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Izuku called Shouto and Tenya as soon as he realized that Ochako was missing. It was half-past five, and she should have been home from her internship fifteen minutes ago. She hadn’t texted or called, which was unusual by itself.
Oftentimes, Ochako would text their groupchat or the 1-A class chat when she got on the train, and again when she started the short walk from her stop to the dorms. It may have seemed like overkill to some outsiders, but Izuku was grateful for each and every text.
All of them had had too many close calls in seemingly everyday situations for any concern to be misplaced, and knew that even a minutes’ hesitation could be the difference between life and death.
So Izuku knew, as he, Shouto, and Tenya snuck out of the dorms, that they were making the right call in escaping. They had to get off U.A. grounds before the alarm sounded, the gates closed, and their only chance of saving Uraraka vanished.
He knew the teachers would say to let them handle it if Izuku raised his concerns, but there wasn’t time for that. If Ochako never even made it to the train station after her internship, something likely happened on the job. He hadn’t seen anything on the news, so whatever happened wasn’t about gaining attention– at least, not yet.
And honestly any doubts he would have over the validity of jumping the gun, so to speak, is immediately shut down by the fact that Tenya willingly joined them xx right?
Like surely if getting a teacher or adult involved were the right way to go then Tenya would have pushed for them to do that instead.
Izuku absently rubs at his cheek as the memory of when Tenya had punched him swims by. Truly they’ve come a long way since that night. Tenya hasn’t even mentioned the possible ramifications for this. He didn’t even push for disguises!
Now that could simply be because breaking curfew isn’t illegal and therefore the worst that could happen is house arrest or extra chores around the dorms or maybe even some essays on following the rules.
(This last one is the least likely of all considering Shouto’s tendency to go off topic, Izuku’s tendency to go over the page limit, and Tenya’s tendency to cram as many words as possible in the required amount of pages until whoever had assigned the essay is first to break out the magnifying glass to read it. Truly the three of them have never learned anything from needing to write an essay about it. Whichever teacher had the misfortune of assigning said penalty winds up being the one feeling punished.)
Back to the matter at hand though, breaking curfew has never been illegal.
Depending on what they find when they make it to Ochako’s internship site, using their quirks just might be.
Tsuyu’s bad cold had caused her to return to the dorms earlier than scheduled. She and Ochako usually traveled back to campus together. Ryukyu’s agency isn’t far from the train station, so there’s only so many places to search for whatever situation Ochako found herself in.
They didn’t have to try very hard at all.
The bookstore was suspiciously shuttered, lights out even though it didn’t close until 8 pm. No note on the door. There were bikes parked outside, but no one was entering or leaving.
Tenya peered inside. Nobody home, but he could barely see a light under a doorway in the back. He tried the door— locked. If an employee was present, the doors must remain unlocked for reasons of fire safety. The light suggested someone was inside.
“Let’s try around the back,” Shouto suggested. “Maybe there’s an entrance back there.”
There was. A minor application of Izuku’s strength popped the door right open with (hopefully) minimal damage. No alarms sounded. The three of them crept into the building, listening for any signs of danger.
Voices emerged from a room with its door ajar, harsh whispers and muffled cries.
Izuku slid closer and peered inside.
The room was full of boxes, equipment, and hostages.
Three large men stood with their backs to the door. A man with a rhinoceros mutation quirk stood on the left, and a man with a bull mutation quirk stood on the right. The man in the center didn’t have an obvious quirk, but he did have a gun resting lazily in his hand and pointed at the floor.
The rest of the people in the room appeared to be the staff and customers of the bookshop, in various states of fear and distress. Two sat directly in front of the villains, apart from the others.
One was a young man with goat horns curling away from his face. The other…
The other one was Ochako. Her hands were bound in front of her and encased in plastic bags and packing tape. Blood ran from a rip in her tights, showing off a nasty slash wound. She glared up at her captors.
“Now,” the man with the gun said, “we’re all going to play nice. Unless somebody else wants special attention like Little Miss Hero School here, we’re going to keep quiet and stay down and not do anything stupid.”
Izuku backed carefully away, retreating back to the door to where they could hopefully make a plan that would minimize the danger and possible casualties. They couldn’t risk Ochako, they couldn’t.
“What’s our move?” Izuku hissed once the other two had joined him at the door.
