Chapter Text
Once upon a time, people had hopes. Dreams. Aspirations. Then the quirk revolution happened and it all went to shit.
Experts, of course, still like to beat about the bush and talk about economic shocks and recovering morale and whatnot. But experts are typically people with money, resources, good quirks, and no reason to give a fuck. Not that you’re judging them for it- you’d do the same, you’re pretty sure. You do do the same, in your capacity, in terms of taking what you can get and running with it in order to survive.
You definitely need the sapphire you’re clutching in your hands to survive.
Hey, you live in a society. Shiny things are valuable and sellable and yeah, maybe you’re guilty of dressing up in the shinies you steal before you pawn them off at a black market somewhere but you’re only human, and it’s not like you’re a bad person.
You’re just a dishonest one.
The lady you stole the sapphire from has most of her lights off upstairs, and she hasn’t even noticed you slink the shiny off her wrist and scurry over to the bathroom to make your exit. You take a moment or two to hold it in your hands and admire its dark deep blues before you hike up your cocktail dress, secure the looser ends about your waist, and climb out of the bathroom window. Your purse clinks with your spoils of the night, and you’d feel the tiniest bit guilty if you didn’t think that people who threw masquerade balls in this day and age didn’t deserve to be robbed blind.
Really, with the state of Japan right now, it’s just tone deaf to be partying-
Apparently, you’re not the only one who doesn’t care for these people. As you crawl out of a hole in a hedge at the fringe of whatever big mansion estate thing you’re on, a meteor falls from the sky and demolishes the building you were just in.
Well.
A human (demon? Eldritch terror? A bird? A plane? Superman?) meteor. You shimmy onto your back to crane your neck and get a look at what’s happening, and all you see is a streak of cloudy steam from the sky to the mansion, now sporting a massive hole in its roof. There’s mass screaming loud enough to reach you, and from within, you hear the loud, booming laugh you’ve prayed you’d never hear in person.
“ I AM HERE! ”
Oh dear fuckin lord that’s All Might. All Smite, as the media likes to call him. The smiting almighty demon god death from above. You scramble through the hedge for dear life, curiosity overpowered by sheer survival instinct. Your expensive, slinky black dress is stuck with thorns and bramble, but your terror (and the sounds from behind you) completely robs you of any concern for your clothes. You say a quick thank you for the nature of your quirk, take your high heels in hand, and run.
You’re too pretty to be a casualty in an All Might event. If he has any sensibility beyond “wrathful beast”, he might even agree.
You’re at your apartment building before the late night turns into early dawn, for which you’re grateful. The building doesn’t look like much, it makes you climb up four flights of steps to get to your own apartment but as small as it is, you’ve done your best to make it cozy.
The place is as compact as possible for a one bedroom apartment without completely being a studio. You’ve got a tiny sitting room with a soft little couch, a 32-inch flatscreen, and a lamp. Warm lighting. Cozy and quaint. Some might even say…snug.
You kick off your shoes in your doorway, make sure your door is locked before you keel over on your couch (which is more a couch shaped bean bag chair than an actual sofa) and pull out your phone. The news is already all over it, of course. All Might hasn’t been sighted in months, and he hasn’t been sighted in Musutafu since… something like ever? He’s a city boy, that one, the terror of Tokyo and Kyoto and whatnot. But he’s done gone and busted down the doors of a private ball in a country estate, caused terror, carnage, and made the stock market collapse. Again.
Speculations say he’s finally taken notice of all the challenges the current number one hero, Endeavor, has been barking at him for years. That All Might has come to Endeavor’s quaint hometown retreat to do the ultimate beatdown, and maybe terrorize U. A. a bit while he’s at it. Strike some fear into the hearts of the children.
You wonder if it’s finally time to get off of your ass and move to another town. Or country.
If only Japan wasn’t an island. Illegal immigration is so much harder when they can see you swimming ashore. You imagine swimming to America, but All Might has minions there, too, and you’re really not fond of swimming that much. It really dries out your hair.
You’re so concerned about All Might and his appearance that you don’t even take the time to tip your purse over on your bed and gloat over your stolen treasures. You’re in no hurry to sell them, right now- it might be best to lay low for a few days, although in a way, he’s done you a favor. Nobody will bat an eye at missing jewelry at the scene of such terror as All Might’s. Even the more reasonable people that you stole from might attribute their missing things to all the commotion and carnage at the scene. You’re not really sure if you’ve heard of All Might committing robberies, but you and he would make an excellent team.
As the adrenaline wears off, you wander into your bedroom with your purse of goodies, idly wondering if you’ve ever heard of All Might actually teaming up with anyone, at all. He seems almost a natural disaster rather than a villain- arriving in random places, terrifying people, sometimes flicking lowlife villains to their deaths if they get in his way.
