Chapter Text
(Wednesday 1:24 a.m. / The Rabbit Hole, Underground Bar / Red Light District.)
Izuku was sitting at a dimly lit booth, across from a man in an oversized, over-stuffed, trenchcoat and in desperate need of information. Izuku eyed him carefully as he waved over a waitress.
“Two whiskeys, on the rocks.” the man murmured. She nodded and turned away.
“Oh, I can’t-” Izuku began but was cut off at the flick of the man’s wrist, as if to say it’s on me.
Izuku put on a relaxed face. He had to remind himself he wasn’t the aspiring hero, golden child/problem child (depending on who you asked) of class 1-A right now. Right now he was the infamous broker of the underground, Akino.
He wore a dark oversized hood pulled up over his hair, a simple black mask, and his complexion was completely concealed beside his eyes, which were dim in the shadowed bar. In his informant getup, Izuku would hardly be recognized by his closest friends, let alone be identified as a teenager, so no wonder the man bought him a drink. Izuku wonders if the man would’ve bought it for him regardless of his age.
“So, I assume ya’ve heard of the new underground fightin’ ring, yeah? The one borderin’ this district.” The man waited for Izuku to nod.
“Well, my boss ain’t happy. We ain’t makin’ enough profit off the average quirk fight.” He hummed.
“My boss, he wants somethin’ interesting, somethin’ that’ll bring the buyers but won’t break the bank. If ya know what I mean.”
Izuku did know what he meant, “So, something like drugs?”
“Right on the money, man. So, whaddya got?”
Izuku sighed. He could tell the guy was trying to swindle information from him without paying first. From the corner of his eye he saw the waitress returning with the drinks.
“100 bucks and a pizza, then I’ll spill,” he grinned under his mask but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“High rates you got there.”
“Do you want the information or not?” Izuku quirked a brow. “Plus, the info I’m giving you isn’t just some street talk crap.”
The man grunted with a nod as he relayed the pizza order to the retreating waitress. Then, he reached into one of his many pockets and all but threw a 100 dollar bill at Izuku.
Izuku took a long, dramatic sip from the straw of his drink before continuing, “So have you heard of Trigger?”
“Tch. Who in the underground hasn’t? I guess what I’m really askin’ here is where Trigger is being supplied and what’s the cheapest it goes for.” The man replied with a hint of impatience.
“Well, Trigger is easy to come by, almost any thug has it in small portions, secondhand of course. But it sounds like your boss wants the real stuff, and in bulk, so you’ll need to go to the source.”
The waitress came back quicker this time, and set his pizza down in front of him. Izuku looked at it longingly, but knew he couldn’t eat it until their conversation was done. Secret identities and all.
“As I was saying, go to the source. The Shie Hassaikai, you probably know them as the Yakuza, are the ones that produce the drug. I wouldn’t recommend contacting their leader if I was you.. scary guy.” Izuku’s hands subconsciously found themselves hovering over his abdomen. Where there was a large scar left by the leader of the Yakuza, Kai Chisaki. “If you contact one of his henchmen, they’ll sell it in bulk for the right price.” The man wore a scowl and Izuku wondered if he had somewhere else to be.
“Akino, quit bullshitting me, how much is the right price?”
“Well obviously it depends on how much you want to buy, but you’ll be looking at maybe three-thousand? Minimum…”
“What!?” The man shouted loudly as his hands came down on the table, shaking the glasses and causing others in the bar to turn towards the commotion. Izuku squeaked. “Three-thousand! Are you nuts?”
He held his hands up in mock surrender to ease the growing tension. “Well sir, you asked, I answered. I’m simply an informant, I don’t negotiate, I facilitate… Ah, but maybe you’d be able to negotiate something with the Yakuza to find the right price?”
“Give me their contact,” he held out his hand and Izuku did not hesitate to quickly scribble the information on the paper.
“Here,” he handed over to him the current location of lower level Yakuza members, as well as the name and number of one of the ones Izuku knew semi-personally.
The man took the paper without another word, leaving Izuku to sit alone in the dimly lit booth of the bar. He sighed as he watched until the man finally walked out the door.
The bar was almost completely empty now, just three men talking in a corner booth seemingly engaged enough in conversation not to notice him, a drunk near the bathrooms, and a man who was alone facing away from him. The bartender and the waitress disappeared to do who knows what.
Izuku fully pulled down his mask and began eating, cherishing every bite of his pizza. He also took his time drinking the cocktail. While he wasn’t into drinking, he’d have to be dead to waste food or beverages. It's not like he got to eat out all that often. He decided to leave when he noticed it was almost 2 in the morning, and he had school the next day at 8:00.
