Chapter Text
Everything started out fairly innocuous, all things considered. It was the beginning of the weekend and there were things to be done before you could take the time to fully relax. A trip to the grocery store, some cleaning around the house.
You tried not to think about tomorrow’s date, the ever present stain on the calendar that had filled each iteration of this month with dread and sorrow for nearly a decade now.
…It was probably about time to visit Mrs. Midoriya wasn’t it? The thought made your heart sink to the bottom of your rib cage.
It wasn’t that you didn’t like seeing her, she was a sweet lady who was always a delight to talk to, you just knew that both of you would end up crying the entire time. A repetitive cycle that happened every year.
With a deep breath, you drove those thoughts to the back of your mind. Now was not the time. Lemons and apples. I’m here for lemons and apples.
You double-checked the contents of the shopping basket hanging from your arm. instant ramen, melatonin gummies, tissues. The latter item was definitely a necessity for tomorrow.
“Nope, no. Not thinking about that,” you muttered, grabbing a random lemon from the display stand and sticking it in the basket.
A woman in the banana section gave you an odd look, but returned to her shopping upon noticing the earbuds you were wearing. They weren’t on of course, but as evidenced by this non-interaction they were still an excellent people deterrent.
Small talk was the bane of your existence. Well, to be fair it was probably the bane of most people’s existences—but if that was the case then why did everyone fall back on it in conversations?
Lost in your thoughts, you didn’t notice the person beside you…until you nearly crashed into them.
They turned to look at you, a kid who had run off from their parent’s side…and for a moment, you saw him. A little fourteen year old boy with a mop of green hair, freckles, and a smile that could rival the sun.
You blinked, and he was gone.
This child wasn’t him of course, they were even younger than he had been when…
“Miss, are you feeling okay?”
Dazed, you could only offer a nod and a consolatory smile in response to the boy’s question. Taking a shaky breath and blinking half-formed tears away from your eyes. “Yes, I’m sorry. You just looked like someone I knew for a second.”
The preteen gave you a dubious look, but offered no further commentary as he trudged back over to his mother. Rolling his eyes at something she said.
You turned your gaze away from the domestic scene and back to the shopping basket, eyes once more landing on the box of tissues tucked inside. Perhaps it would be a good idea to get two.
…
Musutafu wasn’t the safest place to walk the streets alone at night, but it was a lot better compared to say, Hosu City. U.A. was there, for one, which meant there were a lot of eager trainee heroes and their teachers galavanting around. That could be either good or bad, depending on the day.
You didn’t have anything against heroes, most of them were doing very honorable work and you admired that about them. Sometimes though…they could be incredibly annoying.
Like right now for instance.
“GET BACK HERE AND FIGHT ME YOU PUNK-ASS LOSER!”
A series of rapid-fire explosions followed this unnecessarily loud declaration as you watched, unamused, from the crosswalk. The same crosswalk you had been waiting at for the past fifteen minutes because this irritatingly violent hero couldn’t be bothered to wrap up his fight with any sense of punctuality.
You knew who he was of course, everyone did. The hero with a ridiculously long and childish name whom the populace simply referred to as ‘Dynamight’. Or as you remembered him, your best friend’s childhood bully. Bakugo Katsuki.
Currently engaged in a battle to the near death with an entirely unwilling small-time crook whose crimes you were unsure of—though hardly anyone was ever deserving of Katsuki’s misplaced rage—and who was trying with no small amount of desperation to escape the immediate vicinity.
All other passersby had fled long ago, leaving you growing increasingly irritated because this fight was occurring right outside your apartment building. You had the displeasure of explaining this to a cop that had approached you several minutes earlier, instructing you to evacuate to the nearest safe place. That same officer was now standing awkwardly next to you, unsure of what to do next.
Another chain of explosions went off, lighting up the night and flooding the air with the smell of sulfur and burning metal. If he damaged your apartment there was a chance that you would actually consider murdering him.
Finally, finally, the fight came to an end when the criminal lay spread-eagled on the ground and gave up, afraid to run any longer. Honestly that was probably the smartest decision he’d made today.
Police swarmed around him, handcuffing and dragging the man away as the press pounced on Bakugo. Inundating him with questions you didn’t care to listen to.
