Chapter Text
When presented with the issue of Izuku Midoriya, All Might’s chosen successor and child that Toshinroi-san literally found under a bridge, Nedzu chose a simple solution to a complex problem.
Lying.
Perhaps that is too clean a reduction. More accurate would be ‘lying as an extreme sport.’
He carefully adjusted all of Midoriya’s records, backdated any changes, deleted what needed deleting, and smoothed things over at the Musutafu City Hall Quirk Registry. He combed through any photos or security cam footage he could from before Midoriya arrived at UA and deleted anything that might prematurely connect Midoriya and All Might. He ensured any unsavory details from Aldera Junior High’s stewardship over someone who would, in all likelihood, become one of the most famous men on the planet, were neatly excised. Rather like an unsightly tumor.
The school files referred to young Izuku Midoriya as “an attention-seeking, disruptive child with delusions of grandeur” who “frequently incited altercations with classmates.” Nedzu sincerely doubted the objectivity of that assessment. If the school’s records mysteriously vanished overnight, well, it wasn’t like anyone working at such a negligent institution would notice. Not until far too late.
He also personally paid for the Takoba beach cleanup on behalf of Musutafu City, UA’s gracious host, and hired his own team of imaginary contractors from a shell company to make the beach’s transformation believable. He put the donation down as a tax writeoff.
He used a surgical scalpel everywhere appropriate and a sledgehammer everywhere else.
This, regrettably, involved lying to his faculty and staff. Honestly, he expected he’d have at least a few more months before Aizawa cottoned on to what the actual problem was, if he ever did, but All Might and Izuku failed to account for a surprise visit with Mrs. Midoriya when determining how best to keep their secrets. Leaving her out of the loop has proven a critical tactical error.
Happily, another elegant little solution presents itself, even as Aizawa-san is glaring at him with murder in his eyes across Nedzu’s lovely rosewood veneer desk. He'd been able to put this discussion off over the break with promises, and push it back even further once classes returned, but no longer. Internships begin tomorrow and the man really has reached the end of his rope.
The week of internships (with only young Shouto Todoroki to attend to) should be good for him.
Nedzu stirs his tea, spoon clinking pleasantly against the china.
“Aizawa-san, while I understand your frustration, I am, unfortunately, not at liberty to tell you any more information at this time.”
“Why not?”
“I am not at liberty to tell you that either. Quite the conundrum.”
Aizawa-san’s eyes glow red, and for a moment Nedzu craves nothing so much as a nice, live vole for lunch. The moment passes quickly. Good. It wouldn't do to start gnawing on the woodwork.
He smiles placidly instead of hissing like a wild beast, “Please be assured that this information was concealed for the boy’s own safety.”
“How could Midoriya’s safety possibly be dependent on not telling anyone responsible for training the kid that he’s had a quirk that breaks his own bones for less than three months? He almost permanently disabled both arms!”
“A very good question! One that I welcome you to ponder on. I had hoped a solution might have been found sooner for that particular issue. However, it remains imperative that any details about Izuku Midoriya’s unusually late quirk manifestation be kept quiet. I, regrettably, cannot tell you more than that.”
Aizawa looks like he is seriously considering handing in his own resignation. Or just leaping across the desk. He might require just a tad more information to prevent that. It’s a tricky needle to thread, but Nedzu threads tricky needles on the daily.
“It is not my secret to share, you see.”
Aizawa’s expression gets, somehow, even more murderous.
“Whose is it?”
Time to bait the trap.
“You’re an intelligent man, Aizawa-san.”
Aizawa’s glare intensifies, but it seems less focused on murder and more focused on problems solving.
Excellent.
It takes Aizawa less than ten seconds. As far as he knows, UA only has one big secret it needs to conceal right now.
“What does All Might have to do with this?”
“Another excellent question! I hope any future conversations you may have with your coworker prove fruitful.”
“Do you? Do you really?”
Nedzu takes a sip of his tea. One more push perhaps.
“He had quite the exciting youth, our Toshinori-san. Has he ever told you about when his own quirk manifested?”
Principal Nedzu watches Aizawa-san add two and two together and arrive at four. Perfect. The man confidently and completely misunderstands the situation and will continue to do so unless Toshinori decides to correct that impression himself. It remains Toshinori’s decision whether or not to bring him into the fold, and Nedzu retains plausible deniability. Nedzu’s back up plan worked as beautifully as intended.
A bit unpleasant for Toshinori-san, but, well, needs must. It will also neatly force All Might and his young charge to finally involve the boy’s mother.
Or else.
***
Yagi Toshinori gets one (1) warning from Principal Nedzu.
He has just enough time to be utterly horrified (and speed run all five stages of grief) before Aizawa kicks open the door to the staff office.
“Toshinori, you bastard. Tell me you are at least paying that woman child support.”
***
Keigo could applaud Principal Nedzu when he realizes what went down.
Come Tuesday morning, Aizawa 100% believes that All Might is Izuku Midoriya's dad. Like, fully believes that the most famous man in the world is trying to discreetly reconnect with his bastard son whom he only just found out about around the UA entrance exams.
This knowledge, wrong may it be, can never become public. Being outed as All Might’s secret lovechild would destroy Midoriya’s life.
The whole world would be watching every time the poor guy so much as sneezed. All Might is going to have to announce his retirement at some point, and people will be desperate to latch onto any sense of security. Knowing that a Mini Might is already attending UA with a quirk so powerful it breaks his own bones (but don’t worry, we’re working on it!) would be a massive boon to the sense of national security. The level of scrutiny Midoriya would be under would suffocate anyone.
Aizawa will fight tooth and nail to keep that from happening, especially hot on the heels of Shouto Todoroki becoming the favorite topic of every variety show and heroics commentator in the country. It is also the kind of secret that Aizawa would be loath to inflict upon anyone else. He didn't want to know about Yagi Toshinori’s sordid love life, even if every gossip rag on the planet absolutely would. Even if Yagi Toshinori doesn’t actually have a sordid love life. Or, if he does, at least not this one. Keigo doesn’t know one way or another. Neither do the HPSC, and they’ve looked. Extensively. All Might managed to reveal exactly nothing about his personal life in over thirty-five years of service. Certainly not anything they could use as leverage.
Probably because he had a whole secret ‘true form’ this entire time, allowing him to gallivant around, completely anonymous, doing who knows what.
Poor Midoriya is going to have a very rough night, but at least he'll be able to flee the prefecture in the morning. Keigo was unable to realistically warn him about All Might’s plan to have the most awkward conversation imaginable with his mother this evening, not without owning up to knowing about One-For-All. Or to disabling Nedzu’s countermeasures in the staff lounge and office.
It'll be fine.
And if Nedzu is serious about security, he'll just reinstall them. And implement more regular visual checks. There still might be a League of Villains mole out there after all.
He won’t be able to monitor things personally for at least a week regardless. His internship will place him well beyond surveillance range. He’ll be in a different city from both the school and from his classmates. Shinsou’s going to Osaka, Keigo’s going to Sayama. Opposite directions.
This logistical reality got him to cave and purchase a smart phone. He’s keeping Yaoyorozu’s brick phone as a burner, since there is absolutely no purchase record for a phone generated wholesale out of lipids, and he can always swap the sim card as needed, but he shares his new (new) phone number with the Shitty Parent Club (Plus Tokoyami and Uraraka), Aizawa-sensei, Yaoyorozu, and Iida - both as class rep and because Midoirya and Uraraka are increasingly worried about him. He iced them both out over the break, only sending vague platitudes in response to their attempts to check in. Keigo gets the sense that this is unusual behavior for Iida, but honestly the guy could just be grieving. People grieve in weird ways. Most of Keigo’s former coworkers coped by drinking heavily, becoming dangerously reckless on missions, isolating themselves, or combining all three into a potent, self-destructive cocktail.
Keigo's coworkers didn't exactly have long life expectancies.
Hm. Maybe he should be more worried.
He’s pondering all this while sitting on the floor of Shinsou’s room. Shinsou is debating what he should pack for a week-long trip. Their class will be meeting at the train station tomorrow morning where Aizawa-sensei will give them their final instructions before setting them loose. Shouto Todoroki will be the only exception - he’s doing his special internship at UA.
