chin up and exited the building, Kaminari throwing a quick thumbs up before disappearing after her.

“How long do you give it before we start seeing them as a proper couple?” Hagakure asked the class when they were certain they were at least out of range.

“Ohh three weeks tops,” Sero answered.

“Month at best,” Shoji put in.

“Fourth Date, is my estimated Kero” Tsu pondered with her finger to chin.

“I think that they’ve been dating in private for months and just haven’t felt the need to say anything” Todoroki Piped up.

The other students looked at him like he was crazy.

“I’m not putting money on that” Ochako said, if she was turning down a bet it was not worth pursuing.

“You know you handled all of this really well, Mineta, I’m impressed” Tsu said to the smallest student.

“What, why would I not have, Denki’s my best bud, of course I’d be happy that he got himself a date with a girl I know he’s been crushing on since the start of first year, it’s just inlaid bro code” He explained.

“Bro Code?” Momo asked, slightly perplexed.

“The Bro Code, or Brothers Codex is a list of Ten Commandments all men intrinsically follow, when interacting with your boys” Kirishima instantly responded with a sagely glow cast around him.

“So, what is the bro code, thingies?” Mina asked.

“They are officially called Bromandments, but we will discuss them another time and when all are present” He answered.

“Nope I was right earlier, boys are weirdo’s” Tsu sighed.

~~~~~~~~

Chapter Text

Girl with Magic Ways
Did somebody want a playlist for this chapter? Yeah this is a thing now, enjoy this wonderful mixtape crafted for train journeying pleasure, granted the Tatsuro Yamashita song that the title is named after is the second song on the selection, but semantics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md8m5txwN0s

We rejoin our lovers upon their journey to the train station for the train bound for Saitama.

The two were now walking through the schools security clearance checkpoint, checking out with the guardbot Kaminari and Jirou were now of school grounds, soon after Kaminari’s head started looking around, not wildly but enough to attract his dates’ suspicion, with him making several sidelong and quick glances at her.

“What’s with the darting eyes man?” Kyouka asked, “You okay?”

“I was just checking to make sure we weren’t being followed” He responded, looking down at his hands then hers.

“Why would that be, ohhh” She realised tilting her head upwards in understanding, Kaminari’s hands were fidgeting about like he needed to grab something, in this case she knew exactly what he wanted to grab.

“You want to hold my hand now that we’re not around our friends right?” She asked with a coy smile, which was trying to force down the flush that her face cast from the idea that the first thing he wanted to do was hold her hand in public.

Denki had grasped his hands together in front of him, and nodded quickly in an almost pathetic manner, they had paused from walking and Kyouka could only bring a hand to her face to stifle her laugh from this humorous scene before her.

“Okay, here,” She answered putting her hand out which he took immediately, enveloped her’s whole, his fingers gliding between her own lacing them together before she could even complain, not that she really would, his hands were so stupidly warm, why did his skin have to act like an electric blanket?

“Come on, we should get moving,” He didn’t even really stop, just smiled brightly at her, and started to walk almost dragging her along to the station “Don’t want to be late do we?” he laughed, his arm swinging as he power walked away from UA.

“HEY, my arm isn’t a swing set, you don’t need to rock it so far back,” Kyouka yelped, and he slowed down overall.

“Sorry” he answered sheepishly, his ears bright red.

Cute really Cute, Zoom out for me.

Zoom out.

Zoom out.

Zoom out.

Zoom out.

Here’s good.

Setsuna hovered just above the threshold of UA’s barrier watching the two members of class A jostle with each other as they walked towards the train station hand in hand, arms swinging slightly.

“I’d heard that they had a date, didn’t think they were up to hand holding, let alone swinging” She pondered aloud watching from her altitude.

“Miss Tokage, are you alright up there?” a voice asked her, she repositioned her head to watch a blue jacket wearing student with brown hair ascend up next to her, the wind buffeting around him in odd ways.

“What seems to be of interest” Wyn-Swep asked her while tilting in mid air to observe the outer concourse of UA.

“Ohh nothing of much real interest to you,” The recommended student waved off, “Just some developments is all”

“Ohh, okay, hang on, is that, tch I need my glasses don’t I, Kaminari? And do I spy purple, Jirou perhaps?” He squinted, turning in question.

“Yep, on their second date apparently”

“Only second? I was under the impression that they were together already?” his confused face taking up most of her vision.

“Really now?” She asked, crossing her arms with a smirk.

'Gonna have to tell the girls about this, they’ll love it’

“Yeah, most of us first years thought they were, they just looked the perfect pair you know?” The first year gesticulated in the direction of the two second years walking out of sight. “And I swear the other girls in class A were giving her some sort of grief over it?”

“Now that is funny,” She laughed, “I’ll tell you right now if they were actually dating, A. Denki would be magnetically attached to her, and B. He would not shut up about her” Her disconnected fingers making the letters in mid air.

“Ah I wasn’t aware you were on a first name basis with Kaminari? Is that not something that requires extended trust or am I missing remembering something about name culture over here?”

“No your right it’s just I’ve known Denki for ages, we went to the same Middle School, Uwara if you're curious, we’d dress in Gyaru together” She explained offhandedly, which she was actually doing her hair rotating 360 in mid air.

“Huh, I've only had a brief interaction with him, I think I’ve met his brother Akiteru, at a costume designer convention in Coventry?” He pondered in a low voice.

“Gyaru? I was under the impression that it was women's fashion?” Wyn-Swep commented, he was a clothing guy so he should really know the details of this sort.

“Yeah, I should say that he was technically dressed in Gyaruo, have you ever seen Present Mic’s hair?” Lysander nodded, “He styled it like that”

That conjured up quite the image of a massive golden spike sticking up from his head like a lightning rod, or a Cockatiel, which was honestly still quite the image either way.

“Why?” He could only blink in confusion.

“I don’t know, he was a weird guy who had seemingly rubbed a balloon on his scalp and then gelled the result, actually I wonder if that’s how he did it? Anyway, enough talking about those two, you wanted to know how my suit functions?” She asked as they slowly descended back towards the ground.

“Yes, I’ve always found body suits intriguing, they have to be a pain to get in and out of, right? I was studying dancing bodysuits, leotards an the like and found that they-”

As interesting as Mr. Wyn-Swep’s discussion on the issues of super hero costumes is, we have a date to follow, that is what you're here for? Right? Come on then! They might be at the station by now. Crap, gotta fly, come on now!

Tatooin Station, fantastic, now where are, There we go!

The two were standing on the platform next to a vending machine awaiting the train, Kyouka jacks shivered to the sounds of the station adjusting to the new environment, sections of this railway line that had been damaged or collapsed during the war had been recently reinstated so they could make the journey North without much difficulty, Tatooin in particular had suffered extensive damage in the past year, having part of it’s roof caved in by a scuffle between Mt. Lady and a man with a gigantification quirk, and later during the Final War, which was honestly a silly name for the conflict, there would be another war, not soon but the future could see one, semantics.

It had been heavily damaged during All Might and All For One's final confrontation, but rebuilding had been going swimmingly, whilst it wasn’t complete most of the facilities and station facade were still under construction, workers in His-Vis, embroidered with Small U’s on the sleeves worked up scaffolding on the outside of the building.