In his drunken and sleep deprived stupor, he didn’t notice the man sitting alone had turned around to watch him.
He didn’t notice the pair of obsidian eyes that followed him out the door of the bar.
--
(Wednesday 7:44 a.m. / Izuku's Complex)
Shit, shit, shit, I’m going to be so late!
Izuku hadn’t made it to his complex until 3:34 earlier that morning. It took him significantly longer to get home due the effects of alcohol in his system, which did not help his navigation skills whatsoever.
He forgot to set his alarm clock before going to bed, again, so he woke up at 7:44 when he’s supposed to be up by 7:00. My train usually leaves at 7:30, but I already missed that- There’s one that leaves at 8:00 too, which means I have…
Izuku almost died when the clock read 7:50.
Izuku brushed his teeth, threw on his U.A. uniform, and grabbed his backpack faster than All Might moved in his prime. He didn’t even bother trying to brush his hair or put on his tie. His tie was a lost cause regardless, actually, he was hardly able to put it on when he did have the time to. When he glanced at his phone mid-sprint, it was already 7:56.
Fuck!
As he approached the train, running like a madman, with one minute to spare, he sighed with relief. He knew he was going to be late to homeroom regardless, and Aizawa-sensei was no doubt going to scold him for his tardiness, but he could take a little chastisement. This wasn’t the first time he was going to be late, he’s had more than one late night client, thank you very much.
When the train finally stopped a little ways away from U.A, it was 8:21. Homeroom started twenty-one minutes ago.
When he finally made it to class it was almost 8:35, not too bad Izuku, not too bad, last time took almost an hour. He pushed open the door as 20 pairs of eyes (well he assumed Hagakure looked too) turned to watch him walk in.“Midoriya,” Aizawa said with the most stoic face one could muster, “you’re late.”
Here we go. “Ah- sorry sensei.” Izuku bowed as he moved to make his way to his seat, but was stopped by his teacher’s voice.
“Punctuality is key, I taught you this,” he said as he turned back to the class, somehow turning this into a lesson. Izuku’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment, “Yes, I know sir.”
“Except, I don’t think you do. This isn’t the first time.” Izuku was startled at being chastised so verbally, and in front of the class. Usually, chastisement was in the form of a silent glare.
“Why are you late?” he questioned.
This could go two ways. One, Izuku tells him the truth and he gets busted (in front of not just his teacher, but his whole class), or two he says he has no excuse so Aizawa lets him off the hook.
He’s going for option two.
“I have no excuse, it was my bad.”
Apparently this wasn’t the right dialogue option, because Aizawa sighed and pressed him again, “You should be willing to share your reason with the class, given it’s their time you’ve been wasting.”
“There’s no reason.” Izuku retorted, tone raising just slightly. Aizawa didn’t back down.
“Midoriya, if there’s no reason you’re late then it shouldn’t happen so frequently. There’s a line between when being late is accidental v.s habitual. And it seems you’re the latter.”
Izuku didn’t know what possessed him to say what he did next, but he blamed it on the leftover alcohol in his system, the sleep deprivation, and everything in between.
“I already told you, I have no good reason!” Izuku snapped.
The class went silent, and he was sure everyone heard the audible click of his jaw when it shut closed. Aizawa’s face remained its unwavering glare, but Izuku saw his eyebrow twitch just slightly. He was so dead.
His eyes widened like a deer in headlights, “I-I’m so sorry sensei!! I don’t know what came over me. That won’t happen again.”
There was a moment of tense silence.
“Let’s hope it doesn't.”
Izuku bowed until Aizawa waved him off, and Izuku scurried as quickly over as possible. He slid into his chair and ducked his head in both shame and apology. He stared down at his hands.
“Oh, and Midoriya,” Aizawa’s words sliced through the air. Izuku looked up.
“See me after school.”
Holy shit, I’m so fucked.
--
I’m fucked. I’m fucked. I’m fucked- was all that played in Izuku’s head for the next three class periods.
He was so caught up in his thoughts he didn’t hear Ochako trying to get his attention during lunch.
“Heyy, earth to Deku? You there?” Izuku blinked.
“Oh! Sorry Uraraka, I was just daydreaming!” he laughed as she smiled.
“Don’t worry about it. Soo, Mr. Troublemaker, what made you late today?” she half-seriously joked. Izuku was going to make up some new excuse before Iida came barreling in.
“Midoriya, I do not condone your disruptive behavior! You should really make more of an effort to be here on time like the rest of us!”