“I’ll escort you across the street now,” the officer beside you spoke up, seemingly regaining their confidence now that their colleagues had taken control of the situation.
Shifting the weight of the shopping bags you were carrying to your opposite arm, you gave them a brief nod and let them walk you back to your building. Craving a warm meal, and maybe a cup of coffee. You probably weren’t going to get much sleep tonight anyways.
Then, as you were crossing the street you made a mistake. You looked back at Bakugo and to your surprise, caught him staring back at you with an unreadable expression. Time didn’t slow down like it does in movies—instead it sped up alongside your heart rate as you turned quickly away.
Does he remember me? You squashed the thought just as swiftly as it came. It didn’t matter whether he did or not, in fact you would prefer if he didn’t. You hadn’t spoken to each other since the funeral eight years ago and that was for a reason.
It was hard to determine if you blamed Katsuki for what happened. The compassionate and forgiving answer should be no, but you weren’t a very forgiving person. You understood perfectly, all of you were dumb teenagers with incredibly low critical thinking skills and even lower morality.
In any other situation—in any other circumstance, you wouldn’t have held onto a grudge for so long. But someone had died. No, not just someone. Your best friend. A person who had called Katsuki a friend, despite everything that had happened. Despite everything he’d done.
Thinking about this was going to make you cry again.
Shaking your head, you stalked into your building without another word or backward glance, not even thanking the officer as you left them behind. You could feel guilty later, right now you were going to get that cup of coffee.
…
One cup ramen and two heart-stopping shots of espresso later and you were feeling incredibly restless. This wasn’t exactly a surprise, but it was disappointing. You hadn’t wanted to go out tonight, but with every passing minute it became less of a choice and more of a necessity.
Memories swirled around inside of your head, dragged to the surface by tonight’s unwanted encounter. It would be best if you could take your mind off of things in a moderately healthy way.
With this in mind, you dug around in the back of your closet and pulled out a small shoebox neatly stacked under a pile of identical containers.
Popping the lid open, you dumped the contents into your lap. A breathable black stealth outfit complete with a hood and an exorbitant amount of pockets, and at the bottom…a gleaming silver mask.
You weren’t necessarily proud of being a vigilante, it was an indicator of an imperfect society and also something you could easily get arrested for, but there was still that thrill of excitement you got every time you saw your costume. Homemade and hand-stitched entirely by you—as evidenced by the lopsided hemming and stretched out fabric of the hood. It wasn’t like you were an expert sewer, but it was pretty cool all things considered.
It took you only a minute and a half to change, a record undoubtedly influenced by the coffee you’d downed the hour previously, and less time than that to get up to the roof and start leaping across the buildings.
Urban parkour was a glorious thing and just the first of many perks of your secret ‘job’. Another great benefit was the instantaneous stress relief that came alongside beating minor league villains up.
Tonight was going exceptionally well. You managed to nab a petty thief, an amateur bank robber, and a creepy guy who was following a teenage girl, without having to draw your weapons once. Which was great. As much as you loved the chance to show off your little darlings, the only real reason to do so was when you were facing off against someone significantly dangerous.
Generally your seven years of martial arts experience was enough to take down the small fry that hung around your area of the city, but you were never one to back down from a situation where a civilian was at risk.
So when you heard a cry for help coming from a dark alley a little past midnight, you didn’t hesitate to rush across the rooftops towards the source. You crouched over the patch of darkness to see what was going on below, hands poised over the dual sheaths on your belt.
An eerie silence had fallen over the sliver of street wedged in between two buildings, sending a rare feeling of trepidation nagging at the back of your mind. You quickly brushed it aside. This was no time for hesitation, someone could be in serious trouble.
Besides, it wasn’t like you could call for backup…
Rising to your feet, you activated your quirk. A bright ball of (f/c) fire burst forth from your hand and you hurled it into the alley below. A few startled shouts rose up and four freshly illuminated figures turned to look at where you were standing.
But you were already long gone.
You snuck swiftly down the nearest fire escape, focusing on the feeling of rushing flames and letting it spread through your mind. Warmth swept through your body, comforting and incendiary at the same time.