Train stations and trains in general were interesting soundscapes to her, Japanese Railways were soundproofed to the extreme, technology in the trains kept their noise down to the passengers, who themselves were quiet, any sounds there were were what she could call clean sounds, ones that were easy on the ears, smooth sounds, like the chunlngk of a vending machine or the sections between tracks.

“Here” Denki tapped her on the shoulder garnering her attention, he’d held out a packet of strawberry milk with one of his lighthouse smiles. She grabbed it with a twitch of her lips, he’d seen her drink it before obviously and knew she loved it, it was her drink of choice when walking together to this train station, for her she had been doing it for some conversation, she would be getting on a local line to get home, whilst he would carry a skateboard to board a Shinkansen for the journey through three prefectures to get home, at least back when there wasn’t any dorms, that was something to consider, they didn’t need those anymore, would UA go back to being a day school?

“Mhh, you know this is actually really good” He nodded approvingly at the package of strawberry milk, “I see why you like it”

“Mhhmmh, It’s good,” She agreed, looking towards the board for the arrival times, three minutes out, plenty of time to finish their drinks and talk.

“So, what’s the plan for today, Zappy?” she asked, knocking his shoulder.

“Well if you must know, firstly we are taking an hour and half train journey, whilst listening to music, sharing the headphones of course” He wiggled his brows.

“That is wholly dependent on what you are putting in my ears” She jested.

“Only the King of City Pop, Tatsuro Yamashita” He pointed upwards, a smug expression on his face at his choice.

“Okay, not bad” She nodded, “Anything else?”

“Have you had breakfast?”

“No, you?”

“No I haven’t, ahh well we can grab Bento on the journey, that’ll be breakfast, then we can go for a walk, if you're so inclined there are a few museums we can have a look around”

“So your plan is to take me to some museums for a date?” She asked sarcastically.

“What did you want to do, visit my parents house?’ He asked, leaning into her neck.

“What! No! It’s too early for that!” She stepped back pink rising from her neck where his warm breath had just been.

“Oh nope I get how wild that sounds now, nope nope nope, my little sister would lose her mind meeting you” He waved his hands back and forth.

“Why would she do that?” She asked, her ears picking up the slight wobble of an approaching train on the tracks.

“I maybe, kinda, might have talked about you as often as I could with her” he slowly articulated.

“Ohh, did you have a crush that you needed to tell your little sister about?” She laughed leaning into his shoulder.

“Well, look Kichi has this habit of asking me when Teru and I were going to get girlfriends, she’s even tried to get girls to go out with us, Don’t Laugh!” he yelped as Kyouka buckled further into him.

“Your little sister tried to set you up on dates! How is that not funny?!” She giggled, the Train gliding into the station almost enveloping the sound of her mirthful laugh, the image of her face creased in a shining smile was of more interest than anything else to Denki, he did finally have an answer for his little sister.

-

Class A had moved into doing their own various activities with their free day which honestly wasn’t much, Kirishima and Bakugou had fucked off to the gym with Ojiro, Tsu had gone to the Pool for some swimming, of real note was Hagakure walking around the lounge in her new hero costume trying to find a way to make her suit visible, in the meantime she was talking excitedly with Momo who had produced a large lamp.

“I’m telling you Momo you need to get Wyn-Swep to design you a new suit, this one is so comfortable, and I’m sure he can make one for you without all of the openings, isn’t it cold and a bit embarrassing to wear that?” She asked gloved hands messing with the infrared lights on the outfit.

“I don’t want to swamp the poor fellow with extra work, it’s not even halfway into the first half of the year” She explained.

“Well either way, he might convince you into it, his accent is very appealing” She giggled.

“I’ve interacted with Brit’s before, I can resist” Momo responded with plenty of sass.

“If you're so okay wearing that split open swimsuit” Toru seemingly shrugged.

“Big Talk from someone who spent a year running around with no clothes on” Mina piped up from the couch.

“Hey! I don’t get cold and you can see my skin!”

“You don’t get cold?” Midoriya asked from the kitchen bench, Quirk theory time for the resident analyst.

“Yeah not really it’s all roughly the same temperature, except for wind that gets nippy”

“Do you know why you can’t feel the extreme temperature?” He asked for a notebook that was now in his hand. Sero, who had been sitting next to him, rubbed his eyes at the sudden appearance of the book. He was going to get his glasses.

“Not really,” She answered sitting down on an Ottoman, “I just don’t feel the sun's heat is all, so no suntan or burn for me”

“Ohh Same!” Mina brought up, “My acid acts like a coating, I haven’t gotten proper Vitamin D since I was like 3 I think, I have no idea” She laughed pointing her index fingers to her forehead.

“So it’s not just reflecting light” Izuku mumbled scribbling some notes down with a pencil, which had also apparently been summoned to his hands, Sero still staring in disbelief at his friend's apparent ability to summon stationary.

“Do you think that your quirk isn’t quite Invisibility?” He asked, tapping the top of the book.

“Mhh, why wouldn’t it be?” She asked.

“Because, I don’t know you can redirect lasers?” Sero pointed out.

“Would I not be able to do that if it was just Invisibility?”

“Invisibility requires light to be bent around an object, if you were truly doing that you couldn’t refract light of yourself,” Momo explained pointing the lamp at her, “If it were the case that you were bending light you would glow when exposed to it” She proved her point when the light rippled out in front of her body rather than bend around it.

“Another factor is that you wouldn’t actually be able to see,” Izuku added.

“Huh?” Mina vocalised.

“If she were truly invisible no light would reach her retina’s, she would quite literally not be able to see” He stated with finality.

“So what does that mean for her quirk?”

“I have no idea, it might be something to do with Radiation” He pondered scribbling some notes.

“That’s what Wyn-Swep said as well, something about my quirk being something Radiation based” Toru pondered aloud.

“Mhh, makes sense that he’d do some tests if he’s working with materials designed to respond to your quirk, did he say anything else?” He asked moving forward in his seat, now at risk of toppling off the stool.

“Uhh something about my body holding some sort of low radioactivity?” She giggled at which Momo flinched back slightly.

“Did he say what type?” she asked, looking worriedly at her friend.

“Ohh nothing like Nuclear Radiation, Electromagnetic mostly, but solidly Solar” She explained.

“So light, you just absorb light?” Sero breathed his body relaxing.

“Yep!”

“That’s pretty cool” Mineta stated as he entered the room with a sketchbook, “Any luck at being visible?” He asked plopping down on the couch.

“Nope,” Toru grunted, crossing her arms, “Why have you got your sketchbook?”

“Well if you managed to make yourself visible, I could draw your face for you” He answered politely.

“Ohh I guess that’s really sweet, thanks Mineta”

He barely had time to respond before there was a very sudden knock at the door.

“Are you guys expecting anyone?” Izuku asked, looking at the door.

“I got it,” Sero got off his seat to answer the door, pulling it open he was met with the sharp tooth smile of Setsuna Tokage in all her 5 '2 glory.

“Ohh hey Tokage, I wasn’t expecting to see you”

“Hiya cutie, yeah just popping by for a visit,” She laughed looking past Sero’s tall, slightly pink frame, “How’s my girls?” she asked as Sero side stepped to let her in, as Mina, Toru and Momo waved at her.

Mineta instantly stood up and started for the elevator, “Nope, Nope, nope not today!” He yelped as he attempted to get out of the room, the sketchbook thumping against his chest as he power walked back the way he came, Tokage and Sero’s eyes watching with slight amusement as the small ball headed student scampered out.

“What was that about?” Midoriya asked, stunned at the sudden appearance and subsequent disappearance of Mineta.

“Do you not remember the Triple B Incident?” Mina asked, leaning over the back of the couch.

