Chapter Text
Mina watched the man schmooze. He sat at the most central grouping of sofas on the club floor, his leg casually crossed over the other, two women occupying the cushions at either side of him, his arms along the sofa back lightly encircling them. There were others in his entourage. It seemed he came in with a famous rising pop star, who entertained his own gaggle of admirers.
Mina squinted at the computer screen, at the windows showing the security camera footage all around her club. She zoomed in, her lip curling slightly as she watched the man’s slick grin.
Eijirou had a hip leaned on the desk beside her, his arms crossed over his broad chest, his foot tapping restlessly.
“I’m going,” he said, straightening.
Mina grasped his hand before he could move. “Not yet,” she said. “Give him more time to relax.”
”He looks pretty fucking relaxed.”
They watched one of Mina’s servers bring him a cocktail and he winked. His mouth moved but she rolled her eyes and sauntered away. Mina’s girls knew how to handle these people.
Mina tapped her finger on the cover of the file that had been sitting on her desk all night. Inside the file was a bio of the man in question, a photo clipped to the packet, and pages upon pages of information Izuku had dug up.
Monoma Neito. That was his name.
Thirty-three, single, no living parents. He’d graduated high school and all record of him went silent until five years ago.
His name hadn’t been in any college registries, was listed on no company payrolls, and up until five years ago, no active residence licenses.
How could a person exist until age eighteen, disappear off the grid, and suddenly pop back up ten years later – with an entirely different life? Mina and company were all too familiar with those patterns.
When Monoma came back on the scene at age twenty-eight it started with a rental contract for a condo in a wealthy Tokyo district and a new valid residence license. Then, strange things started happening with him.
They called him the Genius Jack of all Trades. Izuku found reports of Monoma attending a fairly well-known magician’s show in a swanky hotel. He’d climbed on stage and rivaled the magician in tricks and feats even the magician himself was astounded at. That got him a few joint shows, and then there were reports of him meeting an artist. Suddenly, the artist held a performance art exhibition in which he and Monoma stunned audiences by creating near identical artworks. They’d billed Monoma as a regular unknown, as if he were a carnival sideshow.
Monoma’s bank account began increasing.
It went like this for years. Monoma grew in popularity, each year stepping into a new arena and shocking all with his apparent instant mastery of a given art form.
This time, he’d been invited to a pop star’s concert. This pop star was known for powerhouse vocals, a “once in a generation talent.”
Monoma had swaggered on stage and the country watched this jack of all trades sing alongside the pop star, copying perfectly his unique singing techniques and inhuman vocals.
Which brought him here, tonight, to one of the most popular clubs in Shinjuku, Acid Pink. Owned by the eccentric Ashido Mina, famous for her iron fist and unconventional looks.
The unconventional Mina watched on the cameras as Monoma enjoyed himself. Her brow furrowed. If he’d been harassing guests or her employees then she would have good reason to send Eijirou down to pull him aside. But Monoma didn’t touch a single person, despite having those girls nearly in his lap, his hands stayed on the sofa back except when they were holding a drink. His entourage were constantly amused by him, showing no signs of insult.
Mina huffed.
“Alright, fine. Let’s go.”
She stood and smoothed her hands down her dress, her jewelry tinkling on her wrists. On the club floor, her pink skin would blur against the pulsing lights. She’d forgone a wig – she barely wore them anymore – and her pink hair was fluffed around her shoulders.
She touched the earpiece in her ear. “Deku, we’re leaving my office. Approaching target for extraction. Rendezvous at position Alpha.”
Izuku’s voice crackled into hers and Eijirou’s ears. “Mina,” he sighed, “You don’t have to talk like that. We don’t even talk like that.”
She pouted as Eijirou poorly smothered a chuckle. “This is my first mission in ages, and you could barely call it that. Let me have this.”
”I’ll be waiting at the car.”
They entered the elevator for the short ride down to the club floor. Mina pulled her shoulders back and prepared to put on her club owner’s smile.
“Mina,” Eijirou said in a low voice that she instantly recognized for the warning he was about to impart. “Don’t provoke him.”
She smiled up at her big, pouty worrywart. “Provocation is the name of this game, babe.”
”You know what I mean.”