“Put it out!” one of them shouted, their panicked exclamation swiftly followed by the sound of stamping feet.
They weren’t trying to catch you specifically then. If they had been, then they would have been much better informed than this.
Landing softly on the ground, you paused right outside the alleyway. Attacking ordinary civilians would be incredibly bad and you needed a little more evidence before blindly striking out at them.
“Help!” someone within the group screamed, sounding entirely too young.
“Shut them up!” a deeper voice growled, and that was all the confirmation you needed.
With a sharp twist, you whirled around the corner and crashed into the closest person, knocking them straight to the ground and into the fast growing fire. They cried out in pain, covering their face as it crawled inside their mouth. As if it possessed limbs to crawl with. As if it was alive.
There was a reason you didn’t attempt to enroll into any hero programs after your middle school graduation, a reason why you chose to fight for your city under the cover of darkness instead. Your quirk…wasn’t exactly what most people thought of when they heard the word ‘hero’. It was a strange blend of your parent’s powers, an amalgamation of two perfectly acceptable abilities that became something other when mixed together.
Your mother had a completely average fire-wielding quirk that allowed her to summon and manipulate basic instances of the element. Potentially useful in many industries—though she herself had chosen to be an accountant for some reason—and not that uncommon.
Your father had one that was a little more rare, but still not unreasonable. Simply put, his quirk gave him the power to form a mental connection with things. Exactly what kinds of things were still being put to debate at every family dinner, but there were a few clear examples. Babies, any animal larger than a mouse, and the occasional plant if it desired something strongly enough.
So when you were four years old it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when you were suddenly able to not just create fire, but to converse with it.
Fire was not like flora or fauna life, because it wasn’t alive at all. Nor was it sentient. It did not possess urges or instinct, and carried no goals of destruction or of propagation. Despite this, there was a feeling contained within it, a spark of something that was not a conscious mind…but rather the reflection of one.
This was true for all versions of it that you had ever come across in the last twenty years of your life, so it wasn’t just a unique feature of your own fire. They all reacted the same way, and emanated the same strange aura. As to whether that aura was something it came by naturally, or something you brought out in it…well that was a question that might never be answered.
Whatever the case, it listened to you as a sparrow listens to the warning cries of its brethren. Fervently, and with urgent understanding.
As the first person writhed on the ground, you took the opportunity to lunge at the second one. Silver flashed in the darkness, and you spun to the left to avoid getting stabbed by a blade.
So they want to play with knives then.
Metal scraped against leather as you drew one of your own weapons—an elongated dagger curved in the shape of a crowbar with splintered and serrated edges—flattening low against the concrete and swiping at their ankles.
The blade passed right through as the person collapsed into a pile of sticky flesh, surging towards you in a sickeningly fast motion. You leapt backwards, slamming your shoulder into the brick wall behind you.
Sensing your panic, the fire currently crawling down the first figure’s throat flung itself forward and collided with the noxious creature the person had become. The smell of burning flesh enveloped the alley and you held your hand out, calling the fire back. You weren’t trying to kill anybody.
As the strange substance of human goo slowly reformed itself into their original shape, you turned to the last two people in the alley. Your heart stopped as you saw that the taller figure had something sharp pressed to the other’s neck.
“Move, and I’ll cut his throat,” they hissed in a distinctly male sounding voice, though you noticed their arm was trembling.
The fire slithered up your arm and coiled around your neck like a particularly protective pet snake. It branched out behind you in a fiery scarf, awaiting your next order.
“What do you want?” you finally spoke, mechanical mask distorting your voice in a way that made it sound like your tongue and teeth were made of steel. He flinched at the sound of it and took a subtle step back.
“Put your weapon down and put your hands up in the air!” he instructed, gesturing to the blade in your dominant hand.
“Your voice is trembling,” you observed, eyes sliding down from his obscured face down to the captive in his arms. “If I do what you tell me to, what’s to stop you from killing them anyways?”
“I guess you’ll just have to find out, won’t you?” The man smirked, digging the knife deeper into their throat.
“No.”
He stopped, clearly confused. The person in his grasp froze. “What?”