-

Izuku’s memory recalled the day, Mineta had managed to get himself into a scuffle with the boys from class B, Izuku had been late to the planned confrontation with them as he’d had to change, but when he arrived, he found classes A and B standing facing each other angrily arguing with the voices of Monoma, Komori, Kurorio and Tokage being the loudest of Class B, with the foghorn bellow of Bakugou and the frantic hand movements of Iida visible from the distance.

They were at each other's throats only for Tokage to say something inaudible from the distance he was at, she made a chopping motion across her chest mimed putting something down and then pointed angrily at Mineta, Class A went silent and all attention found itself directed at Mineta, fury boiling off the girls and disgust from the boys.

He wasn’t entirely sure what had been said but it prompted Sero to walk forward, hoist the small man up by the collar of his coat, he then stepped back spun him into a cocoon and started walking forward, he stopped walking when Mineta was all but encased, if not for his hair the boy protesting the whole time, Sero suddenly and fluidly underarm tossed Mineta up into the air before him, started running, lept into the air his right hand making contact with the hair, and sent the burrito wrapped Mineta soaring towards the River in Ground Beta if what Mineta said when he arrived back to class bruised, wet, bedraggled and still wrapped in sections of tape was true, some arm Sero had to perform the longest spike Izuku had ever seen.

Truth be told even a year later he wasn’t exactly sure what Mineta had done that required Sero, who often simply wrapped him up, smacked him or harshly told him off, should he do something offendingly stupid, to take the action to Spike him all the way to a training ground, but apparently it had something to do with Mineta getting into the Girls side of B’s dorms and promptly discovered by Kurorio who had gone to investigate the sound upstairs, suffice to say, he had thrown Mineta down the first flight of stairs.

-

“Briefly, all I really remember is you,” He pointed at Sero, “Spike Serving him all the way to Ground Beta, I still have no idea how the hell you did that by the way”

“Ohh that, well you know, plenty of practice” he awkwardly rubbed his neck, earning a few odd looks.

“So, Setsuna,” Mina asked, cutting Sero off, “What’s the news?”

Class B’s recommended student smirked as she leapt over the top of the couch landing with a thump, “Right, two maybe three things” She laughed.

“Right first, I spotted Denki and Jirou heading out”

“Ohh Cute, where are they doing anything?” Toru asked.

“Yeah actually,” She deviously grinned, “I saw them holding hands,” The girls bug eyed her, “Arm swinging as well” She finished with a set of shocked looks being dispersed between the three.

“WHAT!” Mina and Toru nearly jumped on the poor girl in a bid to get answers.

“You're sure that they were holding hands?” Momo asked with a sceptical if excited expression.

“Yeah!?” She threw her hands out, “Why would I lie about that?”

“Kyouka isn’t really the touchy type”

“I call bullshit on that Momo, she grabbed him by his neck with her jack, I think she craves that contact!” Mina responded.

“So immediately holding hands as they go out on a date, risqueee!” Toru warbled.

“Well their decisions are their decisions, after all, no need to get critical of them” Momo said as the voice of reason. “You said you had three things to talk about?”

“Okay Second one, I was talking to that new support guy”

“Ohh Wyn-Swep? We were talking about him before you came in, What were you asking him about?” Toru asked.

“Well rather it was him asking me, he was asking about how my suit works for me, if it’s got ample fitting, how easy it is to get in and out of you know the deal” She rotated her hand, “He’s pretty passionate about good fitting well suited womans hero suits, it’s interesting” She finished with a slight questioning tone.

“He actually asked about whether or not the companies provide quirk compatible underwear, never a question I thought I’d get asked.” She said with some intrigued looks from the other girls.

The girls didn’t quite see the oddly pensive expression that crossed Sero’s face at that remark.

“I mean, now that you mention it, I’d never thought that” Sero piped up the girls turning to look at him, “Quirk adapted underwear, I mean, it’s not something that crosses your mind, but honestly should have, after Him” He grimaced.

Midoriya and the 2A girls blanched, Mirio.

“So do they really not provide that?” He asked.

“Well some do, but most of the time you have to get it custom ordered” Mina replied, “My suit is acid resistant, but I had to order the panties separately, which might I add, really stupid, and honestly a bit uncomfortable.”

“Wyn-Swep actually made me some, which Oh My God finally, I got a suit and underwear, best designer I’ve ever had” Hagakure spoke reverently.

“Toru, you’ve only ever had one designer,” Mina pointed out.

“Yeah, but he included them when he made a fully invisible costume, no one else did!” She argued back.

Sero and Midoriya looked between each other with almost repulsed expressions.

“So do you guys just, like, you don’t have to, right? There’s no way they just, ohh” Izuku stammered as the girls gave deeply unimpressed expressions to the two boys who really wished more of their classmates were in the room with them.

“You know what, I’m going to stop talking now” Hanta put in, as Izuku nodded in agreement, “Continue Tokage”

Tokage shook her head, “Boys am I right?” The other girls nodded knowingly, “Right Final thing is Yanagi has been acting funny recently”

“Not to be overtly mean, doesn’t she always act a little funny?” Toru asked.

“Yeah, but not really like this,” Setsuna explained streaks of worry crossing her peppy composure, “She’s been wearing her mask outside of hero training since Thursday, I saw yesterday that she had some sort of rash, it doesn’t look good”

The girls put forth their sympathies, Mina looking especially concerned at this development.

“If she hasn’t already suggest some Hydrocortisone, and have her expose it to the air, leaving it covered won’t let it heal’ Momo explained, “and of course if she hasn’t already ask her to see Recovery Girl”

“Yeah well I was seeing about asking her, but she seems really on edge about it,” Setsuna explained.

“Well whatever it is sound like she doesn’t want anyone to know about it” Sero said leaning over the couch, “Must have been something embarrassing if she hasn’t got it checked out”

“I find it odd that it’s on her face” Izuku piped up startling Mina as he appeared next to her, “Rashes don’t normally get on the face, mostly the arms, and how could she have got it, I’ve heard that some chemicals found in stuff like rubber and dyes can cause it, but the question is how she would have gotten in on her face” He pondered his mind having jumped from point to point over the conversation.

“Yeah, sounds rough,” Mina agreed, leaning back into the couch.

“Are you alright Mina? You look a bit ill” Momo asked her concered at the silence of her extremely talkative friend.

“No, no, I’m fine just, a lot of things to think about”

“Well I best get going Monoma wanted to get us to watch a movie or something,” Setsuna said as she stood up from the couch, “Sorry for saddling you guys with all that”

“No problem,” Mina replied, “Could you tell us how Yanagi is on Monday?” She asked in a slightly serious tone.

“I’ll keep you guys updated on the Yanagi situation till then, bye guys,” She waved as she walked to the door which Sero promptly opened. “Seeya Cutie” She smirked as she left Heights Alliance with a pep in her step and a wave.

“Cutie huh?” Mina asked from the couch as Sero turned around with a grimace.

“Look I don’t know” he replied exasperated and with a tinge of pink, “According to her I look kinda like Ken Takakura, young Takakura that is” He corrected.

A deeply skeptical expression greeted that response.

“I don’t know, I kinda see it,” Toru said.

“I don’t, to much teeth”

“That’s a really disrespectful thing to say”

“Also when did Takakura ever have, what is that hair style, a Mullet?”

“My hair just grows like this Mina” he replied through his teeth.

“Anyway, so they just, held hand walking to the station huh”

-

The two alighted from the Shinkanzen at Ōmiya Station the hustle and bustle of the city terminal was a bit jarring to Kyouka as they made their way out of the station into the bright day ahead of them in Denki’s home city.