She pushed up, even in her heels, to kiss his jaw. “He’s not violent, Ei. He’s a schmoozer, not a fighter.” She gave his thick bicep a squeeze to prove the difference between the huge, muscled Kirishima Eijirou, known affectionately to her employees as Dragon, and the slim, elegant man they’d seen on social media articles and the security cams, who looked more suited to a chaise lounge than a back alley brawl.
“Besides, he’s one of us,” she added.
“You also know that that means he doesn’t have to be physically strong to cause damage. And we don’t know for sure yet that he is one of us.”
”If it looks like a duck. I’ll prove that he’s one of us, and you and Deku will be witness to it.” They stepped out to the club floor and Mina pressed her hand to his chest, over the t-shirt and bomber jacket that made him look more like her bouncer than anything. “Relax your forehead, babe. Don’t give this rabbit a reason to run.”
Now in work mode, Mina strolled onto the floor and spent some time approaching her girls, making sure everything was going well, all with Monoma in her peripherals. She made a full round before swaying over to his section of sofas.
He saw her first, aiming his handsome face, with those puppy-like downturned blue eyes and radiantly white smile, at her.
“My,” he began, his silky voice weaving over the club’s music to her ears, “the illustrious Ashido Mina. I’m honored to meet you.”
She gave her best deceptively enchanted smile at him. “I’m older than you, young man. Show some respect.”
Monoma extricated himself expertly from the girls’ sides and stood. He gave her a slightly theatrical bow. “Not by much, as I understand. If you don’t mind informalities, then I don’t either.”
There, Mina noted. There it is.
He’d kept eye contact with her, and he didn’t react to her black and gold eyes that everyone reacted to, nor the horns twisting from her head, which everyone thought was a costume.
He’d reacted – flinched – to the tug in his chest that Mina also felt. Like someone wrapped a hand around her heart and tugged gently. Just once. But once was all the proof they needed.
He was a consummate showman. He hid any reaction to the tug, but the lingering shade of uncertainty remained in his eyes.
“Monoma Neito,” he told her, “but something tells me you already knew that.”
She tilted her head slightly. “It’d be surprising if I didn’t know. You’ve had quite the run about town.”
He chuckled. “Don’t make me sound washed up yet.”
Mina turned on her heel and began walking, and Monoma followed. Like they always did. Over her shoulder she said, “Let me buy you a drink, Mr. Monoma. I’d love to pick your brain.”
”An accomplished business owner like you would have little use for my brain.”
”On the contrary,” she said, signaling to her bartender with an experienced wave of her wrist, “I simply want to know how it is you do it.”
He smirked down at her and leaned in like they were sharing an intimate secret. “How I do what?”
”Do all those tricks, stunts, talents. Not even most geniuses can master all those skills in a moment.”
He shrugged. “I’m not like most geniuses.”
”You’re not. It’s like you have a superpower that those sheep can’t even fathom.”
His eyes tightened so slightly. “I’m hardly a wolf.”
”Not a wolf,” she said, holding his gaze, satisfied that his was becoming more ruffled. “More like a snake. A silver tongue. So tell me. How do you do it? Master all those talents?”
For the first time, he had no reply. His eyes shifted between each of hers. He was trying to read her. Mina had been in this business too long to be read.
Mina held her manicured nail over his drink. A droplet of cloudy acid dripped from the tip into his glass, sizzling on the ice cube. He’d watched it, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed.
“I have a superpower too, hon,” she said to him. “But mine’s not so pretty.”
His eyes tracked once more over her horns, her skin. But this time they lingered. “What are you?”
She smiled. “Rude. I asked you a question first.”
”If I have a superpower, I want to know who I’m telling it to.”
Monoma jolted, and he turned his chin abruptly to find Eijirou at his back, his arms crossed loosely, but his face hard as a threat. He’d have felt another tug in his chest when Eijirou approached.
“She asked you a question,” Eijirou said.
Monoma turned a guarded glare back to her.
“It’s alright, Ei. Don’t we always say that the first step to getting them to soften to us is to lay it all out at the start?” She gave Monoma a moment to say something. When he said nothing, she continued. “We’re called the Unnaturals Alliance. A network of people with rare, superhuman abilities. You’re like us. And we want you to know that you’re not alone.”
Monoma took it in stride. He said, “You want more than that. What do you want from me?”
”Nothing unsavory like you’re thinking. We just want to introduce you to the Alliance and add you to the Network. Think of it like a support group.”
