8: Compression
He has to stop on the way home. Considering the distances he's travelling, stopping for minutes at a time still leaves him ahead, but stopping makes him nervous. It gnaws at him and bounces his leg while he's trying to steady his shaking hands and actually focus, instead of rolling into the back of his own head.
Fighting Rappa had felt good. Beating Overhaul… hadn't. Overhaul was going to prison, surely, but that didn't give Izuku anywhere to direct his anger. Before today he'd imagined that he was being righteous or something, and now he's just angry.
Shit, is this what Bakugō feels like all the time? No wonder he's an asshole.
Goosebumps crawl over his chest in the wake of a breeze, reminding him that he's sitting shirtless in a park after doling out some extremely public vigilante justice, and that's enough to force him back onto his feet. He forces his breathing into a regular pattern and starts jogging toward home, moving at a respectable pace. Before he gets there, his phone rings.
"Midoriya Izuku you better have a REALLY good reason for what you just pulled, dude, or I'm going to help Tachibana hide your body." Izuku snorts at the hushed voice.
"Kābā, I really don't want to…"
"This isn't something you get to dodge around, Midoriya! You just pulled some seriously stupid vigilantism, and you're not certified anymore!"
"He was the one who had Eri, Kābā." Izuku sighs.
"…You mean like… Oh."
"I'm on my way home."
"Uh… yeah, man, you… be safe, okay? I'll come by after classes."
"See you then." Izuku hangs up and steps up his pace. He's running later than he should, probably.
Eri slams into him like a missile the moment he answers the door, sobbing. He sinks to the floor there in the entrance, cradling her against his chest and running his finger through her hair.
"Y-you left… you l-left me, and I, th-thought…"
"Shh… Shhh, Eri-chan I'm here."
"I thought he was going to kill you…" Hisses from clenched teeth. Izuku thinks back to the moment when Overhaul reshaped the pavement and pulls her into an even tighter hug than before.
"He's gone, Eri. He's gone and I'm not going anywhere, okay? No one will ever take you away again." Izuku's voice cracks when he says it, but he manages. Then his mom is there, smiling down at him with tears in her eyes.
"You promised to always come back, right?" She laughs like a whisper, shaking just as much as him as she kneels down and runs a hand over his cheek. Laughing twists his throat into knots and breaks the flimsy hold he had over his tears, letting them flood down into Eri's hair.
"Yeah, mom. I promised I'd come home." Eri takes a ragged breath while the pair of them laugh at nothing in particular, nursing aching hearts. After a few more minutes, though, Izuku stands up and moves to the couch so that his mother can sit comfortably.
The news outlets are already showing the footage, though they don't have anything worth showing. Just shots of some kid with green hair facing Overhaul down the street. Limp yakuza lying on the pavement. Blurred shots of a fight obscured by dust for a moment before dissolving into a hurricane of blows. Really, they can't even see Izuku's face, so calling him the Green Wind Vigilante while connecting him to the Subterranean King incident doesn't really make much sense. Not that that stops everyone from doing it.
He's at home for about an hour before someone knocks at the door. Eri buries herself in his shoulder as his mother trundles towards the door, then gets out of the way as a small crowd filed in. Izuku blinks when he sees Tachibana's 'other friends', the ones who he's never actually gotten to officially meet, standing behind the three he's used to chatting with.
Well, that's not actually correct.
All five of them are standing in a group, those three just behind Kābā and Sokuchi, while Tachibana stalks in front of them. Staring up at bloodred eyes and crossed arms, even if she was shorter than him, is paramount to facing his mother back when he was afraid of getting grounded.
"How was class?" He offers weakly.
"The news kind of broke between periods." Kābā shrugs, moving towards the couch. He sinks into the couch on Izuku's right, looking exhausted. "I thought everyone flipped out when the robot showed up, but this was so much worse. People have absolutely no idea what to do with you, man."
Izuku sighs, rubbing a little circle on Eri's shoulder as she hides under a blanket. The newcomers look decidedly uncomfortable, which only makes things that much more awkward.
"What were you thinking?" Tachibana's voice is level, at least. Izuku meets her eye, catching traces of dark blue flickering in and out of both eyes. "That guy, he was a Yakuza, Midoriya. I get that you can't keep yourself from helping people, but you've just outed yourself as being…"
Izuku frowns pointedly as she waves her hands over him.
"Whatever it is you are!" She huffs, setting hands on hips. "What do you have to say for yourself, young man?"
"Uh…" Izuku can't help glancing at his mom, who fights down a grin as she sits at the kitchen table. No one seems willing to help him out here, so he just sighs and hugs Eri tighter. "Well… I had… reasons… And, um…"
After a second, he just gives up entirely.
"Can I tell you later?" He looks down at the bundled child lying on his chest, which immediately softens his friend's wrath. "I promise I'll get yelled at later, but today isn't a good day to do this."
"…You're going to be the death of me, Midoriya." Tachibana groans.
"It's not like you wanted to have kids, Konomi." Sokuchi pushes the girl towards the ouch on Izuku's left and sits her down, forcing her way into the space between them. "Though maybe ask Midoriya-san before you adopt her son."
"So, uh, did you guys get dragged along, or was there anything…?" Izuku deflates some as he runs an eye over the three newcomers. They all look like they've intruded, which… yeah, this probably looks bad. Or at least they feel left out. "I'm sorry if I got you guys caught up in everything again.
"Actually, we asked if we could come." One of the twins offers. The quieter one of the two, Izuku thinks. She prefers skirts and jeans compared to her sister, though Izuku has no other way of telling them apart. "Was it actually you?"
"I guess you guys already know, but yeah." Izuku sighs. "I can't explain now, but I felt like I had to go."
"I'm sorry for thinking you were a bad person." Izuku blinks at how forward she is about it, and it must show because she frowns and looks at the floor. "I know listening to rumors is a bad thing, but it all seemed kind of ridiculous."
"oh…"
"I'm Yotsuba Akira," The girl bowed, offering him a bit of a smile when she stood up, "Sorry for just barging in like this."
"No, you're welcome, really!" Izuku stammered. He gave her a bit of a bow, as much as he could with Eri huddled under the blanket, at least. "You know my name, but I hope we can be good friends."
"So you and Kābā are always talking about a workout routine," Yotsuba's twin sister is there now, pointing a pink fingernail at Kābā while she glances back and forth between them, "What's that all about? You still talking about the quirkless thing?"
"I can't really get the doctor's note, but yeah I'm quirkless. The routine is kinda what started all this, I guess."
"Are you wearing a shirt under there?"
"Eh?" Izuku isn't exactly sure what's happening, but the way Tachibana groans makes it sound…
"I'm just wondering, since those cameras were kind of awful."
"Akiko, you can't just start propositioning people like that!" Tachibana cuts in, rubbing a hand over her face. Izuku's eyes grow wide as his cheeks start burning, but Kābā breaks out laughing. "You've already got Daisuke-kun!"
"W-what…?!"
"When you say it like that you make me sound horrible." The girl giggles despite everything and flashes him a peace sign. "I'm Akira's twin, Akiko. You can call me Akiko-chan or Shishou, whichever you prefer."
"No one really calls her Shishou, Midoriya." The last of the group points towards the empty couch and glances between Izuku and his mother before taking a seat. His posture is good, though with the open uniform jacket and the scowl Izuku always thought that the guy may have been a delinquent type. "Akiko-san is trying to be a manger for models, and she always does that."
Izuku watches the twins sit beside Daisuke, who grimaces when Akiko leans on his shoulder.
"They're all so mean, but I was serious! Those camera angles were horrible. If he's really that strong then he's gotta be ripped, right? Why not show off a bit!" Suddenly the way Akiko giggles makes him uncomfortable, not nervous. He's been more careful since All for One ran into him, but Kābā has still…
"Midoriya was chiseled from marble." Izuku's cheeks burn as his friend's mischievous nature surfaces in the form of a devilish grin. "I'm his father, this is all an elaborate plot."
"P-please, I'd really rather not…"
"Oooh, really? He's still a minor, so you can sign him onto the job if you want, you know?" Akiko returns the sharp grin with one of her own, and suddenly Izuku wants to bury himself in the blanket with Eri. "Daisuke is great for the bad boy type, but I need a nerdy type for the agency. Everyone loves a ripped nerd."
"On paper, maybe," Sokuchi sighs, smiling quietly to herself, "But in real life they startle like rabbits."