~~~~~~~~

Chapter Text

“So, where are we going first then?”

Kyouka turned to Denki who was standing behind her amused as she looked at a display board with a map of the local streets.

“Well, I don’t know where to go smartass, you know the way” She pointed out as he smirked at her knowingly.

“Well if only there was someone who’s lived here for ages and knows where we’re going” He drawled out, slinging his arm over her shoulder, to which she rolled her eyes in response.

“Come on then, Mr. I-Know-Where-To-Go, lead away” She motioned with an eye roll tugging him forward at which his arm swung down from her shoulder to quickly grasp her hand, all in one impressively fluid motion.

‘Smooth, dammit’ She complained internally at which her jack twisted in on itself.

‘Ohh God that could have gone so badly if I touched her ass whilst I did that!’ Denki thought in a panic which he visually quashed with one of his massive smiles.

“Right we need to head,” He paused looking at the cross road, “Left, so off we go then”

The two started walking towards their intended destination, yet again in his excitement Denki had started swinging his arm, but slowed at the withering gaze that Kyouka gave him for his choice.

—-

Soon enough they had turned onto one of streets towards downtown Saitama, their destination was the distinctly American style restaurant Iron Bird, which quite frankly looked like it’s primary patron was meant to be All Might rather than the citizens of Saitama with it’s blue, white and black exterior, a large Cast Iron bird sat on top of an I shaped roof mount, the Iron Bird of the restaurant.

“Well, here we are then, our date for today” Said Denki as they paused at the crossing.

“It looks a bit touristy,” Kyouka pointed out, staring at the very American building.

“Kinda the point,” He replied as they crossed the road, “it’s meant to stand out amongst the rest of its surroundings, a brighter colour to contrast the whites and greys, the people who run the place are friends of the family, owners a retired Pro Hero, Sir Stalwart was his title he worked with Death Arms for a bit, his wifes still active service thought.”

She nodded as they walked up to the doors, Denki stepping in front and pushing them open for her with the bell jingle above the door, the noise and smell was well for smell, waxy with linoleum and vinyl present in the room, tastefully red and white, it also had the smell of cooking oil, frying meat, and the tang of vinegar.

The sound was a hussle and bussel, the clink of cutlery and plates being moved, squeaking shoes on the lino, a small bell signalling to a server, all of this including the din of people talking.

“Nice right?” He asked, leaning in over her shoulder.

“Yeah, didn’t know it would be this well, is this busy?” 

“Not yet, haven’t got to lunch it’s normally worse” He laughed, guiding her to a red leather bench seat next to a window, taking the seat opposite, as he handed her the menu, she quickly started skimming the selection.

“So, what do you reccomend?” She asked looking up from the menu as he stared back across at her, blinking at the question.

“Ohh I normally order the Mr. Inedible, best burger you can get anywhere” He replied amicably pointing to the option on the menu.

“Is that a cheese burger or?”

“Just a Cheeseburger?! Kyouka, the Mr. Inedible is a culinary masterpiece consisting of at least three cheeses, lettuce, pickles, barbeque mayo, tomatoes as thick as your finger and an absolutely delicious angus beef pattie, all on a wide sesame bun that absorbs the juices into the bread, to say it is Just a Cheeseburger is almost an insult” He rambled empathically whilst his date watched on utterly amazed at his burger describing rant.

“I did in-fact read the menu Denki, So it’s really good?”

“Really good? One of the best things I’ve eaten in my life!”

“What about Bakugou’s Katsudon?”

…

Kaminari paused.

…

“Okay, that’s good but not quite Mr. Inedible level”

She raised her eyebrow at this, he threw his hands up in response.

“Please don’t tell him I said that”   

-

Meanwhile at UA’s Gym.

“Aaah aah”

“Woah Katsuki, don’t drop the weight let me-”

“AAACHOBBKAU!”

“Woah, mouth closed man almost hit me there”

“sffhh…Sorry, grab the tissues from my bag”

-

We now return to Saitama.

“Ohh no I wouldn’t, anything that’s not the burger you’d recommend?” She asked, leaning on the table slightly.

“Mhhhh, I’m not sure, I just get the burger” He said which simply earned him a tired if affectionate look.

“You can be so simple sometimes, you know that?” she jested, but with no malice as she smiled softly.

“Yeah, I know” 

“So I’m looking at this menu, They have Garlic Bread” She reported looking up.

Denki simply nodded in response, a serious look crossing his face.

“We order Garlic Bread then,” She noted her eyes darting once more down the menu.

After Kyouka had finished deliberating on the menu, considering she was paying Denki thought it best that she make that decision, and raised a hand out to the server.

“Hey Masaki! We’re good to order!” he called out, at which a young man with slicked back blond hair appeared at their table notebook in hand, a small rush of air accompanying him.

“So what’ll it be Denki?” he asked, his words slightly caught together as they tumbled out.

“Ask the lady first dude, it’s good etiquette” He smirked, which got him a sigh and eye roll from his date.

Masaki the server turned to Jirou, “What would you like, Miss?” 

“Can I get a FlexiBurger, chicken pattie, a side of Flying Fries, Garlic Bread, He wants a Mr. Inedible, and one, do you want strawberry or caramel?” She asked across the table.

“Whatever you want”

“One Vanilla Frozone please” She finished.

Masaki jotted down the order, his hand flying across the page in messy chicken scratch, before in a fwoosh of air he’d left the table.

“What’s the deal with him?” Kyouka asked after the blond boy had disappeared.

“Speed Quirk” He answered.

“Ahh, right so” She looked back at him, realising that there was going to be a space of silence between them the void needed filling. “Anything new with you?”

“We had a whole discussion about what colour we’d all be if we were sentai on the way here, that’s like the newest thing I’ve done” He answered leaning forward.

“And I still hold that Kats would be the Gold”

“Would he not be like Red or Orange?” 

“No, he would be like, have you seen the American version?” She dropped her hand from an upright position.

“Which one?”

“Mighty Morphin, He’d be like Tommy in Mighty Morphin”

“So,” He started,” You think he’d come and beat our ass whilst in the Megazord?”

“That is exactly what Katsuki would do”

“Aa…. yeah no he would absolutely do that” Denki faltered as he spoke, having gotten to know the young man 

They sat in silence for a few seconds as Kyouka started looking around the restaurant again, there weren’t too many customers yet but a few people sat at the bar, the server Masaki darted around the room with his notepad, occasionally pinning orders to the servers window. 

In an instant he was at their table with a marker number which he placed down.

“Not to be disrespectful Miss, but surely there were better options for a date than Kaminari?” He jests at which Denki’s face morphed into a look of mock anger.

Kyouka could only snort, “Trust me the other ones were either taken or didn’t ask,” She put in playing along.

“What!?” Kaminari yelped, at which she exhaled with a smirk.

“I’m kidding”

“Are you?”

“Technically yes, what I said is true, remember, you asked Me, there were other options but you made yourself the best one”

Masaki’s eyes darted from the two like he was an observer in a game of Ping Pong, he’d known Kaminari for years now, seeing as Denki was only three years older than him, in that time he’d known him he’d never seen him get so easily caught of guard by a girl, let alone see one so effortlessly make fun of him, looking over at Kaminari he saw no anger in his face or voice as he retorted back at the girl with Violet hair. He really liked this girl then, there was a look in his eyes that was almost identical to the affectionate look his parents would exchange occasionally. 

Whoever this girl was had Kaminari’s heart in a stranglehold.