”And if I decline?”
”You’re free to decline, but I don’t recommend doing that until you’ve at least learned a little more about us. You’ve been alone all your life, I’d bet. Thinking you’re the only one with a superpower. It’s lonely. I was there, I get it. We all were. Just hear us out.”
He glanced between Mina and Eijirou. “Tonight?”
She flashed a grin. “No better time than the present. Ei will drive us.”
”Isn’t he your bouncer?”
Ei growled and Monoma jumped a half step back from him.
Mina laughed. “Sweetie, he’s my husband. So behave.”
.
.
Neito stared up at the giant of a man and his red hair and lethal angles of his face. He looked like a brute from some adventure fantasy. He supposed he paired well with the pink skin, odd eyes, and horns that he started to suspect weren’t accessories of Acid Pink’s owner, Ashido Mina.
Superhuman abilities, huh, he wondered to himself. He’d watched the acid drip from her finger and knew that she had created it. What kind of ability was that? And the same tug in his chest when faced with her happened when faced with the giant, too. What was his ability? Neito wasn’t sure he wanted to know. But if he could just touch him and find out…
Ashido was subtly ushering him away from the bar, toward the doors. The giant followed them. Kirishima Eijirou. That was his name, she told him.
As they exited to the street, Kirishima wordlessly shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over Ashido’s shoulders. He approached a man leaning against a car.
This new man hovered somewhere between Ashido’s joviality and Kirishima’s stoicism.
Ashido said, “Monoma, this is Midoriya Izuku of the Alliance.”
Midoriya reached out a hand to shake, his mouth curving into a lopsided smile under big eyes.
Neito didn’t like touching people until he knew what he could be getting into. Midoriya smoothly lowered his hand, unaffected by the rebuff.
“You knew you could get me to come with you,” he observed to Ashido, who didn’t even have the decency to look a bit ashamed. “And you brought back up.”
”We’ve had runners in the past. You learn from it.”
”Why did they feel the need to run?”
Ashido waved a hand dismissively. “Look, hon. You’re not our captive. You may go at any time. But come with us this once. Just take a peek.”
Perhaps he couldn’t fight Kirishima, but he certainly could run if needed.
“Deku will take you in his car. We’ll meet you there.”
Kirishima and Ashido slid into a different car. Midoriya opened the passenger door and indicated to Neito to get in. He raised an eyebrow but did so.
Once he began driving, Neito cleared his throat and tried to put up a semblance of nonchalant confidence again.
“So,” he began. “Is your name Midoriya, or Deku?”
Midoriya chuckled. “Deku’s a nickname.” He glanced at him. “I’m glad you decided to come with us.”
”She didn’t really give me a choice.”
”Mina’s harmless. Most of the time.”
Neito watched the streets pass out the window for a moment. Then he said, “Superpowers. She said you all have abilities.”
”We do.”
”I take it hers is acid?”
”It is. Did she tell you about the price?”
He furrowed his brow. “No. The what?”
”Monoma, when you use your ability, does your body do something after that is out of your control? Happens every time, and you can’t stop it?”
Something anticipatory swirled in his stomach. He didn’t know whether it was a good or bad feeling yet.
Neito replied, “Maybe.”
Midoriya laughed. “No need to hedge around it. We all have an ability, and we all have a price for using it. It’s normal.”
”Then what’s Ashido’s?”
Midorya hummed. “We consider them to be personal, so usually I’d tell you to let her tell you herself, but in the interest of time, Mina makes acid, and in turn it transforms her body. Each use makes her more pink.”
Neito blinked. “It’s not makeup?”
He shook his head. Neito blew out a breath.
“What about you?”
Midorya smiled. “I have what you could call superstrength. It can manifest itself into a kind of energy whip. In turn for using the ability, I’ll one day have to give it up to a successor.”
He cocked his head. “How do you know that?”
”My mentor, who gave it to me, explained it. It’s a bit of a long story, which I would be happy to expand on later, if you’d like.”
Neito looked back out the window, trying not to let all the new information bog down his head.
“Monoma. Will you tell me yours?”
Neito ran his tongue around his teeth. “Where are you taking me exactly?”
”Alliance headquarters. Alliance members convene there, some people live there on the apartment floors, and it’s where we have labs and training centers to study our abilities.”