"I'm definitely Midoriya's manager, but I'll have to look over the contracts first…"
"I don't have a manager!" Izuku squawks, glaring at his friend despite being trapped on the couch. "And I'm not a rabbit, or a model!"
"Just a vigilante." Daisuke says.
"I don't even know your name and you're going to throw me under the bus like this?" Izuku is whining. Maybe later he'll regret it, but at the moment he's feeling more attacked than he'd felt fighting Rappa. Daisuke just shrugs.
"You can call me Daisuke, everyone does. Kābā and I are on a first name basis." The boy smiles a bit before he leans out from under Akiko. "But you can't really say you're not a vigilante."
Izuku opens his mouth to fight back, then shuts it and groans. His mother laughs from the kitchen.
"Can I make you all some tea? I only have discount brands, but there should be enough for everyone!" She calls out, walking out of her room with what looks like… "I've got some photos from more recently, too, if you need them Yotsuba-san."
Apparently, nothing is sacred. Everyone other than Eri is a dirty traitor and his mother is more dangerous than any villain.
Nezu watches Nighteye pace around his office with a touch of a smirk on his face. The hero looks livid, and Nezu knows that pointing out the similarities between the lanky man and Midoriya will only make things worse. He reallywants to, though, considering how the man barged into his office. Respect is something that Nezu doesn't give out freely, and to say that Midoriya has his respect is a very special thing indeed. Most of the hero industry haven't earned that kind of respect.
"You're telling me that this boy is powerful enough to fight All Might and you've just… let him get away?" Nighteye turns on his heel, arms crossed, and glares as if his glasses are capable of laser focus. "If All for One or this League of Villains get a hold of him, if they sway him…"
"They won't." Nezu cuts in smoothly, earning a twitch from Nighteye's eyebrow, "Midoriya is an incredibly capable young man, and I trust that he won't be swayed that easily just because of a simple misunderstanding."
"You barely know the boy." Nighteye grimaces as he says it. In Nezu's mind, he places a stone on the board, barely suppressing his chuckle.
"And you don't know him at all. You're angry, lashing out at All Might and I despite the agreement that young Togata would take on One for All." Nezu stirs his tea instead of watching the hero before him. All Might sinks a bit into his chair while Togata hovers behind his mentor with a concerned expression on his face. "Even on his own, Midoriya is an asset to us. You've been out of the loop for too long to argue this, I'm afraid."
Nighteye's glare narrows even further. Eventually Nezu hops off his chair and clasps his paws behind his back.
"If you'd like to have a civil conversation about this, then we can make an appointment and have the proper files sent to your office. But for the moment, your ward has classes and I was in the middle of an important meeting. If you'd please." The door swung open silently, putting the final nail in Nighteye's coffin. Watching the hero stalk out is tasty, even though it probably shouldn't be. Humans are too quick to anger. Nighteye has always been touchy about All Might and One for All, but even Nezu was a bit surprised at the outburst.
All Might sighs in relief as his former sidekick stalks out of the room.
"I've only ever seen him that angry twice. And never… like that," The man mutters. Nezu snorts as he sips his tea.
"Ignore him. We'll smooth things over in time. We were discussing your new situation, yes? How is Shield-san?"
"She is… I believe she's adjusting. Though I can't say that I'm happy with how things have gone. If I can help David at all… this must be it." All Might swallows and peers at the floor, looking as lost as he ever has. Nezu can't help but wonder how All Might's weight seems to grow heavier by the day. More often than not, his shadow fills more of a room than the man himself these days.
"Taking her in is an incredible responsibility. I know we've worked out a schedule for your teaching duties but are you sure you don't want more time…"
"No, I can't. More than ever, I must prepare the next generation," All Might rubs a hand up his cheeks and pulls, turning himself into more of a zombie than he already had been. "Maybe someday soon I can take full responsibility for her, but Melissa is a smart girl. And for now, she seems to need a bit of space. Coping, I'm sure."
Nezu sips his tea quietly, letting his tail twitch to bleed off his anxiety. Humans frustrate him, of course, but All Might means well. There isn't a mean bone in the man's body… he's just a bit denser than most. After so long carrying the weight of the world, no one has any right to fault the man.
"Well, if you need any advice…" Nezu pauses when Toshinori sputters and coughs on a spurt of blood. He can't help feeling a bit hurt at the way everyone seems to do that, considering how long he's spent dealing with heroes. Playing babysitter to an entire country makes him more than qualified.
"Ah, I'm grateful, principal, but…"
"I was simply going to suggest asking Midoriya for tips on fatherhood."
Maybe that was too far. Poor Toshinori looks ready to die on the spot.
On Sunday Izuku ends up giving a statement to Tsukauchi, working up a plausible excuse for going after Overhaul. They work together on it, though Izuku doesn't really feel like they worked together. Part of him feels a bit like the detective was playing both sides. He didn't like it.
His mother keeps him home after that and they watch the internet explode. Unlike before, where he'd only been passively mentioned or briefly seen, he's got a second incident to his name. And this one was flashy, successful, and had witnesses. There's no getting out of this.
"This" being a heated staring contest between himself and Bakugō. His mother had shooed them out of the house, and for some reason Izuku had just brought his old bully down to Dagobah beach.
"Are we… gonna to talk, or just stare at one another?" Izuku can't help but feel a little nervous. There aren't many people around, which means Bakugō could attack him. Not that he'd get anywhere but that hadn't ever stopped him before.
Bakugō's face twitches, then warps into something that Izuku recognizes.
He sees it every time he looks up at a hero, just before his lecture. So, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his papers, then shoves them in Bakugō's mouth just before the blonde can start ranting.
"I'm quirkless, so let's just get that out of the way." Bakugō stutters, then rips the paper out of his mouth as Izuku steps back into the sea breeze. For another few minutes, they stare at one another.
"That was you on the television." Bakugō snarls. Izuku sighs.
"Yeah, that was me."
"And this beach… was this you, too?"
"…Yeah, this was one of my projects."
"You did all that without a quirk."
"Yes."
"Bullshit." Bakugō looks like he's about to combust, with smoke filtering through his fingers and his eyes turning red at the edges. Everything about him swells at the edges until he looks like a cartoon, red faced and pissed off. "No one can do that without a fucking quirk!"
"I work out a lot." Izuku says bluntly.
"That's fucking impossible." Bakugō spits.
"Look, can we just skip all this? I have homework." Izuku can't help but sigh when Bakugō's hands finally pop, turning his papers to ash. "Whatever has you all worked up, just… I'm not trying to be a hero or anything, okay? I don't want that. You can have number one, all that fame and glory or whatever you're looking for. I just want to live my life."
Izuku forces a smile as Bakugō's anger starts to fade.
"You win, Kacchan. I'm not going to be a hero." He feels lighter, when he says that. Like he just admitted it to the universe and now he's finally withdrawn from the race. But Bakugō turns his eyes to the sand and snorts, shattering Izuku's moment of peace.
"Not going to be a hero… You fucking coward." Bakugō ignores the ash staining his fingers and shoves his hands in his pockets, glaring at Izuku as he wanders towards the stairs. "I always knew you were a loser, but I never thought you'd be a hypocrite."
He doesn't get much sleep that night, despite having burned off all that excess rage during his little spat with Overhaul. Instead he dreams of Bakugō and the mud man and All Might.
When he gets to school, people stare at him even more than before. Izuku actually feels a little self-conscious, since they're looking at him with something bright and shiny in their eyes. They don't avoid him nearly as much, though the rumors have gone from being entirely bad to being both benevolent and demonic in nature. Kābā just grins at him when Izuku slumps into his desk.
"What's up, famous? Not used to having a secret identity yet?"
"Kābā literally everyone knows who I am they just won't talk to me." Izuku groans. "You can't even call this having a secret identity."
"You're wrong," His friend grins as he pushes his glasses up, "I can, but it doesn't make me right. And I don't care about that when it means making you blush like a little tomato."
"Traitors, all of you." Izuku sighs. "Only Eri loves me."
"I think you're in denial. Maybe I'm just surprised you're still slumming it with us public school kids." Kābā snickers. "Turning down U.A. and all. How elitist."
"That rat is half spider I swear."
"Would that make you Kandata or Buddha?"
"Those are both really, really sacrilegious Kābā. I've got enough problems. Stop putting that out in the universe. I'm begging you."
"What's the worst that could happen, you gonna kill a god?"
"Dude, why? Why do you…"
The door slams open with a crack, startling everyone in the room and sending a shiver down Izuku's spine.