Which is awesome, because Todoroki spent all of Golden Week dodging the media’s attempts to get a statement on how he feels about his entire life becoming public knowledge and/or the multiple investigations into his father. Keigo has never had to use his training (outside of active combat) as much as he has this past week, trying to keep Todoroki hidden from the packs of rabid journalists wandering around Musutafu without resorting to overt quirk usage.
Todoroki’s friends had wanted him to have as normal a holiday as possible, and, if that meant deploying less-than-ethical tactics against the media, then so be it. Turns out Tokoyami really had looked up a list of ‘normal teenage activities’ and, by a sacred pact Tokoyami presided over under the light of the full moon, Shouto Todoroki was going to experience some normal teenage activities if it killed them.
They took this mission as seriously as they would the security detail for a member of the imperial family. Midoriya capitalized on his years of good standing as MightyBoy119 on the HeroX Fan Forum to report false sightings which placed Todoroki as far away from their actual plans as possible. Uraraka, fresh off her own experiences with pushy reporters and not feeling particularly merciful, helped stage the fake photos and also brought an air horn in her bag along with a can of spray paint for any cameras that got too close. Tokoyami was ready to deploy Dark Shadow as a mobile screen whenever needed. Shinsou came up with the idea to just dye Todoroki’s hair and get some oversized shades.
Touya Todoroki of all people recommended a good removable hair dye, since his little bro was ‘way too much of a loser to commit full time to the punk lifestyle.’ He’d gotten his hair dyed for the first time by his delinquent brother in the bathroom sink of Touya’s private room at the hospital, which neatly ticked off two of the items on Tokoyami’s Normal Teenage Activities list (radically changing one’s look and committing an act of vandalism). It also furthered Shouto’s personal goal of reconnecting with his estranged siblings.
The dye job was shockingly effective at deterring the press, especially when Shinsou donned a red and white cosplay wig Inko Midoriya had helped sew together (plus a different pair of oversized shades), and went on early morning bike rides near UA campus and Shouto’s home. Keigo, meanwhile, would pick Todoroki up and fly him to their designated meet up spot for the day.
Keigo also kept up a perimeter of feathers monitoring the situation out to four blocks at all times and was ready at a moment's notice to just airlift Todoroki out of there and hide him on a convenient rooftop. If a news van’s tires happened to get mysteriously slashed at a critical juncture, or if a SD card was neatly ejected without anyone noticing, Keigo has no knowledge of it.
He ended pretty much every day with sensory overload from quirk overuse, (he's really been slacking off on his training since quitting the HPSC), but the results were absolutely worth it.
Turns out the Shitty Parents Club (Plus Tokoyami and Uraraka) were frighteningly effective when they wanted to be. They took Tokoyami’s list, added to it as they saw fit, submitted it to Todoroki for review, and got to work.
They had a bonfire on the beach, went swimming in the ocean, got banned from an arcade (Keigo takes full responsibility for that one, even if it’s not his fault the games were all calibrated for baseline human reaction times), hit up the thrift store to complete Todoroki’s new look and join him as punk fashion icons, and went to see a movie and wander aimlessly around the local mall. They took the train up to Tokyo for a concert (Jirou gave them some recommendations of good venues for a first-timer and offered to meet up), Aizawa begrudgingly allowed it after witnessing their effectiveness at dodging the paparazzi as necessary, and they made a day of it.
Midoriya had a full itinerary planned of important locations in heroics. His mom even got him a little All Might flag to use as their tour group guide. Keigo contributed by introducing them to the magic of Auntie Michiko’s karaoke joint in Shinjuku, even if they had to clear out before it got too late and everyone besides Shinsou kept giving him odd looks and asking pointed questions about why the staff all referred to him as ‘Taka-kun’ and kept asking the room full of obvious high schoolers if they wanted anything stronger to drink.
(Answers, in chronological order: ‘yeah that is weird,’ ‘I don't know?', 'maybe they misheard,’ ‘I wouldn't worry about it, oh, hold on, no, no, my friends aren’t interested in the ‘premium’ menu today but thanks! Could we get some more kaarage though? You're the best, Auntie Michiko - how’s your nephew been? Oh? He had to leave the city in a hurry? Well I’ve heard that Hokkaido is lovely this time of year-’).
Todoroki also wanted to try playing some kind of group sport, so they begged Aizawa-sensei to let them onto campus to use the volleyball court, which he was more than happy to do since he could (theoretically) have an easier time keeping them out of trouble on campus. The game got out of hand quickly however, since being on school grounds put quirks into play, and only ended when Dark Shadow ate the ball. They followed that adventure up by staying the next night at the massive Todoroki estate, which Fuyumi was thrilled about, playing overly competitive night games in the woods with Natsuo, and making full use of the family’s personal hot springs at the base of Seketo Peak.
At the end of the week they took the train south to participate in the Hamamatsu Matsuri and see the kite battles and night parade. They’d all been loopy on the ride back, exhausted but happy.
Tokoyami estimated they'd averaged about four list items per day. Todoroki told them all he felt very normal during their sleepover, lounging on on a futon while Uraraka added the final gloss coat on his nails and Midoriya tore open another face mask packet (it took him a couple tries to figure out how to apply a sheet mask without accidentally tearing it apart). They took way too many pics of everyone mid facial in their bath robes, and, after much cajoling, Keigo begrudgingly allowed Midoriya to practice doing nail art using his talons as a canvas, (since Uraraka claimed it was easier to learn on a larger surface area).
He has his suspicions about the veracity of that statement, suspicions which began before it somehow turned into a group activity.
No one mentioned how it was also Midoriya, Shinsou, and, well, Keigo’s first time doing most of this, but Keigo felt that was pretty apparent in the ratio of enthusiasm to experience.
All in all, a solid Golden Week. Way better than his last few.
He even succeeded (thus far) in his side mission of making sure Aizawa-sensei avoids death by heart failure before the age of forty. Regular meals, better sleep, housekeeping assistance (comprised of himself and Shinsou) and enforced delegation seemed to be working. The visit to Tensei Iida had gone well, even if the man was struggling a bit with suddenly becoming a paraplegic. Which, yeah. Fair. Keigo can't imagine suddenly losing his legs. Or his wings.
Aizawa even checked in with Tenya Iida during his time there. Iida had only chosen one potential agency, suspiciously located in Hosu, for his internship.
Iida claimed he wanted to serve the people his brother had served, and that he wanted to be close to Tensei during his recovery. Aizawa hadn’t fully believed it, but also wasn’t about to call a grieving boy a liar to his face. He approved the internship, but warned Manual about the situation.
Manual understood completely. He was a fan of Tensei too. He promised to keep a close watch on Iida during the week.
Keigo, noting his classmates and Aizawa-sensei’s concerns, purchased a pack of airtags with the first successfully laundered funds from his shiny new bank account. He took advantage of their week back in class to plant one on Iida’s costume.
He’s getting the sense that his classmates and instructors only account for his quirk as a method of surveillance. He’ll need to find a way to correct that impression while still staying ahead of them. Sooner, rather than later.
It’s a pervasive ideology.
Midoriya kept putting down his own non-quirk based strategies and successes while they hung out, which, hm. No. Absolutely something they should work on. Midoriya is brilliant and should be using his full skill-set instead of hampering himself by only counting what he’s able to do with his still-shaky quirk control. That needs to be nipped in the bud before Midoriya forgets what makes him truly dangerous.
Besides, the airtag four pack was only ¥8000. They’re longer range than his feathers and don’t even give him a headache.
Seriously. It’s not rocket science.
The second tag gets attached to Shinsou’s costume, because, well, it does. He’s decided not to think too hard about that decision. And to pretend he did a totally normal amount of research into the agency Shinsou will be interning with. Normal friends probably do that sort of thing, right? Midoriya looked into every one of their top three agencies for fun over the break. Midoriya’s probably certifiable, but not because of that. And he is a good friend. Besides, Keigo and Shinsou are going to be separated by about 500km as the crow flies, and Keigo can’t make that trip in less than an hour at his average (safe) long-distance speed. He can't make it in less than thirty minutes even flying at his max (unsafe) long-distance speed.
If anything goes down, Shinsou’s basically on his own.
At least Rock Lock seems solid.