“I said, no.” You slipped the twisted dagger back into the sheath at your hip and folded your arms defiantly.
“But you’re a hero?” The man’s voice tilted the words up so that they sounded like a question.
“Vigilante actually, big distinction there. I’m not professionally obligated to save anyone. Besides, this is all a set up.”
As you spoke, the recently solidified person behind you struggled to get to their feet. They made a motion as if to attack, but the fire scarf around your neck flared out and they scrambled away. Further behind you, the first thug you’d attacked was still collapsed on the concrete, coughing rather concerningly.
For some reason if you asked it politely your fire would refrain from burning anyone—which was what you did when it crawled into that person’s mouth—but the smoke could also significantly hurt them.
I need to learn to hold back a little.
“What do you mean a set up?” the man spluttered, and you turned back to him with a bored look. “I have a knife to this boy’s throat, and you’d just let him die?!”
You shot an apprehensive glance back at the alley entrance. “Fine, I’ll just recount your whole scheme back to you then shall I?”
“First of all, this entire place is the definition of sketchy. If someone wanted to commit a crime—this is where they would do it.”
“…am I not committing a crime?” the man asked with a false expression of bewilderment plastered all over his scheming face.
“You wanted a hero to show up, hence the single lackluster cry of ‘help’.” You waved a hand in the air dismissively. “Besides, your captive doesn’t look even the slightest bit scared.”
The petty criminal growled and shoved the younger male roughly to the side. “I knew you were useless, I should’ve told your father to just shove his favor up his—where do you think you’re going?!”
You dashed around the corner, ignoring the man’s yelling. The distant sounds of sirens were growing as loud as your grin was wide and cop cars screeched into the alley entrance.
Before you ran headfirst into such a pathetically identifiable trap you’d decided to make a quick call to the police. You were a vigilante after all, you couldn’t exactly perform a citizen’s arrest.
Now, it was time to return home so you could at least get a few solitary hours of sleep in before tomorrow.
Something was off when you slipped in through the window. Nothing immediately stood out as wrong, but your instincts were trying to tell you that something was up. And after being in the business of late night crime fighting for so long, you had learned to listen to them.
With one hand on the hilt of your blade, you landed softly against the floor of your bedroom. One step, two steps, each a slow measured movement to prevent any potential intruders from raising their guards.
There were no sounds at all, which was somehow even scarier. If it were a lot more obvious that someone had broken in then you would at least be able to follow the noise. For now though, you were going in blind.
Ever so slowly, you twisted the knob of your bedroom door and slipped through the gap. No one immediately materialized out from the darkness to hit you over the head with your own frying pan, so your anxiety eased up a little. But not completely.
You checked the bathroom first just to get it out of the way—no scary murderer hiding behind the shower curtain, thank god—and then cautiously crept down the hall to the kitchen.
Deep breath, and go. You quickly dashed to the light switch and flicked it on. No one was there, and nothing looked out of place. All that was left now was the living room.
If anyone was in the apartment they definitely knew you were there now, so you didn’t bother with any subtlety, choosing to just run straight into the room.
Eyes flashed in the shadows and your heart dropped to the bottom of your ribcage as you stepped back, hand reaching for the lightswitch. There was a blur of movement as the lights came on and—a small furry body wound around your leg.
You let out a shaky exhale. “Hello Corn, glad to see you’ve been taking care of the place while I was gone.”
Your pet cat, Cornelius Stripington III meowed as if to say, well of course, what do you take me for?
Cornelius was a long-haired yellow and orange tabby cat who was infamous around your circle of friends for being a coward. If even the slightest noise gave him cause for alarm—or if someone he didn’t know stepped foot through the door, he would bury himself in the laundry basket until his tiny little heart rate came back down from the clouds.
It took months for him to get used to the sound of you coming home every night, so you knew for a fact that if anyone had broken into your place tonight he would not be this calm.
“Good boy,” you praised, running a hand along his back and letting your own pulse return to normal.
You were still going to have to check every valuable item in your apartment to fully feel at ease again, but at least you could relax a little with Cornelius here.
If everything was in place then you would have absolutely no reason to stress about this anymore. After all, why would someone break into your house if they weren’t trying to steal something?