"Kābā, I'm going to die."
"MIDORIYA IZUKU."
"I'll remember you fondly. If nothing else, Midoriya, you were my hero."
Sometimes Izuku forgets that, for all his civil behavior, Kurobayashi-sensei is a predator. It should be hard to forget that the man is one rough move away from ripping the sleeves off his clothing and busting every seam, but Izuku has never once considered the soft spoken, motherly instructor as a bloodthirsty animal who just happens to walk around instructing high schoolers.
This is the first time he has to face that duality. In fact, right now it is very obvious to everyone that the man entering their classroom could kill them with his teeth or his hands in any order her prefers. Some of them hide under their desks or just sit there, frozen, as the shark man stalks through the room and stands (right beside Kābā's desk holy shit the poor guy looks like he's going to wet himself) in front of Izuku's desk.
"What do you have to say for yourself?" Kurobayashi-sensei growls. Izuku swallows weakly, then looks around and straightens up a bit.
"I'd prefer not to answer that in public?" He honestly doesn't think that will work, but now he's following the teacher out of the classroom while Kābā nearly collapses in his desk. On the way, he can't help but wonder if the man would actually try to bite him in half. Probably not, but Izuku hasn't found anything that will cut him quite yet, so it's a valid question… for another time, maybe. When they reach the faculty office the teacher pushes him into a corner and stands there, arms crossed.
"Now. Explain." After a moment to think about how much he's really willing to give away, Izuku decides to go all in.
"Well, I was on my jogging route when this supervillain kind of teleported in to have a chat and throw a child at me. Long story short, I went and broke into U.A., now we've kind of adopted the little girl since she uses me as a security blanket and everything. But that guy on TV was probably using her for these really nasty experiments, and I mean he was a villain, so I… Uh, I got a little mad. Seeing him on TV."
(Okay, in hindsight, that was probably not the best explanation. No one was going to believe that.)
(Not that anyone would believe him about anything, ever, but hey, he was trying.)
Kurobayashi-sensei stares at him, blinking occasionally, in complete silence. After a few minutes, Izuku risks a glance around his teacher and finds the rest of the faculty all staring at him with exaggerated expressions of confusion. He leaned back and decides he prefers the unreadable shark to all that mess. Maybe not being believable wasn't so bad after all.
"You…" The teacher stops, then lets out a deep, exhausted breath. "You met a super villain, who then threw a child at you?"
"Yes, sensei."
"And now you've adopted this girl?"
"Her name is Eri, Sensei. She's really…"
"Did I hear you say that you broke into U.A.?"
"I might have done that once or twice, yeah."
"And you thought that getting involved in a public villain attack was the solution? You've always been against this."
"You're not wrong, but I mean…"
"You're too young to be a father, Midoriya, if you try and use that excuse, I will give you detention for the rest of the semester."
"Can you do that in the first place? What reason would you even have?"
"At this point, I'm sure your mother and the principal would both be perfectly fine with that."
"Don't tell me you're going to betray me too, Sensei."
"Midoriya-kun, you're a danger to yourself at this point. Fatherhood isn't something I trust in the hands of most capable adults these days, let alone a random child."
"…That hurt a little bit, Sensei. I'm not going to lie, that one hurt."
"And did this super villain manage to pierce your…" The shark waved a hand in a vague gesture at his body. "…barrier?"
"No. Congratulations. You're more powerful than a supervillain, Kurobayashi-sensei."
"That only means the little girl is even more powerful than any of us, seeing as you're wrapped around her little finger."
"She's actually really well behaved considering the severe post-traumatic stress and the scars. For some reason she really likes vegetables, too. I don't have to do anything."
"Midoriya, I wouldn't expect you to know how to be a father but if that's your policy, you're off to a bad start."
"Well that's better than not being around at all!"
Silence hangs between them now, and it takes Izuku a minute or two before the words really register. He's never said anything like that before. When he finally loosens the fists clenched at his sides, he has to take a deep breath and try to… fix himself. After a moment, he realizes that he doesn't even know where to start.
"Are we done, sensei?"
"…Yes, young Midoriya, I think we are." The man mumbles. Izuku thanks him quietly before shuffling out of the room, carefully avoiding his teachers' stares. He can't help feeling like he just broke something valuable. And it doesn't help that he feels a bit like a brat, responding like that.
Maybe he'll pick something up for his mother on the way home. She deserves a gift every now and then.
Sadly, the world keeps turning and people keep trying to break the law.
It goes something like this:
After lots of pleading, Izuku gets dragged out by Tachibana for a day of shopping with their friends after class on Tuesday. Which is great, honestly. Being out in public means no one recognizes him as that kid, even if a few people might be lucky enough for that. What makes this a little bit embarrassing is that Tachibana keeps making jokes about getting him a dog collar, one that pulls back if he tries to fight a villain.
Everyone else seems to have other ideas on how to keep him in line. None of them are funny, in Izuku's opinion.
They're out for around an hour when Izuku catches sight of a man sprinting down the other side of the street, carrying a purse. A bike cop is already in pursuit, but it doesn't look promising.
One look from Tachibana tells him to leave it alone, so he raises his hands in passive acceptance. Watching proves almost painful for him, and Tachibana is absolutely going to stare at him until the danger has passed to prove that he's not getting involved while they're out.
It would only take a second, too…
The thought crosses his mind innocently, almost like a whine. Izuku stops, blinks, then turns over his shoulder.
The thug is about to turn the corner. No cars are stopped between them, though a few are about to pass through the intersection. He turns back to Tachibana and waits until she blinks.
Moving at high speed feels like walking underwater in a pool. Air pushes against his skin like water, shifting in new currents as he forces himself across the street and tugs the thug's feet out from beneath him. By the time he reaches his friends again, clawing through the same path he'd taken to get there, only the cars have moved at all. He can see Tachibana's eyelids halfway open, already widening. Everything jerks back into motion, including a subtle thunderclap and a fresh herd of winds.
If they blink and turn to find him walking down the block as the cop reaches his quarry, well, he's a teenager. Who said he was above a little showing off?
Even when Tachibana pouts, he can't help feeling it was worth it. Kābā slips him a high five behind her back later and says that he should definitely use that trick more often.
He's sitting on the roof eating lunch with Tachibana, Daisuke and Sokuchi when a pair of strangers approach them. At first, Izuku ignores them entirely in favor of his assigned reading. It's not uncommon for people to come up and talk to his friends, since they're completely normal people with healthy social skills.
"Oi, you're Midoriya right?"
Saying that Izuku isn't used to being addressed at school is an understatement. The truth is that he's spent so many years being a pariah, either for being quirkless or being a 'delinquent', that hearing someone actually ask who he isjust feels wrong. Even without the honorifics, hearing this stranger call him by name erases everything he could possibly have to say.
The one who addressed him doesn't look happy about it. She's average height, with purple eyes and a pair of horns sticking up out of her bangs. Naturally red hair cut short makes her look… Well, she's pretty. Intoxicatingly so. For a moment, Izuku actually gets lost in her eyes before he mentally slaps himself and adjusts his stare.
And, of course, there's another girl peeking out from behind the redhead looking terrified.
"Ignore him, he's still getting used to the whole "people want to speak with him" thing." Tachibana quips. Izuku yelps when she digs her elbow into the spot just above his kidney before turning back to the girls. "I can confirm that he's Midoriya-kun. Did you need something?"
If having someone else introduce him throws the redhead off, she gives no sign. For a second, she glances around, then snorts a bit and crosses her arms as she turns back to Izuku.
"You're the green wind vigilante, right?" The redhead doesn't budge when her friend grabs her shoulders and tries to shake her, and she definitely doesn't smile. She's not at all happy to be involved in this. Izuku can sympathize.
"I'm quirkless, actually." Izuku says.
After a beat, the redhead sighs and turns to her friend with a grin.
"There you go, Sachi. Happy?"
"Erin, you can't just…!"
The pair dissolve into some kind of argument, one that Izuku pointedly averts his eyes from. Hearing them use their given names makes it feel like something he isn't supposed to have any part of. But, of course, when he turns the other direction Tachibana is giving him a very pointed Look.
"What?"
"Is that really what you're going with?" Her eyes flash light blue and gold and green when he shrugs.
"I'm not going to lie." The way he says it makes Tachibana's eyes flash red and dark blue, clear signs of frustration and disappointment. On her other side, Sokuchi nods and offers him a thumbs up.