Boy do I try. Izuku simply apologized and the three went to join Todoroki and Tsuyu. Fortunately for Izuku, the topic shifted to the show they all like to watch.
--
After the last class of the day, Foundational Heroics with All Might and some simple quirk training, the class departed. Ochako wished him luck as he went off, and god did he need it.
The walk back to Aizawa's class was the most dreadful he’d had in a long time, but there was no avoiding it. Izuku was irritated, actually. He had had a client who scheduled to meet him right after school but was forced to cancel due to this. He wondered if his client would want to reschedule.
When he approached the door, he took a deep breath and pushed it open.
Aizawa had reading glasses on and his hair tied back. He didn’t look up from his papers as Izuku came in, seemingly focused on grading a particular student's essay. He wondered if he was trying to decipher Kaminari’s hieroglyphic handwriting.
“Midoriya.” Aizawa called out, breaking the silence.
“Y-yes, sir?” Damn stutter.
“Come sit,” he gestured to a chair that had been pulled from one of the desks to sit across from him at his desk. Izuku gulped as he took a seat.
Aizawa looked at him for a moment, evaluating, and Izuku felt like a bug, pinned down under a microscope. Vulnerable, exposed.
“I tried to call your mom, to let her know you’d be staying after school,” he started and that was not what Izuku was expecting him to start with.
“The line didn’t go through. Would you happen to know why that is?”
Oh, funny story, it's actually because she’s been dead for two years and I put a fake number in for her contact information when filling out UA applications because I’m really an orphan who’s been living in an abandoned apartment complex alone and had to make a living off collecting, selling, and distributing dangerous information…
“Oh, she just recently got a new phone, and they changed her number. She hasn’t been able to update it.”
Aizawa hummed, and went back to grading his papers.
A moment passed in uncomfortable silence and Izuku didn’t know if he should go to his desk or stay sitting where he was, but he figured Aizawa probably didn’t want to be in his company as of right now and stood to move.
“Sit down.”
He sat back down.
Aizawa took the deepest breath Izuku’s ever seen him take.
“Midoriya, I’m going to be 100% honest with you, and I’m going to expect that you’re going to be 100% honest with me.” He waited for Izuku to nod.
“Last night, during my patrol, I stopped at an underground bar in the red-light district.”
Izuku tensed. Please tell me he isn’t referring to The Rabbit Hole. No no no no, this can’t be happening. There’s no way he was there, I would’ve noticed him. Right? Surely I couldn’t have missed my homeroom teacher being there? Aizawa’s expression did not waver.
“It was a bar called the Rabbit Hole, ever heard of it?”
Fuck.
“No.” Izuku wondered if he responded too quickly. He wondered if his teacher could see the panic building on his face.
“I’d hope you wouldn’t. I hope none of your class would know of a place like that either.” He was staring into Izuku’s mind, he could feel it. It was as if all of his secrets were written on his face for Aizawa to read. Izuku tried his best to school his face as he made eye contact.
“Last night there were two men exchanging information. One seemed to be an informant.” Izuku gulped. Aizawa stared him dead in the eye.
“Midoriya, have you ever heard of the infamous broker, Akino?”
--
Aizawa was typically described as a tired person, if it wasn’t obvious by his permanent eyebags and the yellow sleeping bag he carried everywhere. But Aizawa has never been as tired as he was now, over one of his students who just so happened to be his number one problem child.
At The Rabbit Hole earlier that morning (too early in his opinion), he thought he was dreaming. Actually, he thought he was having a nightmare. He didn’t think anything of the pair when he had walked in, he just noticed two figures conversing in a booth. Unsuspecting as one could be in a place full of suspicious people. At one point the man referred to the noticeably smaller one as “Akino,” and it clicked that he was the infamous broker of the underground. Their conversation quickly got heated, and Aizawa wondered if he’d have to interfere when the man took a slip of paper and left, leaving Akino alone.
Aizawa didn’t have his capture weapon with him. It got damaged in a fight earlier that week and wouldn’t be repaired until Friday. So maybe that’s why Akino didn’t recognize him... because when Akino pulled off his mask to inhale his pizza, he sure as hell recognized him.
He’d know that green hair, viridian eyes, and face full of freckles anywhere.
Please don’t tell me that’s Midoriya. I swear if Midoriya is Akino I’m quitting my job, both of them.
As much as he wanted to deny it, even in the dark lighting he could tell.
Which led him to where he was now.
“Midoriya, have you ever heard of the infamous broker, Akino?”
He needed Midoriya to be honest with him. If he flat out asked, Are you Akino? he’s sure his student would’ve taken off running. Hell, he wasn’t even sure that the kid wouldn't take off running right now. He wished he had his capture scarf.