Cold anxiety slicked his stomach. “Study?”
”You’re not a guinea pig. It’s purely for science. To better understand ourselves and what we do, how we do it. But we won’t do anything with you unless you agree. First, the Alliance director, Aizawa, will want to speak with you.”
”What is it you all do then?”
”We’re a secret government branch. Well, certain parts of the government are aware of us, but it’s a strictly business relationship. We take on government missions that they don’t want to get involved in.”
Neito scoffed. “What, like black ops?”
”Sometimes.” Neito swallowed. “But most of the time missions are not dangerous. Recon, information gathering, acting as liaisons. That kind of thing.”
”You’re telling me all this pretty openly.”
”Monoma, I won’t pretend that everyone will be as welcoming as I am, but I believe we’re all meant to help each other. We do help each other. We’re a societal rarity, and we have to stick together. If you, at all, feel inclined to that, then give us a chance.”
Neito didn’t reply.
Midoriya pulled into an underground parking garage, Kirishima’s car behind him. The place looked like a workshop, with many motorcycles and lockers lining the walls.
The three Alliance members exited the cars, and Neito followed, more slowly.
“This way,” Midoriya said with a smile, toward the elevator.
”It’s midnight,” Neito said once they were all in.
“Aizawa barely sleeps,” Ashido said. “Besides, he likes to meet newbies as soon as possible.”
A guy who barely sleeps and will meet new members at midnight? What was this guy, deranged on cocaine?
When the elevator stopped, the three moved ahead of him, once again letting him follow. It looked like a normal office building.
Kirishima knocked on a door. A muffled admission came from the other side.
He opened the door, wordlessly motioned Neito in with a jerk of his head.
He tried not to feel like a cornered rabbit.
Inside, a single man leaned back against his desk, ankles crossed, arms crossed. Neito blinked. This man was the opposite of hyped up on cocaine.
Dark circles under the most tired eyes he’d ever seen. As if they’d woken him up from sleep. If that was true, then Neito guessed that it happened a lot around here. His long black hair and days of beard growth looked less like it was by design and more so because he didn’t think about trimming it.
And the scrutinizing glare he leveled on him…
Neito suppressed the shiver.
Midoriya said, “Monoma, this is Aizawa, our Alliance leader. Aizawa, Monoma Neito. As you know.”
”Welcome,” Aizawa said, albeit in monotone.
“Is he happy that I’m here or…”
Ashido laughed. “You get used to it.”
”Any complications?” Aizawa asked, like Neito wasn’t standing right there.
”None,” Ashido replied. “We got lucky this time.”
Neito cocked a brow at her. She simply grinned.
”So,” he began, the same way he had in the car. “Midoriya explained the superpowers to me.”
”And the price?” Aizawa added.
”Yeah. Is it safe to say everyone here has one?”
”Pretty much.”
”How many of us are there?”
”A few hundred,” Aizawa said. As monotone as he was, the man seemed to be forthcoming with information. “Though not everyone works directly for us.”
Midoriya added, “Members who live apart from headquarters, who don’t work as agents, are called the Network.”
”What’s the protocol then? I add my name to your little registry and then what? You send me on a mission?”
Ashido snickered.
Aizawa said, “Not exactly. We still don’t know what you do. For most people, we’ll spend some time with you, record your ability and price, and depending on your status we’ll help you control it, live with it, whatever it is you want help with. New members do not go on missions. If I deem you useful as an agent, then you may start on an agent training track.”
Neito glanced around. “So Midoriya is an agent because of his superstrength. Are Ashido and Kirishima agents?”
”Ei is,” Ashido chirped. “I’m… more like an on-call agent.”
”What does that mean?”
”It means if Aizawa wants to take you out, he calls me.”
Kirishima sighed, cracking the first faint smile Neito had seen from him so far.
“We’re not assassins,” Aizawa clarified, massaging the bridge of his nose. “Monoma, would you tell us what your ability is?”
Stalling a bit longer, Neito studied those around him a little more. Agents ostensibly had abilities useful to undercover work. Superstrength, sure. But as he studied Kirishima more, his curiosity got the better of him. What made Kirishima an agent? One would think he had the superstrength.
There was only one way to know. Neito strolled across the room to where the two of them stood. Without hesitating, he reached out and grabbed Kirishima’s wrist.