He’d debated who should get the other two. Midoriya won out, by virtue of being almost guaranteed to get up to something unhinged. He'd considered Todoroki, but he’ll be the most monitored student of them all. Right on UA campus. He tagged Bakugo’s gear in the end. He doesn’t like the guy, but feels kind of responsible for him now. Plus he’s likely to get into some kind of trouble considering his mentor. Keigo volunteered to intern with Miruko instead to save Aizawa-sensei the headache, but Aizawa had been weirdly insistent on Keigo choosing the internship that actually interested him the most. Very considerate of him, if not particularly strategic.
He’s not going to think too hard about that either.
At least Bakugo’s progress with Kirishima has been going shockingly well. Kirishima must have the patience of a saint (Keigo sure doesn’t), he seems to have forged a real, genuine connection with the guy. Fantastic. Incredible. It remains to be seen what long term effect this might have on Bakugo’s whole deal, but at least Kirishima showed off some significant tactical improvement during their battle training on Monday afternoon. He was quick to credit his new friend for help running drills over the break.
He's started calling Bakugo ‘Bakubro.’ Cute.
Shinsou zips his backpack closed, double checking that everything fits.
“Okay, I think I’ve got it all.”
He hefts the bag, checking the weight. It seems fine to Keigo, Shinsou’s able to lift it easily enough, but it doesn’t pass whatever mysterious metric Shinsou’s working off of because he makes a face and immediately starts going through it again.
He digs around for a minute, pulls out a sweater, and tries once more. Nope. The sweater doesn’t seem to have been the problem. Shinsou starts unloading everything, laying it out on the floor while eying the packing list. Keigo knows he has everything on the list. Keigo watched him check it all off.
Hm.
“Ever been to Osaka before?”
“No,” Shinsou frowns, “But it should be fine. You?”
“Nope.”
Shinsou’s still eyeing the sweater, uncertain if he should load it back up again. There is an awful lot of thought going into this sweater. Sure, it’s May in Osaka. The helpful weather app on Keigo’s new phone says it’s still cold at night but already hot during the day. Very frustrating to pack for, but he doubts the sweater is the actual problem.
Keigo tilts his head, considers what might help here.
“I wonder why Rock Lock requested you.”
Shinsou’s frown deepens, “No idea. Suppose I should be grateful someone wanted me though. How many thousands of offers did you get?”
“Two,” Keigo makes a face about it. “But spotlight heroics is an attention game for a lot of the smaller agencies. Most of those requests were only because I won, not because I’m particularly useful for the work they’re doing. Same as the people who requested Todoroki.”
“Right. Because you ‘only’ won.”
“Just because Midorya is magically immune to your quirk, but only during festivals. Still figuring that one out.”
Shinsou snorts, “You think I could have beaten Todoroki and you?”
“Oh for sure! Todoroki struggles at the best of times with your quirk. Even if he iced you, you could still walk him out of bounds. He never blocks his opponents from breathing, and you’re not incapacitated so long as you can speak, right?”
Shinsou just raises an eyebrow at him. “And you?”
He waves a hand, “Eh, you know me better than anyone. You’d figure something out.”
So that may be a bit of a lie, but just a bit. Sure, he barely knows Hawks at all, but Shinsou’s been there for the creation of ‘Keigo Takahashi’ since the very beginning. And there is no universe where Keigo wouldn’t have thrown that match without a second thought regardless of what strategy Shinsou landed on.
The optics of someone with a quirk like Shinsou’s winning the UA Sports Festival? That’s a real victory. Keigo’s been trained in combat by teams of professionals for over a decade now. His quirk is both flashy and uniquely powerful. There’s nothing special about him beyond that. There was certainly nothing worthwhile about his win.
But Shinsou? Shinsou could change the entire field of heroics, provide a real alternative to the industry’s overreliance on overwhelming force. Shinsou could challenge all those horrible statistics that still chase him and make things so much better for the next kid born with a psychic manipulation quirk.
Keigo could never have that kind of impact.
But he can do his best to make sure Shinsou gets his chance.
***
Midoriya had a blast during Golden Week. He spends the whole break hanging out doing normal teenager stuff (and also ducking the paparazzi). He has a lovely time with his new friends who actually seem to like him. For real. Him.
Unfortunately, he is still Izuku Midoriya, so the universe immediately finds a way to kick him in the teeth about it.
He’d thought the worst was being cornered by Aizawa during the break while hanging out with Shinsou and Takahashi. Apparently his mom and his homeroom teacher have been texting since that ill-advised first visit (Midroiya had just felt bad for Todoroki, he hadn’t even been thinking about the worst case scenario). The fact that any regular communication is happening at all would be mortifying enough on its own for any teenager, but the topics of conversation seem to be exclusively Midoriya’s less-than-pleasant history with school staff, bullies, quirklessness, and everything else Midoriya didn't want his teacher or new friends to ever find out about.
No one needs to know, is all. It’s all the old Deku stuff. He’s decided it's going to mean something different now. He doesn’t want people rooting around in a past he’s actively leaving behind. Particularly the people who decide if he gets to continue attending UA. He had no idea his mother had even been aware of most of what she’d ended up sharing with Aizawa-sensei. He'd tried so hard to keep the worst from her, she cries over even the smallest of things and worries so much, but some things must have slipped past regardless.
He just wanted her to be happy. It’s hard for her not to worry when he’s, y’know, him.
He also didn’t realize she’d still been hopeful enough that change was possible, (even after years of administrators, police, and doctors just shrugging and saying ‘it can’t be helped’), to latch onto the first adult who seemed to show the slightest amount of care regarding her son’s health or safety with the tenacity of a honey badger.
Aizawa-sensei doesn't even like Midoriya. Midoriya almost got expelled by him on day one.
He did restrain Bakugo from openly attacking him. That was new. And he risked his life to defend their class at the USJ, which is way more than Midoriya expected from any authority figure proceeding him. He's seen pro heroes back down from saving a kid from a single villain when their quirk wasn't well suited to the task.
It's why he's here at all.
Unfortunately, Aizawa-sensei’s general distaste towards Midoriya’s whole deal didn’t translate to him just leaving everything well enough alone. Instead, Aizawa-sensei responded to learning about Midoriya’s quirklessness in true Aizawa fashion: digging in and assigning him more work.
Midoriya’s getting remedial training and quirk counseling once internships are done. Principal Nedzu convinced Aizawa-sensei to still allow Midoriya to do his internship with Gran Torino, thank goodness, but Takahashi says that’s only because Nedzu told him Gran Torino might have some special insight into unusually powerful strength-enhancement quirks. Nedzu implied that Gran Torino only taught for a single year at UA to assist a young All Might. Which, great, good, except Midoriya really needs certain things to remain a secret and the more pieces of the puzzle Aizawa has the more likely he is to notice some things. Like how the latest recorded quirk manifestation in the world was an eight year old kid in Paraguay.
He’s starting to think Takahashi knows something too, which, terrifying if true. But it turns out Midoriya should have been worried about more than just the truth of One-For-All being revealed, since Nedzu had something even worse coming down the pipe.
But before that grenade went off, obliterating Midoriya’s peace of mind forever, Midoriya had to survive Aizawa-sensei asking him careful, stilted questions that he categorically did not want to answer. His teacher even took the time to look into the statistics surrounding quirkless teens of Midoriya’s generation to prepare for the conversation. Midoriya doesn’t want to blame Shinsou for that, but he kinda blames Shinsou for that. They have a little too much in common in how they cope with things that suck on a systemic level. Shinsou knows all the depressing stats.
Aizawa didn’t. He certainly didn’t like what he found.
Midoriya gets it, he didn’t like his own terrible prospects either. But he’s known that life isn't fair since he was four. He’d still been determined to live how he wanted to regardless.
And, crucially, none of that matters now. Things are different. He has friends, he’s got a future. He’s got All Might himself as a mentor. He just really, really needs his teacher to stop asking him questions and apologizing for how his faulty assumptions might have affected Midoriya’s long-term health and learning outcomes. It’s agonizing.
He seriously considered jumping off of Aizawa’s sixth floor balcony in full view of his teacher and his friends just to escape the conversation. With One-For-All he could probably stick the landing without breaking both legs, and then he’d be free to escape into the wilderness around Musutafu and never look back. Or maybe just sprint straight into the sea. But no, Aizawa would catch him, or Takahashi (he’s not fast enough to outpace him yet and between himself and Aizawa-sensei, he has zero questions of where Takahashi’s loyalties lie), and then things would only be even more awkward.