Good for him then.

Masaki looked over to the order window spotting the food for table Five and sped over, if he hadn’t been moving like paper caught on the wind he would have noticed the rumble of an approaching muscle car and the jingle of the door bell.

“Appari Masaki!”

That brought him to a dead stop, as three women stepped into the restaurant, the one at the head a tall rather shapely woman dressed in blue and white with a head of equally bright white shoulder length hair stormed into the restaurant.

“What have we said about using your quirk inside?” She asked tilting her head at her son. 

“That I shouldn’t and I might hurt someone whilst doing so?” He responded by scrunching his neck in.

“And?”

“I haven’t gone to hero school and gotten my licence” He finished.

“Exactly, now where is your father?”

Denki and Kyouka could only watch as some of the other patrons, stunned as Mrs Appari, otherwise known as FelxiGal chewed out her son, Denki was going to say hello seeing as she was a family friend but thought better of it.

Ms Appari, who stood slightly shadowing her mother in a purple and black version of her suit, waved to the two in the booth, before turning to a woman with bright yellow hair done up in a massive braid.

“Yoshiki!”

“YES!” Came a bellow from the kitchen as a large, also blond haired man appeared at the servers window.

Appari slinked away from her parents over to the table where her underclassman sat.

“Mind if I sit with you guys really quick?” She asked awkwardly to which the two exchanged glances and nodded quickly. “Sorry for intruding, Mum’s just causing a scene”

“I can hear that,” Jirou said, watching the two quickly engage in an argument about their son's use of his quirk, Appari sat down next to Kaminari as he was closer, Jirou thought she looked rather pretty with purple eyes and silver grey hair, which kinda reminded her of Yanagi from class B, a spike of jealousy shot through her body at the sight of this older girl sitting so close to Denki, but considering she was apparently a family friend she quickly quashed this feeling.

“So Kaminari, who's this?” She asked looking over the violette across the table but before he could answer the woman with the blond braid took a seat next to Jirou.

“Yes Denki, who's this lovely young lady?” Kaminari’s eyes widened dramatically,“Uhh Hi Mom,” Jirou straightened at those words, “This is Jirou, she’s my…” He paused, exchanging eye contact. What did he call this for the moment?

“Ohh so this is the famous Earphone Jack!” Mrs Kaminari laughed pushing her glasses into her hair, “I’ve heard great things about you, not just from my, as your very aware I’m sure, Talkative son”

“Don’t I know it” Jirou responded with slight grit, as she grappled with the utterly conflicting emotions of excitement in meeting her favourite hero from when she was seven, and the slight fear and panic actually meeting Denki’s mother not two days after they had declared, to each other mind you, that they were a thing. Across the table her boyfriend was obviously thinking a mile a minute.

“Sorry I haven’t introduced myself, Kaminari Arashi” She said, turning slightly to grasp Jirou’s hand.

“Ohh I now,” Mrs Kaminari looked slightly confused at this to which Jirou quickly tried to course correct, “I mean, I know because you’ve been one of my favourite heroes since I was like seven” She fumbled out her ears glowing red in embarrassment which Denki thought was adorable but totally justified.

“Really? Well I’m flattered that one of his friends knows about me” She smiled, and Kyouka could now see the resemblance beyond the spikey blond hair, with the bright toothy grin.

“So Ms Jirou, what brings you down to our home city?” She asked, hazel brown eyes scanning her features like a flashlight, “Denki didn’t drag you on a date did he? His sister keeps telling him to ask a girl out you know” she laughed.

“I think he told me that on the way here” She answered, shooting Denki a look.

“So Mom, how are you? I haven't seen you in ages?” He quickly said in an effort to change the current of the conversation.

“Ohh I’m fine, I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to talk to you in ages, being put on house confinement whilst my arm recovers meant that driving was out of the question, and those train lines kept getting demolished in the wars” She complained lifting her left arm.

“You have a phone”

“And you’re far to busy playing games on it to get my calls”

“Untrue!”

“Really what are you doing on your phone then?”

“Taking pictures”

Arashi exchanged a look with Jirou.

“Why is it hard for me to believe that”

“It’s true! You believe me right Jirou?”

“That’s a massive maybe” She responded, watching in delight as his face twitched.

“So what do you think he’s using his phone for then Jirou?” His mother asked.

“Reading the Bee Movie script” She answered with a shrug.

“That’s not that at at, okay yeah I did do that”

“See, do I know this guy?”

“You do, now Jirou how would you describe my son, seeing as you know him rather well” She questioned leaning in slightly.

Appari hadn’t even taken the chance to get anything in, Kaminari having what was clearly a date only to have his Mom drop in unannounced was peak comedy and she didn’t have anything else to add.

“Well,” Jirou started thinking about her words carefully, “He's a dumbass first and foremost,” Denki could only shake his head at this undoubtedly true fact. 

“But he is one of the funniest and dare I say sweetest people I’ve ever met.” He perked up at this like a dog being told that it was time for walkies.

“Yeah he’s a bit of a moron at times, but he’s always got my back, and he’s our classes lighthouse providing light when we need it most, boundless energy and he puts all of it towards us,” She paused for a moment, “And me, I would have never agreed to performing in front of the school, had he not gave me all of that encouragement” She said a bit bashfully, tucking some hair back over her right ear.

The more she spoke the more her face creased as her smile got slightly wider, Arashi quickly glanced at her son who looked utterly mystified by her words, that was an expression that she’d only ever seen on his face whilst reading his western novels, this girl had won his heart.

“Well it sounds like he’s made quite the impression,” Jirou could only blush slightly under the gaze of Kaminaris brown eyes, “Say Jirou, would you like to see Denki’s baby photos?” To which two very different reactions were elicited.

“YES!”

“NO!”

“Ohh please tell me he kept trying to stick stuff in stockets!” Jirou’s anxiety all but forgotten as she practically jumped at a nodding Mrs. Kaminari to see the photos, as Denki slumped over the bevy of emotions hitting him like bricks as Appari patted him on the shoulder.