You’re still thinking about him when you doze off into an uneasy sleep.
—
You blink at the message from one of your market contacts.
“R u dead”, it reads. “Heard All Might crashed ur party,” comes the next text, and your heart all but melts with his worry for you. You toss your phone away and it bounces off your bed- whoops- to land with a thud on your carpeted bedroom floor. Ah, well.
Your phone continues to vibrate on the floor with incoming texts as you roll over and snuggle deeper into your bed, despite the fact that it’s probably closer to a normal going-to-bed time than a normal waking up time.
When you finally decide to get out of bed and drag yourself to the one slab of counter space you call a kitchen, it’s late late afternoon, and your stupid phone has a missed call from your contact.
“Another opportunity tonight,” his texts read. “Can get you in.”
“Too close in time,” you text back.
“Just show face,” he responds. “Connection opportunity.”
It’s something to think about. The game you play and the position you occupy in the social sphere of rich people in country houses is delicate- you have to be known enough to belong at fancy schmancy social events, but you have to be unknown enough that nobody knows much about you. You have to leave multiple opportunities for theft alone because you can’t have a direct relationship established with your presence and missing valuables later in the night. Your contacts know as much, but you doubt they care. Petty black market criminals of that sort typically have short attention spans, anyway.
You crack your knuckles as you make coffee for the day.
What you need… is an investor. Someone to well and truly believe in your criminal potential. Someone to help you curate your opportunities. Who said hopes and dreams died during the quirk revolution?
More buzzing.
“GUH,” you say, exasperated at the man’s persistence… but it’s not him.
It’s one of the old socialite cradle robber slime balls who you occasionally like to go out with. Networking opportunity. Gold digger LinkedIn contact.
He’s sent you a sugary sweet drippy message about wanting to take you out to- surprise surprise- the same party that your contact mentioned.
You dump your coffee into your last clean mug, make a mental note to get to the damn dishes in the sink, and head off back to your bedroom to consider.
It doesn’t take you long to message back your assent to going to the party. It’ll be good for you- wear a tight dress, hang off your date’s arm, blink and pout like a moron. Feed your reputation of being a harmless bimbo. Since this is all part of your evil plan to be evil, you nod your head and let out a small evil laugh, reveling in your evil mastermind.
As you shower, you come to the conclusion that you’re like the villain version of Superman. It’s a wonderful boost to your ego as you go through the motions of picking out a dress (red, long, fitted), accessories, and doing your hair and makeup.
“Femme fatale,” you say to yourself, making finger guns at your reflection in the mirror. You plaster on the dumbest, poutiest look on your face as your date texts you he’s outside, grabbing your little purse as you head out.
Perhaps a more intellectual person than you may have found it demeaning to behave in this manner- but you have a broken sense of humour and find endless amusement in playing dumb, batting your lashes at your much older date as he showers praise on your looks.
The radio is set to the news station in his car, and All Might’s name immediately catches your attention.
“Don’t be frightened, darling,” your date laughs, voice laced with condescension. “He was sighted on the other side of Mt Fuji after his stunt last night, so he’s far away from us now.”
You refrain from pointing out that if he can be on the other side of Mt. Fuji in a few hours, he can also be back in a few hours.
But it’s all well and good as you arrive at the party, this time in a smaller estate closer to the town. Your date introduces you smilingly to the host, a short bald man with huge glasses and a truly ridiculous moustache. Still, in an effort to leave your bullying tendencies behind you, you only smile when he takes your hand in his and kisses your knuckle.
—
The doors slam open, and in the split second that everyone is silenced from surprise, two fluffy, blond, upright bangs come into view. The crowd parts like the Red freaking Sea for Moses as All Might walks in, taking quick strides towards the center of the room.
“I- I need- I can’t use my quirk!” someone shrieks, and chaos breaks out.
Your coward of a date practically shoves you into the wall in his haste to make a break for it, and it’s every man for himself as you struggle to kick off your high stilettos and take cover somewhere.
You may as well be in the savannah in the stampede that killed Mufasa because you get pushed, shoved, pulled, elbowed, and eventually mashed against a wall as people trample their way out. You duck into a narrow hallway that does not seem to lead to any exits. It’s a good place to wait out the crowd, and you’re pretty certain it’s too narrow to fit All Might’s hulking frame, so you’re safe.
Safe from All Might.
But it’s true what they say, sometimes you are your own worst enemy.
You peer into the length of the hallway, sparsely dotted with doors. Everyone is too busy screaming their heads off and running, including the security personnel (who were likely expecting to roll their eyes at rich people tonight, and not actually do any work).
He’s the perfect distraction.
With a cursory glance over your shoulder, you sling your stilettos over your shoulder with one hand and break into a soundless sprint.