Midoriya looked like he had absolutely no idea what to say. Which was reasonable, how would anyone respond to being questioned by their teacher who suspected them to be a pillar of the underground?
“I-I’ve never heard of him.”
Gotcha.
“Him?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Ah- I just assumed…?" Midoriya looked up. The kid had never been good at lying, and the truth was written all over his face. When they made eye contact, he was staring into those same viridian eyes that were too enamored with pizza last night to notice him.
Midoriya Izuku was none other than the infamous broker of the underground, Akino.
--
I’m so fucked. I’m so fucked. I’m so fucked, repeated in Izuku’s head for what seemed like the 100th time that day. He knows, he knows, he knows, he knows, spammed his mind until it promptly overloaded and he almost shut down on the spot.
Almost.
Instead his body moved on his own. And this time it didn’t move to save the life of another person. This time, for once in his life, he was saving himself.
He stood so quickly from his chair it toppled to the ground, but so deaf from the blood rushing through his ears and the static in his mind he didn’t hear it crash. His breathing picked up. God, I have to get out of here.
He felt himself push past the large 1-A classroom door, and his legs sent him sprinting down the hallway. He knew Aizawa was chasing after him because he couldn’t use his quirk. Izuku thanked his lucky stars that his teacher didn’t have his capture weapon with him, or else he really would’ve been screwed.
He bolted down the stairs, not worrying about crashing into someone since everyone had gone home already. Aizawa was still behind him, but not trailing. He’s evaded the police and pro heroes hundreds of times before, surely he can outrun one more?
“Midoriya!” He heard his teacher shout from down the hall. Fuck!
He rounded a corner, hallways blurring past him. What hallway was he even in now?
Izuku knew that if he was caught now, it was game over. For both Midoriya Izuku and Akino. They’d both be caught, and he’d spend his life in captivity, heck they might even send him to Tatarus. Izuku gulped as he stumbled over his feet, the thought of Tartarus alone was terrifying. His teacher's footsteps began to sound closer.
Somehow, miraculously, Izuku made it to the UA gates. He fumbled for his ID with trembling hands, hurryhurryhurryhurryhurryhurry.
He scanned his school ID, and he thanked the Lord that the gates creaked open. He didn’t turn around as he ran into the streets of Musutafu.
After an hour of mindlessly running around the city, Izuku decided he’d lost his homeroom teacher. He laid against a wall in a secluded alley, taking large gasps of air. His eyes darted around, paranoia eating at him.
What am I going to do? I can’t go back to school, there’s no way. Aizawa-sensei is probably already alerting the heroes and police. Going back would be a death sentence… Damnit. I just got into UA too. It’s only been- what is it, June? Two months? What will All Might say? God, he doesn't know that I’m Akino either. How will he react? I have to go to UA, All Might is relying on me. And what about my friends?
Izuku groaned.
What am I going to do?
--
Aizawa groaned.
There were soft hums coming from the restroom down the hall. Hizashi was in the shower, humming some American song. Aizawa plopped down onto the couch in their apartment. He'd searched for Midoriya for almost a whole hour, and didn't see him once since he'd left school premises. He massaged his aching temples, trying to collect his thoughts.
Unfortunately for Aizawa, thinking only gave him a bigger headache. He hadn’t even been able to process that Midoriya was Akino. He knew that Akino wasn’t a villain, despite popular opinion. Aizawa knew that Akino was technically a vigilante, although Akino himself argued that he was just an information broker. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the life that came with being any of those. A villain, a vigilante, or an information broker. For one, it was a life of crime. Akino was known for working with high level criminals. Some directly, like the Yakuza, and others indirectly, like the Paranormal Liberation Front. What sorts of things did he learn from them? What is it he knew? What did he have to do to get that information?
Aizawa decided it was best he didn't dwell on that particular thought.
Secondly, where were his parents? He knew Midoriya lived with his mother, or at least that's what his record and the kid said. So did his mother know he was Akino? Although, he'd tried to contact his mom earlier and it went immediately to voicemail. He'd thought it was a little strange in the moment, but nothing more. Now, though? Was Mrs. Midoriya even a present figure in Midoriya's life?
While they'd only been in school for two months, Aizawa would like to think he knows Midoriya. He knows that despite constantly getting into trouble that he was a good kid. That he had the heart of a hero. Or else he would've expelled him the first day.
Aizawa sighed, exhausted, and applied more pressure to his temples.
What am I going to do?
Before his thoughts spiraled any further, he fell asleep on the couch.