"Turn their slurs against them. Like the Americans used to say, fu…" Even when Tachibana slaps her hands over Sokuchi's mouth, Izuku can see the mirth on the stoic woman's face.
"Um, Midoriya-san!" Izuku turns back and blinks as the shy girl from before, Sachi-san, offers him a bow. "I'm sorry that Erin bothered you during your lunch! Please forgive us!"
"N-no, wait, please stand up, it's fine!" Izuku feels a cold sweat break out as people around the roof start noticing. He can only wonder how much worse this will make his image since he's graduated from "probably-a-murderer" to "definitely-violent-maybe-chaotic-good-at-best".
It definitely doesn't help that the redhead is now smirking at him from over her friend's shoulder. When the shy girl straightens up, Izuku finds that she's very, very short. Not quite 150 cm, but definitely not 160.
"We'll be going now, we really didn't mean to bother you." Sachi-san all turns to push her friend back the way they came and proceeds to shove the horned woman along. For a few minutes, Izuku goes back to his reading despite the storm cloud brewing over Tachibana's head.
"Hey, Midoriya?" Izuku hums in response when Daisuke catches his ear. "How do you deal with all… all this?"
"You mean, like, being an anomaly and having everyone think I'm a murderer?" Izuku doesn't put any bite in his words. Daisuke, for the week that Izuku has been getting to know him, has never once shied away from his original comment on Izuku's character. Shutting his book for a moment, Izuku turns his eyes to the sky and watches a cloud roll through. "I don't do anything, honestly. Things just happen."
"You voluntarily jumped ten stories to visit Kābā." Tachibana mutters. Izuku rolls his eyes and ignores Sokuchi's giggles.
"Besides just… taking everything as it comes, I'm not doing anything." Izuku frowns. "Why, is everything okay?"
"Oh, I'm fine," Daisuke shrugs and smiles sheepishly. "I'm just surprised, you know? Back when Tachibana told us that you were like something out of a manga, I didn't really believe her. Seeing it all up close and personal, like that thief the other day? It really is crazy."
"Yeah, it is crazy."
"Though, can I just… get something off my chest?"
"Sure, go ahead."
"You're kind of a massive cliché."
"…You're talking about the tragic Shounen protagonist thing again, aren't you?"
"I mean, yeah, but like, starting from zero and becoming the strongest? This is like watching some high school anime. Are you sure there wasn't a training montage at some point? Maybe snapshots of you running around instead of whole days?"
"You say that that like I would know."
"Good point. Just figured I'd ask."
"Plus, if I was the shounen protagonist, wouldn't there be a love interest or something? We're missing a whole bunch of people."
"Well, there's your old bully firecracker for the rival, Kurobayashi-sensei as your aloof teacher, Kābā as your charismatic best friend, Eri hits the domestic theme and makes everyone want to cry…"
"You do realize I can throw you off the roof, right?"
"But yeah, I guess we are missing a few things, huh?" Daisuke hums quietly, then holds up a hand. "We still need the evil rival, the love interest, the girl you're actuallysupposed to end up with once that first romance fails tragically, a boss bad guy, and your evil twin brother."
"I thought Kābā was cruel. Why do you all like watching me squirm?"
"Tachibana could count as the love…"
"No one will find your body."
Izuku offers Sokuchi a fist bump in exchange for the shock on Daisuke's face. Maybe she's quiet, but her (admittedly wicked) wit is nowhere near as trained as her skill with her quirk. The others seem to forget that she's (arguably) the most mild-mannered out of all of them. Prismador was an incredible hero in his day, and his children are either as skilled or more so than he ever was.
(He quietly notes that Stain is probably his evil rival, not that he can mention it to anyone… the hero killer has all but disappeared from the face of the earth and the media)
(…If his story really was some anime story, though, it would have started after his run in with All Might, right…? Which means… Izuku would have to call that chapter two. Tragic backstory and all that should go in chapter one, unless whatever sadistic author is in charge is just an idiot…)
Friday 626p
Davinci: Midoriya
Davinci: Midoriya you better not be saving people right now.
Davinci: Midoriya answer me
Davinci: Midoriya
CareBear: Sorry, I was doing trig. What's up?
Davinci: Daisuke keeps asking me about your routine.
Davinci: What's it like nowadays? You change it like every month.
Carebear: I mean… I've been taking it easy recently since… you know
Davinci: Midoriya we haven't talked about this in a bit what's going on
Davinci: Did it get worse?
Carebear: Not really. I just can't feel it anymore
Davinci: Feel what? Your strength? Was it like a quirk?
Carebear: No, it's not like that.
Carebear: You know, I just realized I've never actually analyzed my own symptoms. That's…
Davinci: ?
Davinci: What do you mean?
Carebear: You remember when I said I like quirks and I analyze them?
Davinci: Yeah, that was like years ago. You were a baby
Carebear: …
Davinci: We both know you weren't truly a boy until you fought All Might three days after your birth. One day you'll defeat him, complete your pilgrimage and ascend to challenge the gods.
Carebear: What's with you and all your blasphemy recently?
Davinci: Artist's block is a bitch, so I've been surfing through old textbooks and some of my family's works. Religion is a Thing.
Carebear: I forget you're a prodigy.
Davinci: I'm blessed by our savior
Carebear: Let's go back to never talking about our talents ever again
Carebear: I was a bigger hero nerd than I let on
Davinci: I'm bored I'm coming over
Carebear: How long? You staying for dinner?
Davinci: Sure, parents are out of town tonight anyways. Bro would love to have the house to himself.
Once upon a time, Izuku's bedroom was a hero shrine. He'd kept a closet full of rare merch, walls full of posters, and a journal full of all his collectibles just in case he lost something Then All Might happened. When he started working out, his room had begun to decay, for lack of a better word. Posters came down and the tubes were labeled before being placed in the closet. Figurines went into packaging and were tucked into a well-insulated box that was put into another well-cushioned box, with every expense taken to keep the quality of the pieces.
Gradually, his room lost its character. All of his individuality went into cardboard containers, shut and locked in his closet. Back when he'd started his routine, it had been one of the things he did to keep his mind off of the shards of his dream.
But, now that he thinks about it, something else was happening at the same time. Months after he'd started his routine, he'd started helping out around the shops he knows so well now. With his pocket money, he'd started buying books and gear, filling the gaps with workout equipment and stuffing his bookshelf full of anything he found interesting.
Maybe it lacked the same character, but it was still Izuku.
Then Eri fell in his lap.
Old hero posters, just memories of them really, were replaced by cute fantasy posters. An extra dresser was stacked on his old one for her clothes. His work out equipment used to have a rack, but he'd donated the old stuff a week or two before Overhaul. The bookshelf had turned into three: a small one near his bed for Eri's sketchbooks, books, toys etc., and his devices, and two medium-sized bookshelves stacked up behind the door (near his desk) had been dedicated to his books and things. Photos had been added slowly, and a couple pieces of art that Kābā either drew or found for Eri along with Eri's own artwork or a few things that she enjoyed from TV were hung on the walls wherever Eri wanted them.
Izuku was quietly very glad that Eri preferred Kābā's artwork to the cheesy cartoon posters that he'd found in the mall. Or he had been, until he realized just how much Kābā's work was worth. That little tidbit had given him a legitimate reason to avoid letting people into his room, even with the closet full of expensive hero merchandise.
During all that time, though, Izuku hadn't lost his first hobby. He'd cut back, sure. Never do it in public (his phone's notebook had filled the gap). Tell no one (his mom noticed, but she never asked gods bless her). And never, under any circumstances, let anyone into his room or his backpack.
He's been friends with Kābā for… four months? Tachibana had come around five months and a week ago, if his math was right.
Wow… that's… Izuku swallows some, even if he's being a bit dramatic.
So much happened in five months. TEN months. It had been a year and a half since he'd met All Might for the first time and struck out on this whole…
Right. Back on topic.
His bookshelf. The single largest source of his shame and social anxiety. A relic of a past life.
Thirty-seven notebooks of hero and villain analysis (twenty-two on heroes, fifteen on villains) that he'd painstakingly researched between his time studying and working out. His only hobby, the one passion he hadn't gotten rid of. Something he did in his free time, when Eri was sleeping or when she was out with his mother.
Fear that it would be discovered had led to some of his more interesting research avenues: Strategy books, math textbooks based on probability, anatomy texts and a few more scattered references were tucked onto the shelf just above his journals, each one filled with sticky notes and ink filled margins. The journals on the shelf were his third generation of notes, all recopied and fleshed out until the only thing left were real, hardcore profiles that Izuku updated every so often.