“You sure know how to pick em Kaminari”

~~~~~~~~

Chapter Text

If you had asked Denki Kaminari how his Date with Kyouka Jirou would go, the answer he never thought he would give was ‘Co Opted by my Mom’ but that was what had happened, his mother had showed up with her crime fighting partner FlexiGal and their intern Tensile, the latter trying not to laugh as Catanary emphatically showed the pictures of a goofy looking blond baby to Kaminari’s date.

Appari took the opportunity to ask the stupefied Second year some questions.

“So Kaminari, what’s the sitch with you and Jirou here?” she asked, leaning forward, and pointing at the girl opposite.

“Well um, she’s my classmate and I asked her out on a date?” He slowly explained.

“Uh Huh,” a thoroughly unimpressed Appari made a face at him, “That’s all she is huh, your date for the day?” The bite in her words is not unheard.

Denki wasn’t sure what he was meant to say but whatever he could have said was covered up by an irrational anger as he grimaced at his family friend.

“No,” He said, his voice dropping several octaves, “She’s not my ‘Date For The Day’ she’s my…” He trailed off realising that he was majorly losing his cool, Appari looked back at him with a startled expression before smirking slightly.

“So what is she?” She asked feinting politeness, “You didn’t quite say”

And back to trying to attempt to work out what the hell to say about the situation, by all means yes, Jirou was his girlfriend, but he wasn’t allowed to call her that in public yet, and this relationship, them as a whole was in its embryonic stages, that’s to say, Three Days old.

So therein lies the dilemma, what the hell could he say at this point, that this was just a date, that she wasn’t his girlfriend? But that would be completely unfair to her to say that, but if he did, well then he’d be introducing his mom to his girlfriend of three days and only the heavenly bodies could tell him how this would all go. Denki’s eyes darted to the cutlery, to Jirou who was still adorably giggling, undoubtedly at pictures of him, FOCUS DENKI! His Mom was paying no mind, so he was just stuck trying to convince Appari until either food arrived or Jirou tagged in, and neither of those options were available for him, so he went for the next best idea.

“I’ll have you know,” He started with bravado, “That Jirou and I have been on, Three, separate dates including this one, this has not been a one and done thing” He said dropping his head down with a smirk.

“Really, where?”

“First one was pretty early in the First Year, we went to a Cafe in Mustafa Midtown, and the second one we went to get Ice Cream” He leaned back with crossed arms.

This was countered by raised eyebrows, “So she’s not your Girlfriend? Because it sounds like she is”

Denki blanches.

‘Come on Denks’ calm under pressure don’t give anything away act more, natural for you at least, have they not done espionage classes for us yet, they should, right snap back to reality, ooop there goes gravi-NO! Stay On Target!’

“I mean, not yeahet” he says with a squeak.

Of course now Jirou was cueing in on the predicament of her date/boyfriend to try and help him.

“What non committal answer is he giving you?” She asked from across the table.

“You're probably best to ask then Jirou,” Appari says looking at her, Jirou noting the panicked face adoring Kaminari’s mug, ‘Uh Oh’.

“Are you two dating?” she asks pointedly, which got the Pro-Hero Kaminari well interested side-eyeing the two with interest.

“Okay well, not exactly” Was all Jirou could really say, biting her top lip, wrong move.

Now Arashi had her interest well piqued, she’d figured that there was something between them, if he hadn’t asked her at some point, then not exactly posed an interesting question, what did they mean by that? Just started? Unsure of their status?

Those questions would have to wait to be answered as Maskai reappeared with the two’s order.

“One Mr. Inedible, Chicken FlexiBurger, Flying Fries, Garlic Bread and Vanilla Frozone,” He said, placing the items down the table, before looking up, “Your To-Go’s are almost done” He finished talking to the Red Line Agency Heroes.

“Thank’s Maskai!” Was the stereo reply from the Kaminari’s as the blond boy sped away leaving the table as it was bar the inclusion of food, before the two could even start and hopefully carve themselves away from the conversation corner they had got themselves stuck in, unfortunately Arashi wanted to know the sich before she had to leave.

“So Jirou, what’s the deal with you and my son,” Arashi asked leaning towards her, “if you're lying I just have to look at Denki, his face will tell me everything I need to know” She said, shooting her son a look that was met with wide eyes.

“Okay yes, we’re starting on a relationship," Jirou admitted, her hands twitching, “Nothing too big, don’t expect much, it's very new, we just didn’t think we’d have to tell anybody so soon” She said exhaling.

“Ohh I see,” Arashi said slightly stunned, “Well I’m very sorry for having intruded so suddenly I get why you both looked so freaked out now, I’m going to assume you weren’t planning on meeting me until, a bit later?” She asked Jirou who nodded slowly.

“I will say I was rather surprised when I saw Denki sitting across from a lovely young lady such as yourself, I almost thought it wasn’t him” She confessed, shrugging her shoulders.

This was unsurprisingly met with the outcry of “MOM!” from her insulted son.

“Pfff ahah, oh you should see the faces you’ve been making!” She giggled.

“Cuagah” Catanary’s merriment was disrupted by FlexiGal appearing at the table with a large paper bag under her arms.

“We’ve got to get going now Arashi”

“Ohh yes of course,” She turned to Jirou and scooped up her hands, “It was lovely to meet you Jirou, hope we get to meet again under more relaxed and pre-determined circumstances” She laughed.

“Of course Mrs Kaminari, likewise, I hope you have a lovely day” Kyouka smiled back.

“You look after my boy please Jirou, he has a tendency to, what would the word be, short” She winked with a smirk to which Jirou returned.

“Ohh don’t worry I know all about that” She rolled her eyes over to Denki who had now started to tell Appari something that she only barely rolled her eyes at.

“Well,” Arashi said standing up, “We’d best be off now, bye Jirou,” She waved, “Bye Sweetie!” She said in singsong to her son, grabbing his cheek as she did.

“Bye Mom” he grumbled as the three heroes walked back out through the door.

It’s a few moments until either of them speaks.

“Well I’ll be honest I didn’t see that happening” Kaminari says winded as he pulls his glasses off his face and cleans them as Jirou starts eating some of the fries.

“Yeah no that, wow that,” She struggles for words.

“I, how, why did my Mom show up?” He whines falling into his hands.

“I dunno dude” She shrugs while eating more chips.

“That’s the pet name you go with, Dude?” He looks up.

“It seemed like the natural response!”

“I call you cute versions of your first name and you call me dude, I see how it is,” He said jokingly, nabbing some garlic bread.

“I’m new to this!” She says in response.

“No you're not, you’ve called me Jamming-Whey, Shock Jock, Sparky,” He listed off on his fingers.

“You do know that most of those were joking insults?” She responded by taking her own chunk of garlic bread.

“Well, yeah, kinda,” He mumbles.

“You know what Shock Jock means, right?” She asks, grabbing the large milkshake.

“Uhhh, will you laugh at me If I say and do and then not give the correct answer?”

“Mmmmm, maybe” She smirks as she attempts to slurp at the Frozone, “Uhhh, ohh wow that’s thick!”

“That’s what she said!” He burst out, which managed to turn her completely bright red.

“Hhhhand me the spoon,” she groaned as he giggled handing it to her, at which she rapped him on the knuckle.

“OW! Okay I deserved that”

~~~~~~~~

Chapter Text

You know I think we’ve been playing out in Saitama for too long now, let’s run the story further back in Mustafar.

Mineta peaked around the doorframe as he slowly walked back into the common room having heard the door close and Tokage depart, his eyes still shifted uncomfortably staring for any hint of long green hair, he was still twitchy by the time he’d made his way back to the couch.

“What the hell was all that about?” Ashido asked, leaning over the back of the couch as the smallest student walked back into the room.

“It’s, I don’t need to say” He collapsed on the closest Ottoman.

“Is it the thing with being thrown down those stairs?” Hagakure asked politely, or mockingly, he couldn’t quite tell.

“Yeaaaah, and being thrown, neither was fun, so I keep my distance around her” He admitted.

“Pity,” Sero said smirking as he took a drink from his mug looking into it, “She’s a fun gal to talk to”

“Oh yeah of course you’d say that,” Mineta grumbled, pushing up to look at his tall friend, “simp” He muttered putting his head back down on the Ottoman.

“The fuck’d you just say?” Sero spluttered as Hagakure tried to hide her snort.

“Your shooting above your weight class pal” He laughed sitting up a coy smile making itself present in Mineta’s face as Sero’s coloured vermillion twisted in contempt.

“Sez you! You have to constantly shoot above your weight!” He shot back, putting his mug down on a table “It’s your state of being!”

“Ohh low blow Mr. Giraffe!”

“It’s the only way I can hit you!”

“Should we?” Toru asked the girls as the two boys laid into each other, to which Mina and Momo both shrugged in confusion. “Mina you’ve got a brother, do guys just do this?”

“I don’t know I wasn’t around his friends much”

“WHAT DID YOU WANT ME TO DO, KICK YOU?”