“Call for help,” Tenya replied smoothly. “This is a tense situation that could lead to people being caught in the crossfire. Ideally we could pull it off, especially if we could immediately free Ochako but…”
“But someone innocent might get hurt,” Shouto finished for Tenya.
Yes, they have in fact all gone through a growth arc. They are here without permission, true. But look, they are making a plan!
“What if something happens while we are waiting? They could get hurt anyways,” Izuku argued.
“If we go in without a plan and back up, they are almost guaranteed to get hurt. We need to call Aizawa-sensei,” Tenya responded firmly. “We don’t mess around with civilian lives.”
“One of us should go call for help, and two of us remain here to interfere if things get worse,” Shouto said, glancing back towards where they’d seen Ochako. They could hear the men still snarling loudly at the hostages, and the subtle murmurs of fear from the innocents.
“Agreed,” Izuku fired back immediately. “Tenya should go call for help. He’s best at calmly passing along the information they’ll need.”
Tenya narrowed his eyes briefly at Izuku, as if sensing an ulterior motive before nodding decisively.
“I won’t be far, tell me if anything changes. I’m sure the heroes will be here with all due speed.”
“Thank you Tenya,” Izuku said. He watched as his friend's face set in determination before he sprinted off into the distance.
Then he turned to Shouto, who was looking at him knowingly. “You have a plan, don’t you?”
“Always,” Izuku said, grinning fiercely. “Tenya’s going to get help as quick as he can, but Ochako is in danger now. We need to get in and get her before—“
A voice cut in from the other room. “What was that? Little Miss Hero has something to say?”
Izuku cursed under his breath and rushed alongside Shouto to peer into the hostage room again. One of the civilian men was sprawled haphazardly on the ground, one of the villains looming over him threateningly while Ochako shouted through her gag.
“—that,” Izuku finished lamely. “Before that.”
Keeping half an eye on Ochako’s situation, Izuku quickly explained his plan to Shouto.
“I’d ask if you’re sure it’ll work, but your plans have never failed yet,” Shouto said. “They’ve maybe had a few more broken bones than would be ideal, but—“
“It’s been a year since I’ve broken any bones, Shouto! A year!” Izuku whispered heatedly, mindful of the captive (ha!) audience just beyond the door. “I haven’t even— no, that’s not important. Come on Shouto, let’s do this.”
Izuku’s plan was simple: they’d just come from the dorms, so they don’t look like Heroes In Training (unless you recognized their highly distinctive hair and/or faces). Right now that would work to their advantage.
Izuku sent Shouto to head to the front of the bookstore, freeze the lock off and let himself inside the building, and wander around the store pretending to be a customer. If Izuku was lucky, he'd make enough noise to draw away at least two of the guards. (How Shouto took care of them was up to him, but Izuku knew how capable he was and had seen him take on more villains in more tightly cramped quarters.)
Right on cue, he heard the resounding sound of shattered glass.
“Whoops!” Shouto exclaimed. “I’m just looking for a book, I definitely didn’t mean to knock that over!”
Izuku had the pleasure of watching Ochako’s eyes widen in first realization and then hope as she realized who was making a ruckus in the front of the store.
Then Izuku kicked down the back door.
The plan was what one would call a two pronged approach. If the guards were facing Shouto’s distraction, Izuku could quickly take them all out from behind with a swift judicious use of blackwhip and full cowling.
Should the guards immediately swivel to face Izuku, Shouto would be the one to take them down with his instant flash freeze technique.
And should the guards split up, two facing one of them while the third faced the other, well at the very least none of them would be thinking about the hostages.
The one with the gun would then take priority. The other two having visible mutations the likes of which would affect physical strength while possessing no external weapons made it likely that they were the hired muscle. Bulls were prone to charging their opponents and so were Rhinos, and Izuku wouldn’t be surprised to discover that the two thugs were somehow familially related to each other. The two horns jutting from the sides of Bull’s face as well as the single horn where Rhinos’ nose should be were definitely nothing to sneeze at. But a gun was far more versatile. It could be aimed and shot from afar making it the greatest threat to the hostages.
Izuku’s plan had been a good one, elegant in its simplicity.
And it would have worked too had not the Bull run towards Shouto, the Rhino towards Izuku, and the gun user… remained calmly seated.
“Well now,” he drawled, his weapon spinning around one finger as he’d eyed the proceedings with glee. “What have we here?”
Izuku’s eyes widened in horror as he realized their mistake. He had no way of knowing if blackwhip is faster than a gun, no way of knowing if he could respond to both men fast enough to keep anyone from getting hurt.