It helped, of course, that he spent a good bit of time running around helping out in the neighborhood… or getting into situations with villains and helping the police. The few interviews he'd gotten with interesting thugs were wonderful for his profiling ability.
Heroes… well, he hasn't dug into any of them since All Might. Truthfully, he's been careful about asking anything that would give him away as a fanboy. All his sixteen years of life have taught him that being a hero fanboy always leads to that question.
A knock at the door startles him out of his reverie, and a quick look at the clock says he's been staring at the bookshelf for fifteen minutes.
Kābā grins up at him from the hallway, trapped in one of Eri's awkward hugs. The poor thing still isn't quite sure how to be comfortable around others, though Kābā and Sokuchi seem to be her closest companions outside the Midoriyas. It helps that the artist is the single most approachable human Izuku has ever met and he's more enraptured with the little girl than any of them.
"Yo, Midoriya!" Eri perches on Izuku's hip easily as he waves Kābā in, earning a curious eyebrow from the other boy. "Any special occasion?"
Izuku shrugs and heads over to the bed while his friend moves to take the desk chair. Kābā's backpack hits the floor with a solid thunk as the boy twirls and hits the chair.
"Man, I haven't been in here since we moved Eri-chan in. You really clean up nice."
"Having your work up helps." Izuku chuckles, glancing over his shoulder at the single most majestic unicorn painting that he's ever seen. "It feels less like a nursery, huh Eri?"
They both nod when the little girl nods and crawls off of him to grab her pencils and her sketchbook.
"Hey you did the Trig homework, right?"
"I finished it earlier, yeah. Eri took a nap."
"Mind if I get some help? I can't wrap my head around these asymptotes for… whatever they are. Arcsine? H-sine?"
"Actually, I'll give it to you later." Izuku sighs, doing his best to ignore Kābā's look of disbelief while he battles the roiling terror in his gut. "I… You remember what we were talking about earlier? The routine?"
"Oh, yeah." Kābā's smile shifts into the more serious version of Izuku's friend. "Your routine. You said something about not feeling it anymore?"
"The burn." After a few seconds Kābā gives him a look that says he doesn't understand, forcing Izuku to stand up and being pacing. "Lactic acid, workout burn, muscle build up, I don't know how else to put this."
"Okay, but your limits have always been insane, man. Aren't you bench pressing over a ton?" Izuku digs his hands into his hair as the other boy frowns up at him.
"No… I mean, yes, my max is way over that, but that's not the point!" Izuku sits down gently, careful not to disturb Eri. "Whatever this is, I've always been able to feel a burn after my workouts. But this is… I just can't anymore. Without better equipment I don't think I can."
"Is that a bad thing? You're almost as strong as All Might, Midoriya." Kābā says it gently, but it still feels a bit rough. "Look, let's just… What's your routine like lately?"
"The full one, or just my little ones?"
"…Dude we need to get you a different hobby. Okay? Look, what's the hardest one you can do? Like, altogether."
"Like, all the hardest stuff? Or…"
"Midoriya I will draw unicorns all over you."
"…It's a school night, Kābā, you…"
"Don't test me." Kābā has the same look that he had the first time Kābā ever got this idea, which says a lot. He can't really afford to go to school with unicorns all over him.
"The harshest routine I could do lately, since I've only got about three hours…" Izuku hums to himself for a moment. "I'll take out the run, let's say my run is ten kilometers in one hour. I'd do two thousand push-ups and hanging crunches. Two hundred hand-stand push-ups on each side. Fifteen hundred kicks, three different ways, and a fifteen-minute-long flag at the end of each set." Kābā, to his credit, doesn't flinch. He just writes it down, then hands the stray page out to Izuku. "Yeah. Three sets would be the complete routine."
Kābā hesitates before he writes that at the top.
"You can do all of that in forty-five minutes?"
"I got two thousand push-ups down to eight minutes while I was staying at U.A."
"How many world records have you broken?" Kābā's eyes widen and a hysterical grin breaks out on his face when Izuku shrugs. "You don't know?!"
"Don't forget I've spent most of my time trying to hide this from everyone…" Izuku sighs. "I only realized today that I haven't really… looked at this as like I should have."
"You said that earlier too." Kābā is texting someone, and the smirk makes Izuku certain that he's now busy tomorrow afternoon. Wonderful. "I still don't get what you mean."
"Remember back when I told you I liked Heroes?"
"Dude you keep an accurate chart of up and coming heroes for each district in your head out of habit. Everyone knows you were a massive fanboy back in the day." Kābā chuckles maniacally while Izuku groans and flops back on the bed. "But you're dodging my question. What's gnawing at your heels?"
Izuku hates when Kābā uses that phrase, but it's apt. He feels like he's sneaking up on himself, and he's finally navigated the conversation to the backdoor of his anxiety.
"Look at the bookshelf and grab one of those handwritten journals off of the middle shelves."
"These? Wait, I thought these were just notes from school. Hero Analysis… Midoriya, what the hell?" For a few minutes, Izuku lays on his bed staring at the ceiling as dread escaped his stomach and crawls over him. He doesn't even realize he's grinding his teeth until a little hand grabs onto him and pulls his arm out so that Eri can hug his hand to her chest. The sound of pages turning distracts him, but only somewhat.
He told Kurobayashi-sensei that Eri used him as a security blanket, but maybe that wasn't entirely accurate. At the end of the day maybe he's been leaning on her for comfort just as much.
"Dude. Midoriya, what… why haven't I ever seen this stuff before? You have twenty of these?"
"Thirty-seven, if you include the villain journals."
"That's… Dude."
"Kābā, it's not a big deal."
"This is how you know so much about heroes? How many hours did you spend doing these things?"
"It's my hobby!" Izuku sits up, tugging Eri over to lean against him with her book and her colored pencils, and looks at his friend while he runs a hand through Eri's hair. "I just… When I have free time, I go online and surf the hero forums and everything. It's an old habit. After everything, I started doing it to avoid heroes. But, yeah, I've got a lot. I study in my free time. That's all it is. Just studying."
"JUST STUDYING my ASS!" Kābā gapes at Izuku from the other side of his journal. "Yu Takeyama, public alias Mount Lady, Gigantification quirk, able to grow seven stories tall, though it's more accurate to say just over six and a half stories…"
Izuku hunches over as Kābā goes through the notebooks. Most of the specific data and important information he's committed to memory, much like his thoroughly vague knowledge of school subjects. Not that he CAN'T apply that knowledge, but he just hasn't had the time to apply his schooling yet.
He's learned more useful things from his time helping out around Musutafu than he has in school (save for his anatomy (read: offense) studies and health (read: training) studies).
"Dude, these are like hero dictionaries! Have you considered doing this…?" Kābā stops before he can finish that statement. The fact that he does reminds Izuku for the umpteenth time this week, month, months, why he still enjoys spending time with Tachibana and Kābā and Sokuchi. Each of them knows him well enough to respect his issues with "Heroes".
"I have." Izuku mutters quietly, smiling despite the topic. His anxiety is dissipating now, leaving his core feeling a bit empty. "But you can't find a good job as an analyst these days. The only people who really use analysis are insurance companies and accounting firms that specialize in Heroics. Predicting the heroics market is just a parlor trick, or a hobby."
"That sucks." Kābā deflates some. "Still, this explains a lot. You're always writing stuff down during lecture, but I never thought you were stockpiling a library like this."
Izuku laughs as they stare up at his shelves. Eight shelves from floor to ceiling, roughly sorted into sections. Two sections near the floor for his favorite casual reading. Two shelves (a shelf and a half, truthfully) for his analysis journals, two shelves for his schoolwork (a shelf for textbooks and a shelf for handwritten notes that may as well be textbooks for that one particular teacher's class), and a shelf for his extracurricular works (the ones he didn't shove into his 'analysis' shelf to keep up appearances).
"I mean…" Kābā gives him a Look and Izuku holds up his free hand in defeat. "All right, all right, I get it! I guess I go overboard with my notes. It's the only thing I have since I quit the hero nerd thing, okay?"
"Quits being a hero nerd to be an even bigger nerd and a vigilante. Sounds like a great plan." Kābā snorts, then swings back around to look at him. "But seriously, we're getting off track again. Are you saying you've never done all that fancy analysis for yourself?"
"Not really." Izuku shrugs halfheartedly. "Honestly, I never thought of this like a quirk, it's just a thing. A broken, crazy thing that no one can explain."