“FUCK NO YOU GREAT GANGLY FUCK, USE YOUR KNUCKLES TWAT! GREASY HAIRED SCUMBAG! FUCK YOU!”

“Hey Midoriya, do guys do this a lot?” Mina asked behind her hand, looking to the utterly out of it vertette.

“Yeah, this is just escalation, they’ll come down shortly” He sighed.

‘WELL FUCK YOU TOO AND YOUR HAIR LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE GLUED ANALBEADS TO YOUR SCALP!”

Toru and Mina had to stop themselves from bursting out laughing at Sero’s final comment which left Mineta utterly aghast and Momo blinking rapidly.

“What the fuck man, that was uncalled for,” he finally said as Sero slumped down on the couch, and picked up his drink again.

“Sorry dude just a bit, sorry”

“Yikes, man down bad,” Mineta mumbled as he sat down opposite.

“Well glad that settled” Hagakure laughed as she turned away from the group, “I’m gonna go change, see you guys in a-”

Dubbhaha Budduhu!

There was suddenly another knock at the door.

“Ahh If it’s Tokage again I’m leaving!” Mineta exclaims from his position on the couch as Hagakure closest to the door opens it revealing their Homeroom Teacher, Mr. Aizawa.

“Oh! Hi Sir!”

There’s slight panic as the other students' heads whip towards their sullen looking sensei.

“Good afternoon Hagakure, please tell me you're wearing your new suit,” He said, his face creased.

“Ohh don’t worry sir I am, I love this thing!” She giggled doing a little spin.

“That’s good,” He smiled before turning again to look at his present students, “Ahh Mineta your here perfect, I need you to come with me please”

“Huh”

“What did he do now?” Mina asked.

“Yeah what did I do now?” He echoed his classmate standing up and walking over to his teacher.

“Nothing, I’d just like you to come with me please,” He answered calmly.

“Umm okay, are you sure this isn’t about anything I’ve-”

“Mineta, just come with me please” He cut off the small student, who simply nodded in response.

The two left just as quickly as Aizawa had arrived, and the remaining students watched the small purple student cautiously follow behind his teacher like a terrified duckling, earning the confused glances of his classmates.

-

Mineta had never been to the Teachers Lounge, it was smaller than he expected with two large green couches with a coffee table between it, when Mineta entered behind his teacher he spotted several faces very quickly, parked on the side of the doorway was All Might in his wheelchair, a stupidly cool wheelchair in anycase, also present was Nezu sitting on one of the arms, sitting on the couches were Vlad King, Ectoplasm, Snipe, Present Mic, Cementoss along with Recovery Girl, Thirteen, and Hound Dog.

Honestly that was scary enough already for Mineta, what the hell did he do that required him to be at the mercy of Ten members of UA’s faculty, which is what he would say had he not noticed two unknown figures standing to the opposite side of All Might, it was really hard to miss them honestly considering one of them was damn near Candy Apple Red and the other a dark pink.

Mineta had no idea who the hell those were supposed to be but the pink one looked scarily similar to Ashido, with black sclera and gold irises, and gold yellow horns hidden by coppery orange hair as opposed to Mina’s Pink. The young man was also well built as visible by his white tank top, with an intrigued smirk as Mineta shuffled in under the gaze of the teachers.

The other person who he wasn’t sure was a hero or a teacher was a very tall woman possibly 6’2 maybe 6’3, it was hard to tell but this was granted by her long abdomen but that wasn’t what stood out, no it was her massive compound eyes like a form of fly, that Mineta couldn’t quite ascertain as to where to look, these eyes were framed by a strawberry blond bob cut. But that wasn’t even the most notable thing those were her shiny cherry red skin more akin to an exoskeleton than of skin, she also had two sets of large nearly transparent wings that hung behind her yellow and brown open backed dress, she also seemed to be following his movements, granted you couldn’t actually tell because of the compound eyes, but the man with copper hair did as well as Mineta was directed to a seat set at the opposite end of the room in front of the table.

Mineta took his seat and darted around the gathered teachers, who had all decided to dress in casual attire, granted you would never have guessed that Aizawa was in anything of the like, with his black trousers, turtleneck and grey scarf that looked identical to his hero costume, honestly it was more jarring to see Ectoplasm out of that massive trenchcoat than anything.

Once he had settled Nezu cheerily stood up on All Might’s wheelchair.

“I gather you wish to know why you're here Mr. Mineta?” he asked, tilting his head slightly as the teachers watched the student squirm.

“Yes Sir, what’s this meeting about, what did I do this time, or is this about all the other incidents, have the girls filed charges?” He asked, slightly panicked.

“Charges?” Asked the dragonfly woman at the back of the room, “What could you have possibly done to warranty charges?” She asked, she couldn’t narrow her eyelids but the message was pretty clear to Mineta.

“Umm, I have a history of,” He paused, considering what would be the best course of action to take here, “Harrasing… my female classmates,” He spoke carefully.

“Right,” She said an unconvinced frown forming, as Mineta tried to keep his cool in the face of a set of compound eyes staring him down.

“Ah yes it would be poignant to introduce our newest members of staff” Nezu stated jumping down from All Might’s wheelchair and strutting to the two apparent teachers.

“Normally you would have been introduced to them in Monday’s Assembly, but considering their here now, Mineta these our UA’s latest members of faculty Ms Kakio Tangiku,” He gestured to the tall red woman who gave a slight bow, “She will be one of our new Science and possibly trainers, and the man to her right is Mr. Karumen Ashido who will be taking on the task of standard physical education” The man nodded his head up with a smile.

“Ashido,” Mineta responded, “as in?”

“Yep, You're talking to the big Ashido” He said with a gloating smirk.

Mineta looked him up and down making a bemused face.

“I don’t see it,” he responded.

“I’m pink” was the reply Ashido gave.

“Oh no I can see that, just not sure where you got the bigger part from, your sister is bigger,” Mineta remarked matter of factly before his face fell at realising what he had just said, Ashido blinking as his face creased slowly in shock, the other teachers faces dropped, Kan’s bulldog face looked in contempt at Aizawa who closed his eyes with a sigh.

‘Godamnit Mineta’

“Why did I say that?” Mineta muttered in the face of what he had just said to the new teacher whose face started twisting into a smile as he started chuckling.

“I see why he gets himself in trouble with girls,” Tangiku whispered behind her hand to All Might and Nezu.

“Your funny guy Mineta, never got that clap back, haha” he laughed Mineta could only nod slightly and emit a light chuckle. Suddenly the well muscled lean figure of Karuman Ashido was staring right into his soul with his large moth-like eyes.

“You saying something like that about my Baby Sister again and I’ll have you doing more than running extra laps, understand me pipsqueak?” He told him with a glare that could melt gold.

“Yes Sir, sorry Sir, I saw a joke and I took it can’t help it Sir, I’ll be better about in future Sir” the young man stammered in reply, having been at the mercy of a vindictive Ashido he well understood that they didn’t go back on their words, if they told you they were gonna do something, they were going to do something, and it would not be pleasant.

The teachers however saw Mineta utterly stammering his heart out at a verbal threat, they were going to keep this one on if he could keep Mineta in check like that.

“Well now that we’ve made our introductions,” Nezu piped up cheerfully completely ignoring the previous spats, “Let’s tell you why exactly you are here young Mineta”

“Yamada, would you like to give the run down?”

“Of course Sir,” Present Mic or Mr. Yamada at present, stood up putting on his radio voice.