He might get stuck in mandatory therapy or something.
Not that therapy isn’t great! It’s wonderful! Just, y’know, for other people. Not him.
He's fine now.
At least Shinsou gets it, even if he may or may not have inspired their teacher to do a bunch of extremely unnecessary research. They were able to commiserate about the awfulness of being perceived at Todoroki’s house, whispering about the misery of it all at like three am after everyone else had finally passed out.
At least Midoriya doesn’t have to live with Aizawa-sensei, and be subjected to his concern about Midoriya’s mental and physical health on a daily basis. Midoriya also doesn’t have Takahashi hovering over his shoulder like an overprotective and terrifying mother hen, determined to use his vast and disturbing array of skills to ensure his personal success in life.
Midoriya isn’t sure how he'd handle that, honestly. Like, emotionally or otherwise. He’s impressed with Shinsou for holding up as well as he has. They’re on the same page vis a vis Aizawa, but the guy barely seems phased by Takahashi’s whole deal anymore.
Midoriya had thought his supremely awkward conversations with Aizawa-sensei (and the promise of even more to come) more than covered whatever massive karmic debt he must have incurred in a past life, but nope.
Come Tuesday night, Midoriya experiences the single most awkward dinner of his life.
If a meteor could just obliterate him (and only him) that would be great. Amazing even. If the earth could swallow him whole he would thank it right about now. The fact that he is about to leave the prefecture for a week wherein he will not see a single soul that he knows is pretty much the only thing keeping him going.
All Might came clean to Inko Midoriya about everything.
His quirk, his true form, his injuries, his training of Izuku in secret, all of it.
His sweet mother had hauled off and slapped the Symbol of Peace. She’d screamed in his face. She’d been angrier than Midoriya had ever seen her when he told her the truth about One-For-All: that he’d given her baby boy the most powerful quirk in existence, a quirk which very bad people could torture her baby boy into transferring to them should that secret ever became public knowledge.
She’d been gearing up to demand that Midoriya transfer it to someone else, anyone else, when All Might just dropped to his knees.
She’d finally been swayed by Yagi Toshinori going full dogeza on their kitchen floor and promising to help teach and protect Midoriya with his very life. He told her, forehead still to the hardwood, that Izuku Midoriya was his chosen successor as the next Symbol of Peace, a boy whom he has every confidence in, and one whom he is immensely proud of and grateful for, and who has both the heart and mind needed to protect the peace of the future.
Which was…well. It was a lot.
She’d cried. Midoriya had cried. All Might had cried.
Midoriya had never wanted to worry his mom. He never wanted her to even know about any of this. Now there’s no escaping it. And this horrendous trainwreck of an evening only happened because Principal Nedzu of all people deliberately misled Aizawa-sensei.
Midoriya has never felt more betrayed by an authority figure in his life, which is saying a lot, because he has been betrayed by so very, very many authority figures.
Aizawa-sensei now not only knows that Midoriya grew up quirkless, and all the awfulness that implies, but also fully believes that Izuku Midoriya is All Might’s secret lovechild. He had gone to Principal Nedzu, demanding to know why no one had mentioned how Midoriya had, in fact, been quirkless right up until the entrance exam. And Nedzu, instead of telling Aizawa-sensei the truth and bringing him into the select group of individuals who know about One-For-All, or making up literally anything else, implied that All Might was 1) a late bloomer too and 2) had a checkered youth.
With, y’know, Izuku’s actual, real life mom.
And then.
And then.
Aizawa-sensei, concerned teacher (who should really be more concerned about other people, seriously, he is personally taking care of two of Midoriya’s classmates already and Midoriya’s pretty sure one of them was just rescued from a secret government wetworks squad), confronted All Might about it. And Yagi Toshinori, defender of the peace of this world, man who had faced down some of the most powerful and evil villains ever known and won with a smile, had panicked so hard that he just went with it.
He'd improvised on the spot, (not one of his better skills), claiming he hadn't known about young Midoriya’s existence until recently, but that he was planning on broaching the topic with Midoriya’s mother as soon as he worked up the courage. He even promised Aizawa-sensei, on his own mother’s grave, that he would start paying child support immediately.
Midoriya is honored, of course he’s honored. He’s honored by the promises All Might made. Honored by the praises (undeserved as they may be) that All Might heaped at his feet. He’s honored that All Might would even want to call Izuku Midoriya his son, something which is apparently the case, even if he can’t fully comprehend why, because All Might said it himself.
Yagi Toshinori said he would be thrilled if Midoriya was his actual child instead of only his pretend-so-that-villains-don’t-hunt-him-down-for-sport child.
This doesn’t change the fact that All Might asked, again, Midoriya's real actual mother if she wouldn’t mind fabricating a tasteful, respectable (emphasis on the tasteful and respectable!), star-crossed love affair just in case anyone (Aizawa-sensei) asks. If she would be okay with allowing All Might to basically coparent her son in the interest of the truth about One-For-All remaining a secret, especially in front of people who happen to believe the fake earth-shattering secret instead of the real one.
People like, y’know, Aizawa-sensei. Whom Midoriya still has to see and interact with. Regularly. For at least ten more months.
All Might made it abundantly clear that he would do everything in his power to be the best fake estranged father he could possibly be. He promised Inko Midoriya to do right not only by her son but by her as well. He'd go above and beyond to ensure this extra layer of protection for Midoriya, to keep the secret of One-For-All and thus Midoriya as safe as he could.
And, well, of course he would.
He’s All Might.
She’d been furious, then flustered, then flattered, and then the tears had turned to laughter and Midoriya had felt a lot less like his mom was going to beg him to give up on his dream of being a hero forever, and a lot more like he might die of acute, soul-crushing embarrassment.
He’d sat at his own kitchen table in mounting horror while his mother, Inko Midoriya, and All Might, his childhood hero, worked out the details of their (tasteful!) whirlwind romance, just so they’d have their story straight in case it ever came up. They worked out how All Might had noted Midoriya’s resemblance to a long lost paramour at the entrance exam, and then tracked him down along with his old flame. They’d negotiated All Might’s (extremely generous) child support payments, which he insists are mandatory now that he’s aware of the secret son that Inko Midoriya had hidden for so long (in fear of his safety, of course, what with being the son of the most famous hero in the world. She hadn't wanted to pull Toshinori away from his life's calling for a child he might not even want and so chose to raise Midoriya in secret). All Might even assured her how his agency would discreetly hide those payments to make the lie even more convincing.
Inko Midoriya has always secretly loved cheesy, romantic dramas.
She had plenty of ideas.
Midoriya has never been so grateful to be at a train station heading far, far away in his life. He's so shell-shocked he almost forgets to check in with Iida before he leaves for Hosu. He and Uraraka catch him at the last second. They tell him one more time that they are here for him.
He's not sure if it makes a difference though.
He’s not in the right headspace to find his supervisor dead in a puddle of blood and intestines as soon as he opens the door to his office in Yamanashi.
He’s absolutely not in the headspace to find out the blood and intestines are actually ketchup and sausages and that Gran Torino is apparently a few cards short of a full deck.
It’s going to be a very, very long week.
***
Rumi Usagiyama doesn’t do teams. She doesn’t do agencies. She doesn’t do sidekicks or interns or any of that nonsense.
But she sure as hell doesn’t take any shit lying down. If BJ thought she couldn’t hack it as a mentor, he has another thing coming. Which is her, hacking it as a mentor, way better than he and his noodle limbs ever could.
And also her foot to his stupid smug face. He's got that coming too.
Her new bundle of joy arrives in Hiroshima right on time. He’s already pissed off and looks like a rabid pomeranian. Dude probably explodes at the drop of a hat.
“Hey brat!” She grins, “Ready to get your tail kicked?”
The pomeranian starts barking insults, right on cue.
He’s perfect.
***
Shinsou gets off the bullet train at the Shin-Osaka station.
Okay. Time to meet his mentor.
Rock Lock wrote that he'd be there to greet him, but when Shinsou arrives at the designated meeting spot beneath the departures board, there's just a tired woman with bleached blonde hair, dark roots grown out almost to her ears, and a baby carrier.
