The second day of the internship was very uneventful for Iida Tenya. The closest thing the city had to real villain activity that day was a brief attack by a random villain. Unfortunately for said villain, he chose to do it while Black Cat was in the city, meaning all he got for his neerdowell activities was a rather thorough beating.
They had arrived at the scene as he was arrested, and Black Cat was just leaving. Upon seeing her, he had wondered where Mina and Izuku were, but really, how Black Cat enacted her internship was not his business.
Other than that, Iida and Manual generally did the less flashy parts of hero work, like helping out people who had gotten lost, patrolling the streets on the lookout for villain attacks that would not come.
After the villain attack, they had been too late to help with, he and Manual had stayed around to help with the aftermath, especially with the traffic.
In particular, there had been an upended bus whose occupants had required help to exit the vehicle.
That had taken roughly half an hour, and they'd helped out crying children, older but resigned men and women, and average salarymen. There had also been two physically handicapped people, who had required special care, one an older woman in a wheelchair, and one older, blind gentleman from America. The old woman had been ecstatic and crying at receiving help, while the blind man had been surprisingly calm about the whole thing.
It was the kind of work that normally would have seemed just fine to Tenya. Today, however, he couldn't help but glance over his shoulder, or every single alleyway they passed.
The idea that the hero killer could still be here, somewhere in the city, was a thought that borrowed it's way into Tenya's mind. He just could NOT get that idea out of his mind.
Still, no sign of his quarry was evident, and he didn't see a single sign of the monster prowling these streets.
---
Izuku was slamming the old buss that he was currently using as target practice with 6 small cannonballs in rapid succession, when a loud call from Black Cat composed of the word "break-time", sounded loudly across the yard.
Izuku halted surprised, having expected and planned for this part of training to go on for another hour or so more at least before they got a break.
As it was, as he turned around to where Black Cat and Mina had been sparring, the older woman was nowhere in sight, while Mina had settled down on the hood of one of the countless cars in the scrapyard.
As he walked up to her, she was panting hard, and absolutely drenched in sweat, but she grinned at him as he stepped up to her.
"Mom got a call about some crime or other she had to go deal with." She said, answering the question Izuku hadn't actually asked.
He simply nodded, and as he walked up beside her, the mask around his face retracted leaving his head bare.
The two of them were relatively early into the second training rotation for the second day, and though there was soreness in his arms, Izuku knew from painful experience that the pain wouldn't really set in this early in the training.
Izuku felt a momentary pang of desire for the two of them to have tagged along with Black Cat, and seen her in action, but he let it drop. Realistically speaking, there was no reason to drag along the two of them along to do actual hero work. Not yet anyway.
As it was, he instead settled down on the car hood alongside Mina.
Yesterday's history lesson had been quite… Illuminating, and he was still kinda trying to wrap his head around it all.
The Caribbean League, the prophecies of madam Web, being confronted with the stark and brutal realities of realpolitik, and the fact he still didn't know anything about what the league of Villains wanted…
It was a lot to consider, and he still hadn't arrived at an answer about how he felt about it all.
As he sat there with Mina though, he was able to put that all aside for the moment. It was a surprisingly calming thing, just sitting there together. At least he thought so.
The silence lasted about half a minute more before Mina finally spoke up.
"So… How are you doing? You seemed pretty distraught about what mom told you yesterday."
"I… I'm fine. It's just… A lot to take in."
She nodded.
"I suppose. Personally, I kinda find that history stuff really, really boring, but I suppose it's important to know who our enemies are."
Boring was not a word Izuku would have used to describe any of the stuff Black Cat had told him, but he supposed Mina was entitled to her opinion.
"So… You really knew about it all, ever since the day it happened?"
"Yeah. Like… If I had known you were that interested and worried about it, I'd have told you, but man… You've never even mentioned you were worried or wondering about any of this stuff. Like, at all."
Yeah, he supposed that was on him.
Mina was right. He had been burning with questions, questions he had only set aside to focus on the tournament, but he had not as much as mentioned that with any of his friends.
"I'll… I'll keep that in mind in the future.
Mina nodded absently.
"So… You don't really seem bothered by any of it?"
"Eh, I'm not really happy about any of it, but there's not really much we can do about it you know? We can't do anything about the Caribbean, and well, it's the pros' job to handle the league of villains. I mean… I could spend all the time worrying about this kinda stuff, and worrying that the leagues could strike again… But that's not really living you know?"
As she talked, Mina motioned with her hand to the side, signifying something large or big.
"You can't really live your life like that, worrying about everything that might go wrong, or something negative that could happen to you. If you do that, you'd never really get to enjoy life to the fullest."
Izuku… Didn't really know how to feel about that.
On one hand, he did get what she was saying. How you shouldn't fear the future and what it had to bring. On the other hand… That idea was so completely against how he'd lived his own life.
Izuku always worried about everything that could go wrong. He worried about the two leagues that were pitted against him and his school, he was worried about anyone learning about Venom's real nature, he was worried about ultimately failing in his dream of becoming a hero.
The simple truth was that Izuku feared the future.
It might not be the kind of crippling fear Mina described, but it was there.
He genuinely feared what could be in store for his future.
It was the reason he had always been terrified of opening up about his and Katsuki's earlier relationship. About telling anyone he had been, and still was, quirkless.
Because he feared the reaction.
Still, there was something… Beautiful about the way Mina did not fear what was ahead of her.
"My brother was like that. Mom spent just as much training him as she did me, and he's really damn strong, but… Well, he never really talked about it, but I'm pretty sure that when he tried Yuei's entrance exam, it really hit him you know? That Hero life isn't safe. There's tons of risks, and the simple fact is that if you aren't able to handle it, you're really not cut out for this kind of life."
Her voice as she talked changed to something rather melancholic as if she was remembering sad memories.
Izuku looked at her, really, really surprised. Then he nodded slowly.
He… Kinda doubted that it was intentional, but the way Mina just talked about her family problems to someone else, without a care in the world was… something else.
He thought about it and tried imagining himself in that position, talking with Mina about his family's relative poverty, or his not exactly existent relationship with his dad, or the way he worried about being a disappointing son to his mother.
A week ago, he could not have imagined opening up about any of that to anyone. Now… Well, now he felt… Different. At least in regards to Mina.
He felt… Safe when Mina was around. No, that… Wasn't quite the word. He felt… Happy around Mina, In a way, he just didn't with anyone else.
As he was trying to figure that out though, Mina continued.
"I don't think Ben would have been able to handle stuff like this. The leagues of All For One and the Caribbean I mean. Not like us."
...
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