"Hey, uh Midoriya? Hate to cut in, but… That's like every quirk ever."
Izuku blinks, then he snorts.
"Quirks are science. There's genetic research, loads of work has been done…"
"Dude, you're in denial." Kābā cuts off his tirade with an annoyed wave of his hand. "Whatever. Maybe whatever this is isn't a Quirk, with a capital Q, but you've definitely put it to good use."
"If you say so." Izuku huffs. "But even if I tried to break this down, I can't feel anything anymore. It's like my limits are too high for me to even push them."
"You mean your limits are too high for you to push them safely." The way Kābā says it makes Izuku roll his eyes.
"Safely for everyone else, maybe. It's not like I can go tearing up streets to test myself."
"Damn… and you already burned that bridge with U.A." Kābā hums. "Like I said, Daisuke wants the details of your routine. Why don't we take tomorrow to show him what you can do, and then we can try and figure out some way to test your limits again."
Izuku takes a breath and sighs, then nods.
"Yeah, that sounds like a plan. So, what do you have for the pre-Cal homework?"
To Izuku's surprise, Akiko and Daisuke both want to know his secrets. When he outlines the routine he gave to Kābā the night before, they both stare at him and start laughing.
"Midoriya there's no way in hell that anyone save All Might does this routine." Akiko giggles. "If you're trying to scare us off, this isn't going to do it."
Izuku sighs as Akira, Kābā, Tachibana and Sokuchi start whispering in the background. For a moment, he tells himself that the three who know are just reassuring the new girl, but Sokuchi definitely just took a wad of bills from both of them.
Great. Now they're betting on friendly misery. Might as well go all in, right?
"Well, there's always the run." He offers the pair a crooked smile and a shrug. Something in his tone must shake Akiko's hypothesis, because she actually looks worried for a second. If she weren't as stubborn as Daisuke, she might have saved herself in time.
"How far is the run?"
"Well, I'll usually do five kilometers out to a spot, then do the routine and a little cooldown, then run back. Ten kilometers total." Izuku says.
"Wait, ten kilometers a day?" Daisuke asks, glancing at his 'manager'. "I usually do that a few times a week, but…"
"I mean, if you guys don't want to come then you can meet me somewhere along the way…" Izuku really hopes they'll take the bait, but instead they smile and hand back the detail.
"No way, Midoriya. You're not gonna scare me off with some impossible routine, you know? Faking it isn't any way to work out." Daisuke actually looks a little upset.
"How am I supposed to be your manager if I don't even get to see you in action!" Akiko giggles, despite the fire in her eyes.
Izuku sighs and rubs the back of his neck.
"So how about we meet at my place after school? I know a place where we can all meet up fairly easily."
Izuku picks a construction site stuck in the middle of a residential block somewhere on the outskirts of Musutafu. The construction is mostly finished, thanks to a little bit of help from Izuku over the past month, and there's a nice closed in courtyard where no one will bother them. As a bonus, the workers left a small pile of concrete blocks that need to be broken down over in the corner. Between Kābā's quirk and Izuku's strength, they've got some benches and a horizontal bar ten minutes after arriving.
"All right, ready?" Izuku grins a bit when he finds Akiko and Daisuke looking at him with red faces. Five kilometers isn't too far, but it's far enough to push past most endurance training. According to Akira, Daisuke focuses on bodybuilding and only runs as an addition bit of training.
Before Izuku can say anything about cross training, the memory of his confrontation with Bakugō cuts him off. He just smiles and nods along.
"So, what's the routine?" Daisuke tosses his bottle back to Tachibana, ignoring the devious smirk on her face as he glares up at Izuku.
"We start with two thousand push-ups." Izuku laces his fingers together and flexes till they crack some. "Or, in your case, do as many as you can. I'll let you know when I'm done, and we'll move to hanging crunches."
They both cross their arms as he shakes out his arms in the empty courtyard. Neither of them seems to have accepted their fate yet, which Izuku can understand. But, as usual, Izuku isn't the one that they've got to worry about.
"Hold up, hold up," Kābā grins wolfishly as he jogs up and throws an arm around Izuku's shoulder. "Midoriya, dude, you never wear a shirt for this stuff, do you?"
Izuku cringes internally.
"I mean…"
"You picked a closed courtyard for a reason, man." Kābā kneads Izuku's shoulders, still glaring at his two victims as if he's just won the lottery. "Go ahead, loosen up! We're here so you can experiment, right?"
"Kābā, seriously it's fine…"
Tachibana wolf whistles from her bench, earning a smirk from Sokuchi. Izuku digs his fingers into his eyes, wondering how he doesn't have bags the size of suitcases under them.
"You're all ridiculous."
"You'd be lost without us, Midoriya." Kābā yanks off his windbreaker and holds out a hand expectantly, letting Izuku stew in his nerves for a moment before he peels his shirt off. They're laughing, of course. It's ordinary, playing like this. But he can't stop shaking, either, so he avoids their eyes.
Ever since he started his routine, Izuku has done his best to wear a jacket and long pants whenever he goes out. Shorts are nice on occasion, but ever since he started gaining muscle and definition, he's been absolutely sure that no one was around to see. The comments Kābā made about modeling back when they first worked out together set Izuku on fire, or close enough. He claws at his scalp and ruffles his hair as he shoves his shirt into Kābā's hand. The quiet says absolutely nothing he wants to hear, nothing that anyone has ever said, but the weight of it is heavier than All Might's punches or his verdict.
Once he's successfully killed the mood and gotten into position, his two victims follow him.
"Kābā, give us a start and time me, would you?" He calls out, trying not to dig a hole in the dirt with his glare.
"Yeah, Midoriya. Here… All right, start!"
"So, how much was the bet?" Izuku rolls a shoulder as Sokuchi hands Tachibana a wad of bills. Akira hasn't stopped staring at him since he finished, despite the fact that her sister and Daisuke are wheezing on the ground somewhere behind him.
"I bet ten that they stopped trying on the first set." Kābā sighs, grinning despite the loss. "Tachibana said they'd try till the very end."
"You didn't put numbers on it?"
"Nah, Tachibana doesn't even know Daisuke's routine that well." Kābā shrugs. "Plus, tens and twenties don't really matter when someone is doing thousands."
Izuku huffs to himself. He's worked off the discomfort of being shirtless in front of the others, though Akira's stare feels heavy on his shoulders as he turns and crouches by the pile of human lying in the courtyard.
"You two okay?" He can't help grinning a bit at the way Akiko uses Daisuke as a pillow and they both groan in response.
"I knew… You were a murderer…" Daisuke moans.
"You're not human! Kābā's your father and this was a dirty trick…!" Akiko whines.
"I told you not to push it." Izuku shrugs and bounces to his feet. "Besides, that wasn't anywhere close to enough."
Izuku frowns as he closes his hand and flexes his forearm, watching the muscles and tendons ripple like a nest of snakes beneath his skin. He barely feels someone behind him when a finger pokes his shoulder and triceps.
"You're barely even red." Tachibana mutters, looking up at him with her features twisted up. "What are you made of?"
"Marbleeee~!" Akiko cries, flailing her arms on the ground. Daisuke groans as she flops around and drops her head back to his stomach. "Daisuke, carry meeeee!"
"I don't know what's going on," Izuku ignores the drama on the ground and runs a hand up his arm, feeling each muscle and twitching them in order. "But like I said, no matter what I do I can't feel any burn."
"So you're just… too strong?" Sokuchi frowns and cocks her head. Izuku chuckles and scratches the back of his head.
"I wish. But even when I do new work outs it doesn't hurt. It's almost like my body just doesn't build muscle anymore."
"Uh…" Akira is staring right at his chest, hiding her mouth behind a hand. "Well, I mean, do… Is there any way for you to build more than that?"
"You're staring." Tachibana bumps the girl in the shoulder, then drops onto the bench beside Sokuchi and leans into her shoulder.
"So were you," Akira blushes some, then looks him in the eyes. Izuku looks to Kābā, who just shrugs and laughs it off. "I just mean, like… Look at you. If you were any stronger, I think you'd have to get taller or something."
"Okay, that's just…" Izuku huffs, feeling both flattered and a little bit hurt. "I get what you mean, and you're not wrong, but even if I'm not building more muscle then there should be a limit to what I can do."
"If any of this were normal, I'd agree with you dude." Kābā lets out a long breath, then shrugs and looks over at the pile of bodies left over from their work out. "Was there anything else you wanted to try today? These two aren't going anywhere any time soon."