She's holding a paper sign that says ‘Hitoshi Shinsou' though, so Shinsou swallows down his nerves and walks directly over. She smiles when she sees him.
“Shinsou-kun?”
Ino Takagi turns out to be very cool.
Her baby, Kenta, is an equally cool little guy. He just stares at Shinsou, chill as anything, while they talk, and occasionally chews on his fingers. Mrs. Takagi explains that Rock Lock, aka her husband of five years, got called away unexpectedly on a major case. His agency’s support team are busy helping coordinate with Fat Gum’s people and the Eshua Police Force right now, which meant no one else was available to come pick Shinsou up.
He tells her it’s no trouble, that of course hero work comes first, but she just keeps apologizing. Rock Lock really wanted to be there to meet him in person. She says this like this is a given, like of course a busy professional would be interested in meeting a random intern. Much less Shinsou.
She walks him to the parking lot and unlocks a beat-up, yellow sedan. She opens the trunk (full of shopping bags and baby paraphernalia), and scoots some things over to make room for his costume case. She asks sheepishly if he (and his backpack) wouldn’t mind sitting in the back with the carseat. Kenta is in the throwing things stage and it’s easier to have someone back there to manage it, especially since it’s a bit of a drive from the station to their house.
He doesn’t ask why they are going to Rock Lock’s house instead of his agency, just says “sure” and slips in the back. If this is an attempt to kidnap him it's a very casual one. And the baby seems like a pretty unusual accomplice. Kenta continues to stare at him while his mom buckles him in. Shinsou’s recent experience with babies and young children is extremely limited, (no one wants their young, impressionable youths near the creepy mind control guy) but this one seems to tolerate him all right.
Mrs. Takagi explains, as they pull out of the parking space, that they’ll be hosting him for the duration of his internship at their place. It’s about thirty minutes north. Nothing fancy, just a couch really, but meals will be included. “It’s near Minoh too, so if you want we could stop by and see the falls? It’s less popular in the late spring, the cherry blossoms are all gone by now, but it's still very pretty!”
“I wouldn’t want to put you out or anything,” Shinsou begins. He wasn’t under the impression sight seeing with your mentor’s spouse and infant son was a normal part of an internship.
“Oh, it’s no trouble! We hardly ever have guests come to visit so I never get to do any of the touristy things. Ken’s family all live in the States, we only see them once in a blue moon. Besides, Kenta could use some time outside today. He’s been cooped up in the car all morning running errands. It’ll be fun!”
“If you’re sure?” Shinsou tries. “There isn’t any work I’m supposed to be doing right now?’
“Not yet, we’ll likely have a few hours before Ken’s free again. The falls will be much more exciting for everyone than another round of knock-down-the-block tower with Kenta while waiting for him back at the house.”
Shinsou watches the buildings pass outside the window. Sight-seeing it is.
“Ken was planning on showing you the office this afternoon and introducing you to the staff, getting you started on how the admin side of things works and all that, but it’ll be a madhouse for the rest of the day. We’ve got some time to kill.”
She flicks on her blinker, changing lanes to get on the highway heading further north, “It’s hard to gauge how long a job will take, but team ups tend to be pretty involved. And that’s if everything goes well. The actual fights generally last just a few minutes, but if it’s a big, multi-agency deal like this, then everything always takes longer. There’s coordinating, the setup, the actual operation, then all the clean-up and inter-agency payment negotiations. We’ve got a standing agreement with Team Fat, though, so that part shouldn't take too long.”
Shinsou side-eyes Kenta who side-eyes him right back. The baby jingles his ring of plastic keys. Shinsou nods in acknowledgement and Kenta seems pleased by it. “It sounds like you know a lot about heroics agencies.”
Mrs. Takagi laughs, “Well, before Kenta was born I worked at the agency too. When we were starting out it was just Ken and me running the whole operation. Ken didn’t want to go the sidekick route, not his style, so he went independent right out of school. My degree was in finance so I handled that side of things, but in a small agency you end up wearing a lot of hats. I was so relieved when we finally brought Minato in to handle logistical support.”
Shinsou hums in acknowledgement. The buildings start to get shorter as they move further and further away from the city center. “Does Rock Lock commute every day?”
“Yep! He covers a regular patrol in the downtown area, because he’s awesome and worked hard for it, but living in Osaka proper on an independent hero’s salary would be pretty spartan. It's hard enough just paying for the agency space. Especially since we decided that I’d be stepping back to take care of Kenta full time.”
If Mrs. Takagi worked at Rock Lock’s agency up until recently (Kenta’s pretty small) she could probably answer a lot of questions. Shinsou considers what might be appropriate to ask, and what she’s likely to have the most expertise in.
“How do agency finances tend to work?”
“Great question! If you’re in the upper ranks, you know, top one hundred with a merch line and all that, you tend to bring in a lot more. The Top Ten are basically all independently wealthy. There are sponsorship deals, commercials, all of that. If you don’t want to dedicate a full team to promotion though or play the influencer game, your paycheck only comes from the actual work you do. Most underground heroes end up working long hours or taking a second job just to keep their finances stable.”
Huh. Like Eraserhead.
Although he was a full time hero for almost a decade before taking a teaching position at UA. Shinsou could see him as a workaholic though. Man wakes up at 4:30 every morning without intervention. Keigo kept resetting his alarm over the break.
Mrs. Takagi’s still talking though, even as she focuses on getting up to speed on the commuter highway, “Other agencies go what I call the the ‘sidekicksploitation’ route - you hire a ton of people as soon as you can, then take all the credit for the work they do under your agency’s name. There are a ton of young heroes trying to make it big, and most of them are pretty desperate. There’s no union or anything either, so a lot of agencies take advantage of that.”
“How so?”
“It’s partially because of how payouts work. The government just writes one check to the agency for any work done instead of staffing an army of personnel to expense everyone's contributions, individual-by-individual. It’s left up to the agency’s own discretion how to distribute those funds once that check gets cashed. Some agencies take advantage of that fact.”
Shinsou gets the impression from her tone that, in her opinion, ‘some’ means ‘most.’
“The agency gives the headliner hero the credit for any work done, bumping up their public profile, and bringing in those promotional deals. For ranked heroes attention equals money, so there’s no reason to share the glory. The agency’s actively incentivized to keep their sidekicks unknown and out of the public eye, which makes it harder for them to leave or move up in the ranks. On top of that, most only pay out a pittance, even if the sidekicks ended up doing most of the real work.”
She narrows her eyes, “They sure hold their sidekicks liable for any damages on the job though, you can bet on that. All risk, no reward.”
Yikes. That’s…well it makes sense, but it’s pretty grim. He’s been desperate most of his life. He could see himself taking whatever scraps he was given to stay in the game. His classmates however? “And enough people put up with that kind of contract?”
“No union and an oversaturated market, I’m afraid,” Takagi-san frowns, glancing at him in the rearview mirror, “There are always more young, fresh-faced graduates looking for work, so if anyone complains, they just tell them if they don’t like it they can leave. If you’re from a big-name school like UA, you have a little more negotiating power, but a lot of the smaller schools don’t have that kind of clout. You take what you get and you don’t throw a fit. And what you get often sucks.”
She glances at him again, “Not that I'm trying to discourage you from working in heroics. Just want to make sure you know your options. And that you don’t end up in one of those awful contracts. Rock Lock made it independent and plenty of other people do. And not every agency is like that, mind you. A lot of the Team Idaten folks came forward after that whole Stain thing. People started accusing Ingenium of exploiting his sidekicks. It’s pretty much the only reason anyone could think of for Stain targeting someone like him.”
“But he didn’t, right?” Shinsou frowns, thinking of Iida at the train station and Midoriya’s crestfallen face as he’d turned away, heading for Hosu.
“Oh, not at all. Not even a little bit. He’s solid.” She nods to him in the rear view mirror, “But Ingenium’s a young, legacy hero from a wealthy family who employs one of the largest teams in the country. From the outside, an extremist like Stain could easily imagine Inegenium being one of the worst offenders on the exploitation front and want to make an example out of him.”
She makes a face, “But the key word there is imagine. Whackjob must not do any research on his targets, because Ingenium really is one of the exceptions. Working for Team Idaten is a dream, pretty much every member on staff from the sidekicks to the janitorial crew have come out in defense of their boss. It’s such a sweet gig that a lot of Ingenium’s sidekicks don’t even want to go pro as heroes. They’re happy where they're at.”