“Alright little dude we have quite the job for you in these coming months for you see, you're going to be heading up the main Second Year event at the Sports Festival!” He proclaimed pointing his finger right in the students face.

There was a brief pause as Mineta took a moment to intake the information he had just received.

“What? I’m sorry did you just say that I’m? Me? I’m heading up our year group's event?” He asked astoundedly, pointing at himself.

“Yes” was the response as he pointed the same finger at Mineta again

“What do you want me to do? Be hunted by my classmates?!” He yelped.

“No, actually quite the opposite, you're going to be hunting them,” Snipe put in.

Mineta stared blankly at his teacher for a beat, before exhaling putting his hands together then pointing them forward.

“Mr Nara you do realise that the phrase ‘Mineta is hunting you’ elicits an immediate order to all women within a mile that says, ‘Engage with extreme prejudice, attempt to kill’ Yes?” He explained with large eyes and pursed lips. His teacher was wisely still wearing his gas mask so his wide eyes of realisation were rather well hidden.

“Your not hunting anyone,” Aizawa sighed, “the plan is that your all going to play infection tag”

“Ohh well I suppose that’s better than me hunting them now isn’t it”

“Do you want to do it?” His teacher asked with a glare.

“Ohh yes duh!”

“Good, then listen, Yamada”

“Right so,” he spoke point at him for a third time, “the breakdown is that you're going to start a game of infection, everyone else has 45 minutes to survive, you tag someone when you attach one of your Pop-Off to them, they then join your team and help you stop and herd the remaining players to you to be tagged, following so far?”

“Yes, anything that needs to come out of this?”

“Fun” Aizawa answered.

“You and the hero course students at large have very different ideas of what the concept of ‘fun’ is Sir” Mineta blanched.

“Mineta my concept of fun is being locked in a large room with many cats”

“... Okay”

“But seriously, is there anything else you need me to do?” Mineta asked the room at large, the teacher's faces creased in growing smirks.

“Ohh that can’t be good”

—

“Hooo boy I am beat!” Kaminari groaned, stretching as he and Jirou got off the train after their date in Saitama.

“We didn’t even do much”

“I know but my mom showing up out of nowhere made the whole thing feel like four months of my life” he explained.

“It did not feel like four months” She rolled her eyes, “It was like maybe 10 minutes, your being dramatic”

“Yeah and? I’m allowed to, my Mom showed up to our first date as a couple, I can’t even live that down!”

“No that’s fair that was so awkward”

“Hey our day can’t have gone that badly” Kaminari laughed, “we had fun and some good food”

“Yeah and that Milkshake” Jirou murmured.

“I know as I was telling you babe, thick as hell”

There was a short pause.

“Kyouka?”

“Did you just call me babe?”

“Yeeeaaah?” Denki drew out the vowels staring at his very surprised looking girlfriend.

“Am I not allowed to call you that?” He asked with a slight worry clouding his face.

“No, you're allowed to, just wasn’t expecting it so, early into, This” she motioned to the both of them walking down the street away from the station.

“Ohh, so you like it then?” He smiled, bouncing his eyebrows to which she rolled her eyes.

“Only if you don’t do it around our friends”

“I wasn’t gonna anyway doll”

“Okay,” She turned, “You are not allowed to use That One”

“Lound an Clear Ma’am!” He responded, jolting himself upright and saluting.

“What was that for?”

“Making it known that I understood Ma’am!”

“At ease you colossal dork” she laughed knocking his shoulder as his hand came down.

“Yah know I used to have to skate to school when there weren’t dorms” he brought up.

“Really you a skater boy? Yeah no I see it”

“What makes you say that?” he asks with a coy smile.

“Your room and fashion sense, only a man with horrible fashion would wear cowboy boots on a date” she jabbed.

“Cowboy boots have nothing to do with skating. I wore vans for that! I also think you are vastly underestimating the usefulness of cowboy boots”

“Maybe Mr. Rootin Tootin, how well do you get on with Snipe”

“Fine,” he responded. “Why?”

“If he finds out that you like wearing cowboy boots he just might take you under his wing” she laughed.

“You joke but I would love that, I really need to get better with my accuracy, and he is just the man for the job!”

“His quirk does that for him!”

“And he can still teach me!”

“How to patrol the desert maybe” she humphed.

“I resent that! Snipe is very cool!”

–

“Mr Nara, wasn’t really on the money when he called it hunting, what you want me to do is more like, The Tournament of Power from Dragon Ball Super” Mineta stated at which the poor man bowed his head again.

“So you want me to tell everyone what we’re doing so that they're all on their game for the Sports Fest, because I know most, if not All of them will be intent on trying to one up each other, I doubt they’ll attempt to make it fun” Mineta explained.

“For the moment,” All Might spoke, “We’d like you to not tell your fellow students, make it a surprise but we will be laying on some courses during Heroics about presence, much like as I’m sure you’ll remember when we had young Mt.Lady on.”

“Ohh I remember Sir, Midoriya got so stiff it was crazy dude looked like LEGO I swear” He rambled.

“Okay Mineta, can you do that?” Aizawa asked, breaking the purple student out of his reminiscent rambling.

“Yes Sir, I’ll tell you now it might not be as memorable as last year, but to make it work you just need to do the stuff I asked if you want this to be, Interesting" He smiled darkly at his closing remark.

The Teachers had just put a very big plan in his hands, surely this could only go well. Right?

–

Kaminari and Jirou had arrived back at the dorms as the light slowly began to fade, of course they had tried to be sneaky on the way back, Ojiro was cooking that evening so if he spotted them via a window he wasn’t going to say anything. Mashiaro was an upstanding dude like that, however, that in no way stopped Mina watching from her balcony like a moth under a street lamp. If she was trying to be sneaky she was the wrong colour to even attempt such an action.

“We’re being watched,” Jirou pointed out, looking up to the third floor balconies.

“MINA YOUR NOT SNEAKY!” Kaminari yelled up at her as she jumped and bolted back inside, perhaps not the most tactful move on Kaminari’s part as the front door was flung open and the form of Hagakure closely followed by Kirishima and Sero the latter smirking.

Jirou made a tut noise with her mouth and glared at her boyfriend for being the very loud young man that he was.

“Welcome back to Casa Heights Lover Birds!” Sero called out to them as they approached.

“Let us get inside before bombarding us with questions first, your jerks!” Jirou called back which got some laughs.

The two pushed past their greeters into Heights Alliance which had decided to become a hive of activity at this hour as Ojiro with assistance from Shinsou was making dinner, various others setting the table and others still lounging about, all looking over at the two as they returned.

“Ahh good I don’t need to powerise your bones then!” Bakugou barked from his, still unknown where the hell he had acquired it, recliner chair.

“Has he been sitting in that all day?” Kaminari asked the boys.

“Nah we went to the gym” Kirishima answered which the two nodded at.

It was with a sudden skidding noise that Mina hurtled into the room like the floor was made of ice.

“OKAY GOOD YOUR BACK! Kyouka, you are coming with us! YOU ARE TO GIVE AS ALL OF DE TALES!” She exclaimed, arms outstretched above her head.

“Uh no!” Was the quick response, “I do not need to give you all th-aragah” whatever Jirou would have said in response was instantly cut short by the girls, namely Mina and Toru who bundled her up and away up to the dorm rooms, the cooler heads of Momo, Ochako and Tsu following confused, timidly waving to Kaminari as they wandered after his wayward date.

He turned back to the guys who gave confused stares.

“You guys are not going to believe how weird this day was,” Kaminari said to the gathered room.

~~~~~~~~