The first door you try is locked.
You have two options. You could try to speedrun this, glance into rooms for anything valuable and fuck off before All Might got into an exploring mood. Or you could take advantage of the commotion, dig out the lockpick set nestled into your purse, and rob these people blind.
Hehe.
There are few things in the world that you cannot rely on your two greatest assets for- your quirk, and your natural beauty. A locked door is one of them- its keyhole is a hundred times too small to squeeze through, and it does not respond to flirtation. To overcome this natural weakness, you’ve invested a healthy amount of time in your lockpicking skills, including literally investing in a high end kit with tools suited to breaking into commercial locks, to say nothing of residential.
So you’re surprised when this random locked door in someone’s house is difficult to open. You go through a few different picks to finally bust through, anticipation building in your gut about what could possibly be hiding behind such an expensive, hard to pick lock.
When the door finally swings open, you’re awfully disappointed at the sight of a white, sterile, almost entirely empty room. There’s a metal table and chair in the corner, the kind you’d find in a cheap office supply shop. Tentatively, you step inside, quirk active. You sense no danger, so you pad in further, quickly sweeping the room. You deactivate your quirk as you venture into the room, saving it for later.
There’s another door over by the back wall, and this one is unlocked. You open it to step into another hallway- goddamn, this would be a great place to film a slasher- and you’re now certain of finding something valuable in these halls, because you dash in deeper, not sparing a thought to how you’re going to navigate your way out.
“What nosy guests I seem to have invited into my home,” calls out a voice, and you tense. You hadn’t sensed his presence from where he bears down on you, cornering you in the hallway. It’s your host, and his physical idiosyncrasies are less funny when he’s cornering you in a hallway in his home, two muscled thugs on either side of him.
You hadn’t sensed them at all.
It was almost as if they were cloaked in some way, completely off your radar.
Your quirk rings a bell in your head. It’s warned you of danger before- indeed, your quirk’s inbuilt danger sense is probably the only reason you’ve evaded identification and arrest for so long- but this is different. You can feel your fingers and toes grow cold from your body redirecting circulation, and yet your muscles stiffen like never before- you’re frozen.
As the short bald man (you’d be mocking him if your vocal cords were cooperating) turns away, his goons advance upon you, hunger in their eyes.
“See if her quirk is worth something,” says Baldie, “if not, she is all yours.”
Your quirk?
Your quirk.
It kicks into overdrive, and with catlike agility, you leap to your feet and dash away from the advancing men, even managing to kick one in the shin as you move away. He yelps in pain as his goon friend tries to pivot to get you, but your quirk is active, and you’re impossible to grab.
If only you hadn’t wandered in so deep.
You race through the hallways, but your brain isn’t working, and you have no idea where you’re going. The inner hallways stretch out now like a dimly lit maze, and the blood pumping in your body makes it impossible to stop and think.
Your quirk is wearing out on you. You feel your time limit approaching, feel your senses dulling back into a normal human’s, but your heart is still pounding, blood still rushing to your head. You think you see the hallway that leads to the ballroom, though, so you put your last bit of will into keeping your quirk going as you break into a dead sprint for it.
Not your finest moment. You’re stopped by a much larger, terrifying looking man who takes advantage of your sprint to trip you up. You shriek on your way down and claw the man’s leg as he pulls you up, screaming and cussing right back at you. You aim your nails at his eyes, but before you can get there, a shadow falls over the both of you.
“Picking on little girls, now?” he rumbles, and never in your life did you think you would be happy to see All Might, but here you are.
He’s about twice as large as any man has business being, bright blue eyes that shine into your soul. He simply stands, flexing a ripple through his muscles, and the man holding you drops you into a heap on the floor.
He begins to back up, but All Might simply grabs the front of his shirt and tosses him aside like a pillow. The man hits a wall and crumples to the floor, and All Might’s piercing blue gaze falls on you.
He grins.
He must hear something you don’t, because he cocks one blond eyebrow in the direction of the hallway and cracks his knuckles. You’re sure he’s forgotten you’re here, but as he strides past you, he gives you a glance, and a…wink?
—
How does one find someone as elusive as All Might? You’d think a man seven feet tall would be easy to spot, but he’s surprisingly good at laying low. The good thing is, you know his scent- woodsy, a classy cedar and pine cologne that may just be custom made. Notes of aqua and spice. With your quirk, you can enhance your senses to encompass the city, maybe the prefecture- not that you’re looking forward to the sensory overload. But he hasn’t been sighted anywhere else since last night, so you try tuning into the city.
You are immediately assailed by scent and sound- a child wailing for mochi, working men piling into trains, a baker experimenting with sponge cakes, smoke from car exhausts, cedarwood, pine, and spice.
Picking him out from a sea of scent and sound is no small feat, but you’re a stubborn motherfucker.