She changes lanes again, getting out of the way of a city bus, “The contracts are amazing and Team Idaten clearly values its people. Every position is important. Sidekick, support, drivers, cleaners, the interns fetching coffee. Everyone gets treated with respect and, as a result, Team Idaten does some of the best work around even if they don’t get a lot of credit for it.”
Shinsou ponders this. Kenta just chills in his carseat, nomming on his well-loved plastic key-ring.
“It’s a tragedy what happened to Ingenium, but Team Idaten won’t be taken down by this. They’ll figure it out.”
Iida’s been in Hosu for at least an hour now. Shinsou wonders how his orientation is going.
“Hopefully someone finally nabs Stain. He was in Osaka a few years back and it was a nightmare. We were too small time then to have known any of the heroes he targeted, but the whole community took a hit. Both because of the attacks and because of the scandals that came out afterwards. Took a while to build up trust again.”
Shinsou could imagine.
“Sorry for all the downer talk,” Mrs. Takagi smiles weakly, “I promise it isn't all doom and gloom. Ken really is excited to have you out here.”
This is Shinsou's chance to ask, “Did he happen to mention why? I’m not exactly the flashiest kid in the course.”
“That's kind of the point, actually. Do you know how many psychic quirks there are in heroics? Outside of comms or search based ones?”
Yes. He does. He is intimately familiar with that depressing statistic. He knows all the depressing statistics.
“Not very many.”
Like, three. Brainstorm, Soothesayer, and Marionette. And Brainstorm lost their license two years ago for quirk misuse.
“You’re the first psychic manipulation quirk accepted into UA’s heroics course in over thirty years. That's insane.”
Yep, he knows.
“But your quirk is unbelievably suited for deescalation. Minimal use of force, minimal damage to infrastructure. Flashy quirks make the news, sure, but they tend to put holes in walls. Ken and I want to build a better future, both for Kenta and little guys like him everywhere. Having more heroes like you in the spotlight could do that.”
Wow. Okay. He's not going to start crying before the literal baby does. He's going to nod politely and make it through this, what, thirty minute drive? Forty? How long has it been?
“Heroics as it is now has some huge issues. Quirk discrimination is a big one. Heteromorphs, folks with so called ‘villainous’ quirks, I probably don't need to tell you how hard it is for some people to just live their lives. We’re manufacturing situations where people have little choice but to turn to villainy and then punishing them for it. And then turning that punishment into entertainment.”
Yeah, Shinsou provided entertainment for basically his entire middle school class. Especially after it became clear the staff were never going to take his side.
He wouldn't recommend the experience.
“So when Ken saw you at the sports festival, he wrote UA asking if he could put in a request too. We’ve been part of the UA apprenticeship program for a couple years now, but never had a student sign on. We weren't sure how it would go.”
Well, how it went was Rock Lock ending up being the only person interested in Shinsou who wasn't secretly just interested in getting their unethical government hands back on Keigo.
Or Shinsou himself. Which, yikes.
“We’re honored you chose us. Ken's going to do his best to make sure you have a solid foundation for when you start your career.”
“Thank you,” Shinsou manages. “I'll do my best to live up to that.”
Kenta conveys his feelings on the matter, such as they are, by flinging his plastic key ring.
Shinsou barely catches it before it smacks him in the face, and Kenta giggles in delight. He makes grabby motions with his chubby little baby hands.
Shinsou’s got a pretty good idea how the rest of this drive is going to go.
***
Sometimes you gotta consider the choices that have led you to where you are now.
Touya’s sitting shirtless on a stainless steel table in the UA Support Course workshop. A deeply unsettling teenage girl is in the process of sticking roughly two hundred temperature sensors to his newly healed chest and arms while Pro Hero Power Loader is calibrating the machine they hook up to behind her. She keeps muttering under her breath about whether or not his cold resistance is enough to handle liquid nitrogen tubing and how full body flame generation is such an interesting problem to work around.
Shouto is standing by, keeping the sensor wires from getting tangled. Mei Hatsume seems to think Endeavor’s greatest masterpiece’s primary purpose in life is as her mobile shelf or mannequin. Hilarious. She directs him like she does the army of highly specialized, voice-activated robots around the room. Kid doesn't seem to mind. You ask him to just stand there and keep some tubing from getting tangled? He’ll do that for as long as you need. No problem.
Touya only made the pilgrimage back to UA to get additional healing from Recovery Girl. Extensive skin grafts are an ongoing process, and having steady access to one of the world’s premier healing quirks sure speeds everything up. They’re basically farming him for healthy skin using Recovery Girl as a cheat code. UA isn’t even charging him for it or anything.
Shouto’s here because he’s basically living at the school this week. Sending him on an internship like the rest of his little classmates would just be ringing the dinner bell for every tabloid, podcaster, or weirdo in the nation. He’d been there when his little bro’s phone started blowing up with demands for who knows what. Feet pics probably.
The kid had asked come along to Touya’s appointment at the UA infirmary, because he likes to follow him around for some dumb reason, and then asked Touya if he wouldn’t mind coming with him to visit Power Loader, one of the teachers he’s interning with, who oversees the support course.
Touya thought sure, why not? He doesn’t get out much these days, what with the Mighty Agency legal and PR teams determined to make sure no one finds out about his existence until the most devastating possible moment for Endeavor’s case (a tactic he fully endorses, even if he’s getting pretty sick of being smuggled around).
Turns out his little bro had planned an ambush.
Power Loader, a short, hobbit-looking dude stomping around in some kind of specialized exosuit, spent about two seconds checking in with Shouto before immediately asking Touya questions about what kind of support gear he’s tried in the past and what the points of failure were. Shouto had told him all about his ‘cousin’ who might be interested in some support gear.
Power Loader was horrified by Touya’s response (none, and so, none) and immediately called over like four brats to start running extensive evaluations. Mei Hatsume, who exudes a level of weird girl energy that’s probably going to land her on the evening news one of these days, seems to be their ringleader. She opened by referring to him, stars in her eyes, as a ‘support gear virgin’ (he’d almost hauled off and roasted her for that one on principle alone) and quickly pivoted to calling him the ‘canvas upon which she will paint her next masterpiece.’
It took the little freak only thirty minutes to get him from threatening about how he would hurt her and would not feel bad about it to being here: shirtless, on a table, getting sensors taped to every inch of him in a grid pattern so Hatsume and her teacher could map out which parts of him were more or less heat resistant. He's not all that clear about the steps in between. His chest hurts like hell from the latest grafts, which is a new sensation. Should mellow out in a bit. That’s how it went with his arms.
The support course sussed out within fifteen minutes something his dear old dad never did - that his hair and eyes must have true heat resistance, otherwise he would have long since lost both. Which means that he’s just as much of a chimera as perfect little Shouto, only he’s a patchwork one instead of being split evenly down the middle, and with a different temperature range.
And, like, no ice generation.
Hatsume had helpfully pulled up a bunch of pictures of chimeric cats to demonstrate the different pattern possibilities. Some of them looked pretty cool. A lot of them looked exactly like Shouto, right down to their blank, no thoughts, head empty, expressions. The next order of business was figuring out where the patches were laid out on him, the extent of his heat and cold resistance, and starting the design process from there.
Touya’s not planning on paying for any of this, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue for anyone here. Hasn’t even come up. It probably should - support gear tends to be ridiculously expensive. You need like five different licenses just to make it without the HPSC coming down on you like a ton of bricks. And a heroics license or special medical approval to wear it. He'd looked into it for all of twenty minutes as a newly homeless teen on a library computer and realized it was a pipe dream.
Touya doesn't even have his high school diploma, much less a heroics license, so he has no idea what they’re doing this all for. Maybe just to make sure he doesn’t just burn himself up again after all the hard work Dr. Habuta is putting in. Did she put in the request? Does he qualify for medical approval?
But if that’s the case, then why are Power Loader and Hatsume’s little friends floating the idea of gauntlets that could concentrate his flames away from his body? Or drawing up sketches of a tactical vest and specialized boots that could be used for flight capabilities, or asking him what he likes most about his very cool coat? He might be surrounded by nerds, but at least they’re nerds with taste.