Izuku taps a finger on his chin, looking up at the fresh set of apartments in front of him and the supplies he's got.
"Honestly, I can't really do much…"
He's just about to turn and get his jacket from Kābā's bag when he a police cruiser creeps into view through the archway. It's got to be speeding, but Izuku barely registers the speed. What catches his eye is the pair that are riding the leader's bumper, lights off despite the wheels spinning sluggishly under his eyes. Everything snaps back into focus as the cars fly past, earning a series of rude responses from cars along their way.
"Midoriya? What just…"
"You guys head back." Izuku doesn't even think. His phone, wallet and diagnosis are all in his pockets already. Tachibana shouts at him as he passes under the arch, but he's not listening. Everything around him crawls to a halt as he starts jogging down the street, looking for the cruisers each time he reaches a corner.
Two blocks down he finds himself staring up a blocked off street with various squads of police hiding up and down the block. Someone is falling out of a window in one of the apartment complexes beyond the barrier, and smoke is already pouring out of another apartment in the same building.
He's up over the police line, running up to the building in a heartbeat. A leap places him a few stories up, just short of the woman falling out her window. Pushing up off the wall as delicately as he can, Izuku does his best to put his arms under the woman as he falls, turning over to land on his feet. Dragging the woman with him, has the odd side effect of trailing her hair behind them like a streamer (They're lucky it's all in a braid, or Izuku would probably have ended up with a mouthful).
Chaos blooms around him as Izuku matches everyone else's speed. Gales tear up and down the block as the air pressure evens out, knocking one or two of the officers off their feet. . The woman in his arms is screaming, which is pretty normal, considering she was falling a second ago. When he walks over to a group of cops and sets her down, everyone involved stares at him with wide eyes.
"Is it a fire, or an attack?" Izuku stares at the cops for a moment before he snaps his fingers in front of them and repeats himself.
"W-we got reports of a villain?" The first officer stammers, looking Izuku up and down as if he's got two heads. Izuku just nods and turns around, already speeding up. He walks through the building casually, ignoring the flames for the most part as he picks up everyone he can find. Once he's cleared the first five floors, he walks out again and sets the latest civilians in the street carefully before he steps back and slows down.
He's already heading back towards the building when a window on the top floor opens up and someone pokes their head out.
"Fucking COPS! You thought I wouldn't notice?!" Izuku rolls his eyes as the latest idiot tries to antagonize the police. He makes one more round through the building, finding most of the remaining civilians moving for the staircase. A hop, skip and a jump has him walking through the seventh story, picking two young women out of the apartment where the thug has his head out the window. For half a second, Izuku wants to shove him out and let him fall for a bit before Izuku ends things.
The only thing stopping him is a lack of information on what started the fires.
A fresh hurricane blooms through the building and across the street as all the civilians wake up scattered up and down the block. Police have their weapons drawn, looking back and forth between every new person as if they've appeared out of nowhere. Izuku wonders for a moment what this looks like to them. He's made several trips in and out at ridiculous speeds, dropping people wherever there's empty space.
When everyone has calmed down just a bit, Izuku takes a moment to clear the front of the apartment complex and drops the villain there, fixing his posture so that they can actually talk with him face to face.
Or, face to mask. Whoever thought black sock masks were a good idea was far too dumb to be worth this much trouble. But there's still the matter of his quirk and the fires and whatever that bulky nonsense under his hoodie might be.
"I'll FUCKING…" The villain coughs as he looks Izuku in the eye, suddenly finding himself very much on the same level as everyone else. A few police, the ones with bulletproof vests, come to speed between the villain and the crowd as a deterrent.
"Look, I'll make this easy, alright?" Izuku tries his very best to sound as if he has this situation in hand. The enemy is about two seconds from having a panic attack now that he's on the other end of several firearms and a random shirtless guy, which leaves Izuku with no wiggle room. "Don't use your weapon, just come quietly. Whatever you were up to, it's over."
"What… who…" The villain's eyes settle on Izuku and narrow. "You're that vigilante! The green whatever!"
"I'm not exactly…"
"Fuck you! This is none of your business!" Izuku sighs as the guy points a finger his way and froths at the mouth. "That bitch cheated on me!"
"It's crime of passion? What are you trying to do here, win her back? All this does is get yourself thrown in jail. Just give up, alright?" Izuku holds up his hands and tries to smile, maybe get through that awful mask to the (hopefully less psychotic) person this guy used to be.
"Get away from me!" The hoodie comes up over the guy's shirt, leaving Izuku with a question that he honestly never expected to get an answer for.
Can he survive a bomb?
He's fireproof and he's taken a car going at seventy kph. But those were both one-time things, and a bomb is much worse than a flaming car moving at high speeds. It's ground zero for an entire blast wave, one that Izuku has no idea how to deal with.
"Can you not jostle the bomb strapped to your chest please?!" Izuku grabs his head when the villain pulls a crude detonator out of his pocket and waves the big red button around like a knife. Obviously, it has about the same effect as one, making everyone around them flee or scream.
I packed them too close for this, someone is going to get hurt… Izuku can't pry his eyes off the trigger in the villain's hand, despite the people screaming at his back. Police scream for him to drop the trigger, all wielding pistols or tasers. Civilians scream in confusion, pain and fear.
One of the cops pulls the trigger as the villain takes a step forward, giving Izuku a firsthand, slow motion picture of the man's hand closing on the button.
I can't do anything unless I do it all at once. Izuku decides, digging his toes into the pavement. Don't try to take the blast, just outrun it. You can do that much… right… Just gotta outrun it.
The world around him stops. Maybe it's the adrenaline flooding his system or the crowd at his back, maybe it's a conscious effort to move. Whatever it is, the air feels more like an ocean of cardboard at this speed than water.
It's the people at his back that force him to take the first step.
His eyes scan the vest of wires- with everything flash frozen under his gaze, Izuku finally takes a look at his enemy's face and realizes that he can't be much older than seventeen or eighteen. A fraction of a moment passes in that second, and Izuku's eyes fall to the vest as his teeth grind. There's no sound at this speed, just the crash of his heartbeat through his ears and his breathing, which is getting heavier with each wash of his pulse.
Even with eternity at his fingertips, Izuku knows absolutely nothing about bombs.
Rage and helplessness course through him like liquid fire as he steps back. At this speed he can't even hear himself scream, or the way his fists beat against his knees. His lungs burn as he empties them a second time, and his eyes burn as he looks up into the other boy's eyes.
Cheap fabric pulls apart easily under his grip, though he can't help wasting a lot of moves with the pressure trying to hold him in place. Three of the connections on the vest part with some effort, and Izuku watches it freeze in place as he swings it upward, over the bomber's head.
Dragging a person at this speed is nearly impossible. Izuku's teeth grind, but even that doesn't feel right. After he makes it a meter or two, he can't do it anymore. The pounding in his skull is driving him crazy, and he has no idea how this is going to feel for the idiot he just dropped on the pavement.
He pushes through until he can hear again. Vague, distorted noises hit him like salt in the air. There's a trace of movement around him, though it's the equivalent of waiting for the second hand to snap into place.
For the first time, Izuku decides that the street isn't worth the cost if he isn't fast enough. His eyes water as he wraps his arms around the police officers closest to him and leaps. There's no efficiency in his moves, no plan or reason. Moving as fast as he can at this speed, he grabs two or three people at a time and takes the quickest path to the end of the street. Several times, he bounces off the buildings and leaves massive bubbles of weak pressure hanging off the walls.
The first time he crosses his own path, he trips and loses control of his time. He can't have lost more than half a second, but he can feel a headache coming on as tries to keep track of it all. People are everywhere, trying to run away or hanging in the air as they're shoved off their feet or simply staring at the vest creeping higher and higher by the second.
Izuku hacks out another breath and forces himself onto his feet, pushing himself to the brink of the silence to make up for lost time.
He only makes it through ten or eleven more people before he starts to slip up again. Mistakes cost him precious time, so he redirects his efforts to dropping people behind cars on the other side of the street.
There's just… so many.
Forty? Fifty? He wasn't paying attention when he pulled them out.
No matter how fast he's moving, his heartbeat keeps time. Even if he can't hear properly, he can still feel the agonizing headache coming on. He'd complained about not being able to feel pain, but he'd never imagined something like this.