“Hey–” Kirishima jerked away, but Neito was already tuning him out.
This wasn’t like taking those small talents – the art, the acrobatics, the singing. Those were pedestrian talents. What began flowing in his veins was a feeling unlike he’d ever experienced. It made him laugh incredulously.
Neito clenched his fist, and the flesh, the skin hardened, all the way up his arm beneath his blazer sleeve. He wiggled his fingers, knocking his knuckles against the back of his hand. It was like knocking on metal. He gave his open palm a test punch and he knew that if he hit someone it would hurt. He wondered if he was bullet proof.
His head spinning with the euphoric power of it, he reached out and grabbed Ashido’s hand. Again, he was barely aware of their protests as he held up his hands and gloves of acid slipped around his fingers, his palms. The same acid he’d witness drip from her finger coated his hands, which he flexed open and closed.
But then the acid sizzled on his blazer sleeve and he shook his hands.
Ashido said, “Hey, watch it! That’s dangerous–”
The acid disappeared, but the… Neito supposed he could call it the price now – tingled up his arms, into his chest. His heart beat faster like a runaway train and since Ashido was in front of him, he grabbed the sides of her face and crushed his mouth to hers, kissing her like a drowned man gasping for air.
It wasn’t anything personal, the kiss. Sure, she was a beauty, despite the black eyes and pink skin, and he enjoyed bantering with her, but this kiss was to serve a purpose. He could have chosen Kirishima, but that seemed like the worse of the two options.
Neito normally tried to aim his kisses at unattached folks, for this very reason.
A fist in his shirtfront shoved him away from Ashido and Neito grinned apologetically at Kirishima’s fairly murderous expression, lifting his hands in surrender.
In the interest of protecting his face, Neito backed up further away from them.
And the door at their back opened once again.
Two people came in, one of them a young woman with long angelic white hair and bright eyes. The other a man who seemed just as sleep deprived as Aizawa.
Neito could have, and should have, stopped so the mounting chaos could cool. But now that he’d had a taste of powers that weren’t pedestrian, he was like a drunk looking for a new flavor of wine.
The girl with the white hair had a small horn protruding from the side her forehead. What could that be?
Neito lurched to her and picked up her hand, kissing the back of it with a gentlemanly bow.
He laughed. “Hello, Princess. What have you got?”
The man beside her looked just as murderous as Kirishima, but Neito skirted him, touching his forehead and the little horn there to match hers. But as he tried searching for the ability, he came up with nothing. Blank. His brow furrowed for a moment, and then the unknown man grabbed him by the wrist, likely so he could toss him from the room.
But he’d already found a new power. Neito grinned and looked this man right in his dark, smoky eyes and imbued his voice with power.
“Don’t move,” he said.
The man locked up, his eyes widening as his body stopped moving.
He knew he was delirious on these powers, but Neito had been drinking water and now got to taste the sweetest wines.
With the price rearing back up in his chest, he grabbed the man by the front of his hoodie and leaned up to fit his mouth over his.
He was as still as a statue, so Neito wasn’t expecting him to kiss back – not that he would– but he still wondered about it…
There was a dark edginess to him. Many things hidden beneath those smoky eyes. What he’d done to him – commanded him into obeisance – made him wonder some more about this man. What was his ability actually like? How much could he do with it? Neito had a weakness for the dark, mysterious ones.
“Aizawa, do something!”
Suddenly, the man’s body jolted, no longer under Neito’s command.
Most people, when Neito kissed them, ended up flushing profusely, not expecting to be kissed as such. It made it easier for him to diffuse the situation into a flirtatious banter, instead of revealing it for the price it was.
But when he pulled back from this man, he was not even a bit flustered. In fact, he’d say his skin had paled instead of blushed.
The man simply raised his fist and bright pain bloomed across Neito’s face. Hot blood dripped from his nose.
“You punched me,” he stated obviously, holding his hand beneath his nose. It began throbbing.
A deep, delicious voice told him, “You touched my sister.”
Neito glanced around at the myriad expressions in the room. Aizawa’s eyes glowed red. Had he stopped Neito’s command?
Finally, his gaze landed on Ashido, and she was grinning with a diabolical glint to her eye.
She said, “Fuck. Ochaco is going to have a field day with you.”