Blackwhip seethed as he readied himself to act, but the crack of a bullet and cry of pain stopped him in his tracks.
Ochako’s shoulder was bleeding.
Bleeding…
“Next one ends her, wanna be hero boy. I won’t give any more second chances tonight, this was your one warning.” The gun wasn’t spinning anymore as the man spoke, instead it remained aimed at Ochako with a single finger on the trigger.
Izuku crumbled immediately, blackwhip or no he would never risk her life.
Never her.
They would have to hope Tenya’s heroes got here soon, and could pull off a better rescue than Izuku and Shouto have managed.
He could hear more commotion from the front, Shouto’s battle with the Bull.
Izuku’s fight however was over.
Hands raised in surrender, he let them force him into place next to Ochako.
Izuku tried to convey with his expression that hope remained, but the lines of pain etched into her face would be permanently burned into his memory.
Rage clouded his vision, how dare they hurt her. How dare they hurt one of the truly good things in his life. And for what? He doesn’t even know what they want. What does a bookstore have that would make them even bother? Or was it about Ochako all along…
Pain yanked his awareness painfully back to the present.
“Any more hero wannabes floating around waiting to become hostages too? You punks just think you can do whatever, well that isn’t the case here,” the gun man snarled, waving the weapon menacingly before returning to point it at Ochako.
He didn't notice the fight in the shop go silent, and he didn’t see the dark figure appear behind him until it was too late for him.
The gun man fired again. Izuku dove in front of Ochako. It earned him a matching bullet in the shoulder, but Aizawa-sensei’s capture scarf knocked the gun out of his hand so the villain couldn’t fire again.
“I wouldn’t say wannabe,” Aizawa said. “And I think you’re done with hostages now.”
Other teachers (and Shouto, and Tenya) rushed in to secure the villains and tend to the civilians. Despite the burning pain in his arm, Izuku ripped at Ochako’s bonds.
“Oh my god,” she gasped, half laughing, “Deku, you ass. How come I get held hostage and you still end up hurt?!”
Shouto and Tenya came over to put pressure on their injuries. “You said it’s been a year since you broke your bones? I think you also broke your streak,” Shouto said.
Aizawa-sensei grunted from where he was sitting on top of the tied-up villain. “You also broke curfew. And got yourself captured immediately. All of you except for Uraraka will be having extra classes on acceptable plans of action in a hostage crisis. This was not one of them.”
Izuku wanted to argue, but even he knew he wasn’t squirreling out of this one. He had wanted to save Ochako— and did, sort of— but he really only got himself injured.
“I’m sorry, sensei,” he murmured, contrite.
Aizawa scrutinized him, though what he looked for Izuku wasn’t sure. “You should be sorry,” he told him. “You know we have procedures for a reason.”
Shamefacedly, Izuku dropped his gaze.
Then, surprisingly, Aizawa-sensei relented. “You did a good job finding Ochako, though. Clearly you found her quicker than us, though how much of that is our additional worry over our three extra missing students is up for debate,” he said pointedly. “Paramedics will be here soon, so in the meantime, just sit. Tight.”
At his stern tone, Izuku’s muscles practically locked in place, and from the look on his friends' faces he could tell that they too had no intention of moving.
As soon as Aizawa’s attention was elsewhere, Ochako turned to Izuku, Tenya, and Shouto. She looked tired and worn from the stress and blood loss, but she managed a small smile. “Thank you guys for coming for me.”
“We always will,” Tenya assured her, and Izuku and Shouto nodded in agreement.
“You,” she said with a glare at Izuku, “need to stop breaking yourself, though. If I had a nickel for every time I was in danger and you were the one to get hurt, I’d have at least two nickels.”
“That isn’t much!” Izuku exclaimed. At this, all three of his friends glared at him, and he raised his uninjured hand in defeat. “I’ll be better, Ochako.” He met all of their eyes in turn. “I promise.”
“We’ll hold you to it,” Shouto said.
“I know.”
And honestly? Izuku was glad for it.
This was the first time in a long time that he was badly injured, and he was going to work to make sure it didn’t happen again for a long time after. With his friends’ help, he knew he would succeed.
As they waited for the paramedics, Izuku dropped his head to Tenya’s shoulder, mindful of where he was keeping pressure on Izuku’s bullet wound. In the corner of his eye he saw Ochako do the same against Shouto, and he knew that they would all be okay.