A glance over his shoulder reveals a handful of people left, including a group that he keeps meaning to grab. The girls who he'd grabbed from the same room as the bomber are there, along with a middle-aged couple. When the three in his arms are falling towards the other side of the police barricade, he turns and kicks off as hard as he dares, praying he's not going to overshoot it.
When did the bomb get that high? It has to be a story and a half up into the air, still moving at a snail's pace. He touches down closer to the couple, just far enough to miss one of the girls as he redirects his momentum and leaps down the street again. They're barely free of his hands when he catches a burst of light from the vest.
Growing up with Bakugō left him intimately familiar with explosives, but there's something beautiful and horrifying about watching the process moving as fast as he is. Orange and white and blue cracks spread across the tops of the tubes, then fill the weave of the vest before everything starts to burn and break apart. A series of bubbles form around each of the tubes, coalescing until traces of smoke and ash leave shadows in the flame. The vest is gone before he's even in the air, but he memorizes the event frame by frame as he flies. Ribs made of debris and smoke form as the bubble expands into a wave of raw force, light and heat.
The close he gets, the more he hears it. An explosion is supposed to be a single massive sound. Instead it sounds like the slow waking roar of a monster and it hits him with the force of an ocean.
He barely has time to turn around and put himself between the girl and the edge of the blast before the light and noise devour everything.
It takes him a long time to come to. He has no idea how long, really. He has to wake up each part of himself individually and fight off the single worst migraine he's ever had the pleasure of experiencing. Eventually his eyes work enough that he can see people staring at him through the smoke. The girl is there, sitting on the ground motionless but hopefully safe.
Sound takes a while to come back, but it does filter back in much faster than it has any right to, in Izuku's opinion. He does his best to breathe evenly, but it sounds more like a gasping fish than anything else.
When he finally manages to move, he has to peel his shoes form the pavement. Not that they were stuck there, just that his legs refused to move in the first place. His first step is shaky, forcing him down onto one knee as he tries to hack up a lung or something.
He nearly falls over when someone grabs him by the shoulders.
"Are you okay?!" The girl is screaming at him, probably since she can't hear anything herself. He groans and pries her hands off his shoulders, shakes his head out a bit and drags himself onto his feet. A glance over his shoulder knocks him back down onto his ass and leaves him scooting back until he's beside the girl.
The doorway and the cars closest to the blast are completely destroyed. Flames linger here and there on the vehicles. A large portion of the building is now missing, and smoke pours freely out of the gaping hole. Everywhere within the explosion is stained black, save for a stretch of clean pavement that vaguely resembles a person.
He's lucky that his friends get stopped at the barrier, because Tachibana would absolutely murder him if she found out what he did. Granted, the whole thing was a series of horribly unfortunate events… but everyone knows Izuku is granted nothing when he throws himself between an innocent person and a bomb.
When the police manage to lead him and the girl out of the wreckage, one of the other victims throws herself at the girl and sobs into her shoulder. The horns and red hair are what jog Izuku's memory. Suddenly the bomb seems significantly less dangerous than the fact that he's shirtless in front of two girls from his school.
It takes a while to get the paramedics to leave him alone, but eventually he makes it to the edge of the police line. His friends are there, staring at him with wide eyes as he pushes his way out of the chaos.
"What… What…" Tachibana repeats the same word quietly, over and over, as Sokuchi tucks the girl under her arm. Kābā looks as if he's been slapped, and the twins may as well be catatonic. Daisuke slips under the barricade and offers Izuku a shoulder, strangely enough. Izuku smiles a bit as he assures his friend that he's okay. He barely makes it between the cruisers when Kābā throws himself at Izuku and wraps him in a thick, bone crushing hug.
"What were you thinking." Kābā's voice shouldn't even be audible. Izuku only hears it because his ear is right by his friend's mouth when he shudders and lets it slip. "Fuck, Izuku, what were you thinking…"
Izuku returns the hug tentatively, then shifts some as Tachibana and Sokuchi join the pile. After a minute Izuku is covered in five people, wondering quietly if he'll have to carry them home.
"Guys," They stare at him as she backs out of the hug, holding his hands up to show them that he's fine. "Guys, I'm okay. Everything is fine."
They stare at him blankly in response.
"Kābā!" Izuku has to shake him before Kābā actually looks at him. He grabs their attention as solidly as he can and looks them dead in the eye. "Guys, I'm fine. Everyone is okay, get it? Everyone is safe."
"You… you threw yourself in front of a bomb." Tachibana shakes as she starts to cry, and Izuku knows that he's going to get hell for this later.
"I'm fine…" Sokuchi gives him a heavy look as she tucks their friend to her chest and lets her cry. He sighs and wipes some of the ash from his forehead.
Now he's shirtless and surrounded by crying friends AND strangers.
Fantastic.
"Wait!"
He half turns to find the girls from his school- Erin and Sachi, he thinks- on the other side of the cruisers. The paramedics look about as angry as they can possibly get with victims, which Izuku can kind of sympathize with. After a quick glance around his friends, he turns and steps up to the cruiser.
"I thought…" The short girl, the one who he'd shielded, is shouting at him. Not her fault, probably, but he can't help flinching. Her friend grabs her hand to stop her.
"We thought you were quirkless."
"Yeah, I get that a lot." Izuku shrugs. "Are you both okay?"
"Are we…" The redhead laughs, then tries to cover her mouth with a hand. "You jumped in front of a bomb man, what the hell were you thinking?"
"There was a pretty good chance I was going to be fine." Izuku waves a hand, then scratches his head. "Everything turned out all right."
"Wait, you didn't know if you…" The redhead seems shocked enough at that to stop talking. Before he can ask what she's talking about the paramedics are dragging the pair away.
Izuku turns around and looks at his friends with a sigh.
Yeah, he's in trouble. A lot of trouble. But first he needs to get them home.
Yuu isn't exactly sure why his mom has him set the table fifteen minutes before the meal is finished. Usually it just leaves him to sit and wait while his mother and sisters bring out the meal in pieces. His dad likes to read the paper before the meal, so there's not exactly any room for small talk.
The only benefit is that his mother makes amazing food and the smell always makes him even hungrier than he already was. Sakura races in from the kitchen and starts setting bowls and plates on the table, always on the verge of tripping but never quite going over. Yuu just chuckles as he grabs the latest one and sets it in the proper place.
Dinner is always like this. A little bit too formal, despite how childish his family is at heart. He'd never change it for the world, though the ritual gets a little bit old.
"How was class today, Yuu?" He snaps to attention as his father folds up his paper and sits up in his chair. Yuu shrugs, wincing as one of his bandages shifts beneath his shirt.
"I mean… Aizawa-sensei is tough, but it's not so bad. No harder than trips to the dojo." Yuu's father would hateAizawa. Hell, the man would probably hate how silly All Might gets when he's teaching, for that matter. There's a whole hour and a half to be wasted listening to his dad talk about the safety of the students and what U.A. should have done differently. If he's being honest, Yuu can't blame his father after the USJ attack. Nomu, that monster they'd brought to fight All Might, still came up in some of his nightmares, though it was rare now. But that was the price of getting the best education he can. All he can do is try to dodge around the incoming rant to the best of his ability. "How was work?"
"It was alright, though we did have a bit of a fuss. One of the secretaries didn't show up for work, and things got a little chaotic when we tried to keep up." The man sighs as he polishes his glasses on the napkin beside his plate. "I don't know what's wrong with young people nowadays. We can't keep anyone on the payroll anymore."
That definitely doesn't sound normal. Yuu has never heard his dad complain about that sort of thing. It's easy to say that he's just venting, but Yuu really can't tell what his dad is thinking most days. Some days it's all he can do to keep from setting the man off on another critique.
He nearly misses the knock on the door. When it registers, he nearly trips trying to get out of his chair.
"Send them away, we're about to eat!" His mother's voice chases him out to the door. Yuu doesn't bother responding since he was going to do that anyways. The door swings open quickly, but the words die the moment he sees who's outside.
For half a second, he thinks that it's a person. The visitor is taller than him, dressed in all black with a red shirt under his jacket. Only the shirt isn't red- the hem is white, and that's too dark to be called red. Yuu's eyes catch the purple flesh stapled along the visitor's wrist and widen as blue flames erupt from what's left of the man's fingers. A quick glance up at the man's face, now illuminated by the blue flames, reveals a pair of glowing blue eyes and a cruel smile. Flames dance on his tongue, through sharpened teeth and up over his cheeks, giving Yuu a clear view of where the visitor's skin faded and the exposed jawbone was left gleaming in the flickering light.
"Special delivery~"