He gets the questions about his quirk control. Power Loader found out how hot his flames go and immediately started fishing to see if he’d be down to help torch things for the support course if the school could swing getting him a work license (probably not at the moment, he’s still dead even if they don’t need to know that).
This does not deter further questions.
Can Touya concentrate his flames into a welding torch shape? Sure. They have a forge, but someone who could modulate their flames even more precisely than their current equipment would be extremely valuable. Especially someone who can generate fire as hot or hotter than 2000°C. It’s a rare skill, and could save UA a fortune on fuel. Makes sense. Touya can do that. He’ll need a gauge to check against but he’s honed little else besides his quirk and his thirst for vengeance since he was sixteen. He’s pretty solid with both. Fighting is pretty much his only marketable skill, and a guy’s gotta eat. And pay for medical staples.
Doesn’t explain why they’re asking him about what kind of gear he’d use in combat, and, uh, well, he has ideas, don’t get him wrong, but he also is (at the moment) very much legally dead. His vague answers don’t stop one of Hatsume’s little friends from pulling up the FAQ page for the heroics license exams. Apparently Touya could take the provisional exam in the fall if he wanted to. He could take the actual heroics licensing exam if he wanted to, so long as he completes the ‘Upper Secondary School Equivalence Examination’ beforehand. Hatsume starts pulling up study guides for that and asking Touya how much he remembers about geometry.
What is even happening right now. Did his little bro tell them all he was interested in becoming a pro as part of his cover story? Did they just assume that because they’re all UA brats and have terminal cases of pro hero brain rot?
What does Touya even want to do with his life after the trial?
His most recent reference is a skeezeball criminal broker. His references before that are, well, no one needs to know. He’s not exactly pro hero material. But then again, that was Dabi. Touya Todoroki has even less of a criminal record and no ties to the criminal underground other than the creepy hospital situation.
It occurs to him, sitting on that table while Hatsume continues grilling him for info and taping sensors onto his back, that Touya Todoroki might have to think about his future beyond the whole vengeance scheme. Dabi was supposed to go out in a blaze of fiery justice. Touya promised his mother he wasn’t going anywhere. His plan involves wearing a nice suit, following the aggressively well paid lawyer's instructions, and ruining his scumbag father’s life in court.
But then what?
The terrifying PR lady from the Mighty Agency keeps implying that, if the press gets so much as an inkling of Touya doing anything illegal before, during, or after the trial, she will, in fact, skin him and make him into a tacky handbag, staples and all. Touya’s been menaced by the literal Yakuza for Giran and they were less frightening. Apparently trying to manage the Symbol of Peace for thirty plus years drives the average PR person to fantasizing about nothing but new and creative methods of murder. Dude just wanders off and does insane shit on the daily and tells no one. His PR team finds out about his nonsense along with everyone else when it hits the news. The global economy also happens to hinge on the average person's confidence in this ridiculous man.
It’s not a low-stress work environment. She’s in dire need of some xanax. Or a tranquilizer dart. Or several darts. One for her, and like five for All Might.
He doesn’t want to go back to Giran. He never even liked the guy. He doesn’t want to go back to the streets either. What else is there? What does he even want out of life now that the vengeance box has been ticked and he’s still kicking around?
Shouto, entirely ignorant of his big bro starting to spiral at the realization that he’s got options and a whole ass future, seems pleased by how things are going. Like this is all another step in his stupid master plan. Touya’s getting better at reading the kid. Sure, he just stares blankly like an idiot most of the time, but there are subtle tells. His posture seems a bit more relaxed right now, and his expression seems…satisfied. Which is basically whooping and hollering in delight for Shouto Todoroki.
Hm. Endeavor really messed the kid up.
But then again, as Power Loader mumbles darkly about the criminal negligence of not looking into appropriate support gear for Touya as soon as his quirk started burning him, it’s not like Endeavor didn’t mess up all of them.
***
Daisuke Inoba, aka Pro Hero Airlift, never expected Keigo Takahashi to choose his agency. Kid won first at the UA Sports Festival. He probably had offers from heroes in the Top Ten.
Airlift isn’t even ranked.
Sure, his team has cultivated contracts with the SDF and a mishmash of local government agencies and other NGOs, but they don’t do the kind of promotional work you’d need to end up on the billboards, much less anywhere near the top of them. They talk to a lot of city councilmen and fire department chiefs, not reporters.
They’re on the call list for over a dozen different disaster response groups, but the most publicity their team gets is being in the background of news reports and occasionally visiting local elementary schools. And the school visits are only because Haru’s aunt is an administrator for the district.
Daisuke’s quirk (the ability to create, expand, and maneuver platforms out of solidified air) works best as part of a larger search and rescue unit. It's particularly suited for, well, airlifting injured people out of tricky situations, but that’s not the kind of work anyone does solo. He also uses it for moving rubble, creating airpockets, that sort of thing, but it takes a whole team to rescue the person trapped beneath and get them the appropriate medical care.
He’s great at his job, don’t get him wrong, but he’s basically a glorified first responder.
Team Airlift started out as a bunch of emergency med students working as disaster response volunteers on the side. The journey to getting their heroics licenses only began because they got sick of having to wait for the pros to clear the area before anyone else could move in. Those extra minutes of response time can make a huge difference in survival rates and outcomes, but regular folks aren't authorized to enter active fight zones. Not until all villains have been subdued.
All Might can't be worrying about crushing the EMT’s while Detroit Smashing after all.
A pro has the training and skills to (theoretically) avoid that. And can get patched in on communications when there’s a major operation. So, while still young, dumb, and able to pull insane all nighters, Daisuke and his friends decided to just get accredited. What’s one more certification when you’re already an overachiever in a highly technical field, right? Then they could work in disaster scenarios where active villains might still be present and get those precious minutes back.
Turns out most people don’t do that because trying to get accredited as a pro hero and a doctor and an ambulance driver and a helicopter pilot and, well, you get the picture, tends to be the kind of thing only insane people do.
When they first formed the Team Airlift, they chose Daisuke as the headliner because Haru said he had the catchiest name and sounded the most professional over the phone. They’ve been operating for almost ten years now and he’s still not sure if they made the right call on that one (he maintains that Kanna-chan has the best customer service voice), but they’ve sure saved a lot of lives.
Still doesn’t explain Takahashi choosing them.
Even if the kid is interested in SAR, he must have had better options. Team Airlift's just not a big name, not even in the less glamorous world of rescue heroics. They’re not like Thirteen, who consults at UA these days and has her own merchandise line. She’s a frequent guest on science shows for kids and featured in commercials. Airlift just has an extremely limited run of sticker sheets his sister made for him a few years back as a birthday present. His team embarrasses him by handing them off to kids on the job.
Daisuke honestly only filled out the internship application on a dare. Haru thought he’d be too chicken to actually submit it. Kanna-chan said it’d be good practice for when other heroics schools had their internships later in the year. She'd wanted to start passing on their expertise to the next generation.
But Keigo Takahashi not only accepted, the little celebrity actually showed up. He arrives out of nowhere too, dropping from the sky to land just outside their office carrying a metal UA support gear case and a backpack. Did he fly here from the tracks? The dossier UA gave him said he has a limited flight license, but it’s a long way from the station to their agency office at the airfield.
He looks way younger in person too. Are all fifteen year olds that babyfaced? Was Daisuke ever that scrawny-looking? Must have been. Those wings sure are impressive, way larger in real life than on the breakroom TV.
They’re waaaay too big for Daisuke’s crashpad. Thank goodness they have the on-site bunks. At least he doesn’t have to figure out where to host the kid. Daisuke barely fits in the closet his landlord calls a studio apartment, which has never mattered much because he’s rarely there, but him and a kid with a wingspan like that? Not a chance.
Since his name was on the application and the agency letterhead, the rest of his team (traitors) made it clear that the care and keeping of their unexpected intern was going to be his responsibility. They’d all help with the mentoring, absolutely, but Daisuke was footing the bill to keep the kid fed.
Takahashi-kun checks the signage on the door before letting himself in. Their receptionist (it’s just Kanna-chan, who mans their emergency line, they don’t get public visitors up here) hops out of her chair and gives him her best ‘hi kids! We’re here today to talk about emergency drills!’ smile.