He’s smoking- his woodsy scent mingles closely with tobacco, which is easier to follow with its distinctness and strength. He’s not far- you’re going to need to hop into a cab, but it should take you about ten minutes to make your way down the exact alleyway in Musutafu where All Might is skulking, his great figure slouched against a wall, cigarette comically tiny in his large hands.
You turn your quirk off as you tumble out of the cab, pay your fare, and slip into the shaded alleyway. You didn’t really expect to find All Might out in the city in broad daylight, but he looks surprisingly unrecognizable out of costume, wearing jeans, a white shirt, leather jacket, and ballcap to conceal his signature bangs. He looks up as you make a beeline for him, brows furrowed in recognition.
“You should make me your sidekick,” you proclaim, puffing out your chest. All Might gawks at you. This is your first sign of encouragement- you’ve caught him by surprise.
“No,” he says, almost in disbelief, turning around to walk away from you.
“I can squeeze through tight places,” you tell him, jogging to keep up with his strides.
“So can I,” he gruffs out.
“No, you can’t,” you say, not even needing to eye up his gargantuan form to make your point. “You seem about as agile and flexible as a gorilla- in a nice way,” you add, as he turns his head ever so slightly to flash you an electric blue stink eye.
“Heroes have sidekicks. Villains have henchmen they sacrifice in a wink. You want me to toss you to Endeavor to be used for kindling?”
“You’re not a villain,” you pant. “I sense no danger from you.”
“That’s because you’re an idiot.”
He walks faster, making for the back alleys where he probably hopes to lose you. You break into a sprint behind him.
“My quirk-” you offer, panting slightly, “my quirk is called Overdrive- it lets me enhance my senses and physical abilities. Either all at once, or one at a time. I can enhance by body, my sight, scent, my sense of danger-”
All Might turns his head towards you sharply, and if anyone asks, you’ll swear that the sheer motion of his thick neck turning his giant head generated enough aerodynamic force to knock you flat on your ass. Because you definitely haven’t fallen back out of fear, no sir.
He looks you up and down appraisingly. You look like a beautiful young woman- va va voom, some might even say- sultry makeup, gorgeous silhouette, classy but ever so teasingly cut top under a fitting leather jacket.
You sound like a massive pain in the ass.
He narrows his eyes as you bite your lower lip in a mock seductive motion, but quickly forgo it for a laugh.
“I don’t have time for brats like you,” he grouses, turning away again.
You’re on your feet in a flash, but All Might chooses this exact moment to blast off, this time actually generating enough force to knock you back on your butt. Again.
You’re gonna send him the bill for the butt cushion you’re gonna need to sit on for the next few days.
—
U. A. High School no longer tries to boast the power and wealth it once attempted to flaunt. Mostly because their power and wealth has run out. At the beginning of the quirk revolution, pro-heroism had seemed like a lucrative career choice. Now, the elite no longer want to risk them and theirs training to become punching bags for villains and the like. The wealth, privilege, and fame that pro-heroism had tried to promise failed at the outset, and even the likes of U.A. had the good sense to divest from their pro-hero propaganda machine.
If only Endeavor would take the hint.
In an alternate universe somewhere, All Might would be right up there in the ranks of the heroes. Perhaps a shining beacon of hope and light and goodness- he laughs, swinging his legs slightly off of the ledge of the tower. In an alternate universe, perhaps, but this All Might knows to fight fire with fire, and villainy with villainy.
Ah, but in an alternative universe somewhere, All Might is a hero beloved by the masses, swooned over by women, adored by- wait, who’s narrating-?
You stop your commentary as All Might turns his head in astonishment, shit-eating grin on your face as you stand just a few feet behind him on top of one of U. A’s towers.
“You can’t be my sidekick,” he groans, exasperated. “Go do whatever babes do in their downtime and stop bothering me.”
You light up.
“You think I’m a babe ?” and oh he’s really gone and done it for himself now-
“You think I’m preeettyyy ?” you laugh, delighted.
“Fuck off, brat-”
But he doesn’t blast off the way he’s wont to do, so you take it as a good sign to sit down beside him, curling your arms around his giant bicep to keep yourself steady.
“I don’t have time to make sure you don’t die trying to keep up with me,” he says, scowling at you. He wonders why he hasn’t tossed you off this roof yet. It’s really not a good look to say he’s just too surprised by your audacity to really do something about you, but he is- so he lets you cling to his arm as you yap his ear off about what a good time you’d make.
You’re good at sneaking in places and committing petty theft, which to be fair, is a skillset he could use whilst trying to find out All for One’s current plans. But he shakes the thought out of his head before he takes it seriously, finally plucking you up to place you safely away from the edge of the roof before he blasts off again.
Damn brat.