“Welcome to Team Airlift! We’re excited to have you!”
Daisuke takes a deep breath, suddenly nervous. It had all been a funny joke, the UA winner chose their dinky little operation! Take that everyone! But Daisuke’s got to mentor this literal child for a whole week now and the reality of that situation is really sinking in.
His nephew is four. He does not think his experiences babysitting are going to translate to a teenager.
“Takahashi?” As if the kid could be anyone else with those wings.
Takahashi nods, his own smile broad. His eyes are pretty interesting, more catlike than birdlike. The eyeliner is probably not actually eyeliner either. “Inoba-san?”
“Daisuke-san is fine, we’re pretty informal around here,” Daisuke puts on his best ‘dealing with the traumatized public’ face, “Welcome to the agency! We’re excited to have you this week!”
It's the exact same thing Kanna just said.
Takahshi’s too classy to point that out. He bows, “Thank you for having me. I’m in your care.”
Yeah. He sure is. That's the part Daisuke's anxious about.
***
Thirteen had Shouto this morning, and Power Loader has him this afternoon. Which means that Aizawa is, for now, completely free of his students.
Which is why he even considers taking a meeting request from Yokumiru Mera of the HPSC. He’s been haunting UA campus since the Sports Festival, heading up the investigation into Endeavor. Everyone finds that fact extremely suspicious, except, ironically, Takahashi. He’s not worried about it in the least.
At least the man seems to be taking the investigation seriously.
If the HPSC ever planned on burying the Endeavor abuse scandal, they’ve had a change of heart. Agent Mera’s been very public about what they’ve found and how seriously the HPSC plans to take this. Having him show up personally to back the UA and HPSC security teams at the Sports Festival was a mindscrew. The man threatened to suspend Endeavor’s license on the spot while Aizawa was straining not to blink. It was the first (and only) threat that got through.
He takes the meeting in class 1-A. Nedzu is planning on sweeping the place for bugs the second Mera leaves, just as a precaution. It’s also one of the only places on campus they can reliably meet without being disturbed. The staff lounge is a zoo right now, with the entirety of the heroics student body off campus for the week. It’s time for meetings, reviews, and catching up on lesson plans. It’s hard to get time on a staff computer.
Mera shuffles in, just as unassuming as ever, even if Aizawa isn’t buying any part of it.
He has no idea what Mera’s relationship to Keigo Takahashi actually was. He’s the agent the HPSC chose to send to UA after him though, and that speaks to something more than just passing acquaintances. Takahashi made it a condition of his cooperation that he got to have one final one-on-one meeting with the man. Aizawa had stood outside the door. It had only lasted a few minutes, but he hadn’t been able to overhear what was discussed.
“Aizawa-san,” Mera mutters in his distinctive, gravely voice. He looks exhausted, but that seems to be the standard for him in the same way it is for Aizawa.
“Agent Mera,” Aizawa acknowledges, his tone roughly the temperature of an ill-fated arctic expedition in the dead of winter. With about the same survival rate.
Aizawa’s taken his own seat behind the podium, but he hasn’t pulled any other chairs up to the desk. Call him petty for it, but petty doesn’t begin to cover how he feels towards HPSC personnel right now. He’s still furious from his last conversation with Takahashi regarding his ‘training’ at that morally bankrupt nightmare factory. The fact that he’s not dangling this man by the ankles off the edge of a roof is courtesy enough. Mera can stand or sit at one of the desks like a student.
Mera glances around, taking stock of the situation quickly. Good. The man just sighs and takes his seat at Shouji’s desk.
“I wanted to ask you,” Mera begins, no preamble, unlatching the straps on his briefcase, “for your take on the Endeavor situation. As Shouto Todoroki’s homeroom teacher and the man who made the CGC report-”
“Did the HPSC have anything to do with the leak?”
Awfully convenient, now that the HPSC has decided to make Endeavor an example to prove how they’re oh-so-committed to transparency, that his crimes get made public in the most damaging way possible. Never mind the cost to Shouto, whose protection this whole investigation is supposedly in service of.
Mera pauses, “No, we did not. Although we wish the Musutafu police force the very best on their investigation. Hopefully the culprit is found quickly.”
“Do you now?” Aizawa doesn't activate erasure.
“We do,” Mera says, blandly as he seems to say everything. He pulls out some files, sets those on Shouji’s desk, and keeps digging in his briefcase. “Returning to the initial question, your take on the Endeavor situation?”
“You know my take. The full report is archived on Wikileaks right now.”
“Is it?” Mera hums. He sets his water bottle onto the desk next. “I haven’t seen.”
“Why are you actually here?”
“Well, it’s as I’ve said,” Mera seems to find what he was searching for. He pulls out an entire external hard drive, the kind designed to withstand a fire, and rests it carefully on the desktop.
He then takes out his cell phone, nonchalantly pops the back off and removes the battery, and sets both of those items down as well, “I’m here to get your take on the Endeavor situation.”
What the hell is going on right now.
“While the CGC report has, regrettably, become public knowledge,” Agent Mera murmurs, still utterly calm while removing a miniscule earpiece from his ear, “the HPSC feels that seeking additional insights could be helpful for our investigation.
Aizawa preemptively reaches for his capture weapon. He doesn’t know what this is but he already doesn’t like it.
Mera seems entirely unbothered by this choice of action. He unscrews the cap off his water bottle and drops the earpiece into the liquid inside with exactly zero fanfare. It fizzes slightly.
He seems satisfied.
“That’s what the HPSC believes me to be doing, at any rate. I’m actually here to give you this hard drive containing the past nine years of the HPSC’s records on the Hawks project.”
He slides the hard drive forward, patting it like a small, well-behaved dog.
Aizawa stares at it.
Mera waits, placid as anything.
Alright then.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Well, I’d planned on resigning, but your ‘Takahashi’ is very good at what he does. He reminded me about why I signed on with the HPSC in the first place. To protect and further the greater good. And then he pointed me in the direction of Endeavor. I wasn’t expecting the man to become such a hot topic so quickly, but it certainly gave me a reason to stay with the HPSC. I leveraged my continued service to be granted charge of the investigation into the man.”
Aizawa keeps staring at the hard drive. “Why are you giving me this?”
“Because it turns out that the HPSC has wiped the entirety of the Hawks project from its servers and archives. Someone should know what happened to the boy.”
“If they wiped everything, then what’s this?”
Mera shrugs, “I’ve learned to keep my own copies of projects I’m involved in, especially for things as potentially damaging as what’s on here.”
They stare at the hard drive between them.
Mera taps his fingers on the desk, “I figured I might need the insurance one day. I’ve been with the HPSC for many years, after all. Defend their secrets long enough and eventually you become the next thing they might decide to bury. This could easily be my last case with them. If so, I’m not expecting a long retirement.”
Aizawa lets the full weight of that statement sink in.
He has no idea if Mera is telling the truth, if any of this is real. For all he knows, there’s a heavily sanitized version of Keigo Takami’s history on that harddrive, a false trail, or a virus designed to grant the HPSC a backdoor into UA’s servers.
Or just a pipe bomb.
“What do you expect me to do with this information?”
“Whatever you deem fit. Read it, keep it as insurance for a rainy day, let Hawks have it. I’ve long since lost all right to make decisions for the boy. UA’s done well by him so far. I trust your judgement more than my own.”
Aizawa feels a sudden wave of fury wash over him.
“And that’s it? You just hand me this and walk away?”
“Oh, I have plenty of work to do before I’m done. But I’m keeping clear of Hawks. He’s your responsibility now,” Mera begins putting everything back away, “You should know, however, that my original orders were to bring him back or bury him.”
Aizawa tenses, fingers twisting in the folds of his scarf.
Mera just continues packing everything away.
“He’s not coming back. Not now. Not that he has other options. UA’s influence should keep him safe, at for least a little while. But they have long memories at the HPSC. And they’ll remember everything that he’s got locked away in his own. He’s a hell of a liability. Should something untimely happen to me, I don’t want them to have an easier time of making him disappear.”
The ‘I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you’ kind of stuff.
Mera slides his phone and its battery into his workbag as well. He stands up, takes a sip of his water. “And if they do manage it, then I trust you and UA to at least make them pay for it.”
He walks out, leaving nothing but the hard drive and a heavy sense of dread behind.