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Shouta look down from where he is perched on the roof top. He had been searching for this new vigilante for months now. Not to arrest him, god knows there weren’t enough heroes out there to cover for vigilantes if they were to arrest them all. But it was always a good idea to lay down the rules for them, make them aware of what they’re doing and give them a contact that they can come to if they have intel but are too scared to give it to the police. Underground heroes are surprisingly reliant on the intel of vigilantes.
This new vigilante was a complete mystery. They were called the Runner, due to their amazing ability to flee from a scene before anyone could even ask their name. The only consistency between their take downs were the woven bracelet ties, the police calls by someone who sounded too young to be out at this time of night (always male, always seeming to be a different age, but it might just be this person’s quirk) and the fact that each of their takedowns were always found in back alleys away from the original site of the crime.
This is the fourth time that Shouta had gotten close, but the first time he had had a chance to witness the Runner at work. Their stature was short, with a baseball cap, a hoodie and a baseball bat. Shouta watched as the lithe figure bolted down the alleyway, expertly leaping over and under trash and rubble. This was definitely the Runner. When he was positioned underneath a fire exit, he kicked a bag of trash and leapt at the opposite wall, pushing off of it and grabbing onto the fire exit. He did all of this effortlessly and incredibly well. He pulled himself up under the fire exit, hooking his feet around the edges. In his all black ensemble he was almost impossible to see. It took only a few short seconds from start to finish.
He hung there for a moment until the thug that he had been fighting turned the corner, lured along by the sound of the kicked trash bag. An ingenious idea, bringing the thug into a different alleyway away from their victim, a strategy that many underground heroes employed.
He waited a couple of minutes as the thug ferreted away in the trash and from his position, Shouta could see the vindictive grin glinting from under his cap and hood. It was surprisingly similar to the one that Shouta knew graced his own face when someone underestimated him.
When the thug was finally underneath him, he pushed down, swinging a baseball bat that Shouta hadn’t even seen before then and artfully landed on his feet, slamming the bat onto the thug’s head in the process.
Strategy, skill and force, all packed into one tiny little hoodie wearing body.
He was even efficient in his restraining. He seemed to undo a woven bracelet from his arm, using it to tie the thug up and to a nearby drainpipe.
Those bracelet ties were another thing that police had been theorising to be the Runner’s quirk. They were incredibly well made, the series of knots making them almost impossible to break apart.
With that done, he pulled out an old beat up phone, letting it run for a while before he typed in the emergency number. And then he took a deep breath, and he started to cry.
It was an incredibly good impression of a distraught little kid, even putting in little details about his mother telling him not to go outside for this exact reason. He told the emergency line that he was going home and didn’t bother telling them his name before he hung up. His breathing cleared and he walked out of the alleyway as if nothing had happened.
Shouta went to follow him outside of the alleyway, but by the time he got to the edge of the building, Runner was already gone.
There was only one person walking down the street, a boy of fifteen or so, carrying a bag of groceries in one hand, the other in his hoodie pocket.
He jumped down in front of him, making the boy jump.
“Excuse me, have you seen a man, about your height, he would’ve been wearing a hood and a baseball cap?” Shouta asked, trying not to scare him too much.
“N-no, I’ve not seen anyone else out tonight, s-sorry.” He squeaked out. Wow, how old was this boy?
“That’s okay, are you okay getting home, it’s dangerous outside at this time of night.” A new light entered the boy’s eyes at this, and he seemed to relax.
“Y-yeah, I only live around the corner, I’ll be okay.” He said before Shouta left him to go on his way.
It wasn’t until he was handcuffing the thug that he recognised what that light was. Amusement.
A month had passed since he had caught his one and only glimpse of the vigilante, the Runner.
This time he wasn’t even looking for him. It was just a simple patrol, looking for small time thugs and thinking about his newest first year class. They almost all had potential, some of them requiring more direction than others. There was Yaoyorozu’s lack of confidence, Todoroki’s obvious issues interacting with his classmates, as well as Shinsou’s continued concern about quirk discrimination, he still hadn’t told anyone his quirk. And that was before he even touched on Bakugou’s clear anger issues.
He was so distracted thinking about what he would do about all of these, that he didn’t notice the vigilante until he was almost on top of him, subconsciously attracted by the sound of the scuffle.
This time, it was almost at its end, the Runner just hanging up his phone. He turned out the corner but this time he was already ready for his disappearing act. It didn’t take him long to find him, turning into a different alleyway.
He was only in there for a second, but then out came… the same boy from before! He had been played! He was again carrying a plastic grocery bag, but this time a closer look provided a view of a baseball hat. Why hadn’t he thought it might be him before! All that wasted time looking into someone with a travel quirk but no, he just took of his hat and pulled his hood down.
It was kind of ingenious really.
He followed behind quietly, jumping from building to building, not letting the boy out of his sight. He seemed to take a particularly circuitous route, eventually ending up in an area of apartment buildings, making his way inside. A couple minutes later, a light came on in one of the higher up apartments.
Shouta took note of the address, and then made his way home in the silence of the night.
The next day he arrived at work early, which was really quite impressive considering how late he had been tracking the Runner the other day. But he needed to put a name to the face, and the best person to help him do that was Nedzu.
He went almost straight there, ignoring the quick stop in the staffroom to grab himself a coffee and a juice pouch to keep him going through the morning.
He approached the door, lifting his hand up to knock and knocking air instead when Nedzu opened the door before he got the chance. He really shouldn’t have been surprised; he did this every time.
“Good morning, Aizawa, take a seat.” The rat-bear-principle of UA said. “I believe you have some news for me?”
He had the look on his face that told him he already knew what he was here for.
“It’s about that vigilante I ran into a month ago. I found him again and followed him home, I was hoping to use the UA system to figure out who he was.” Shouta explained.
UA had access to the same information as all hero agencies, combined with any information gathered on applicants for the school or students and teachers themselves. It was the most complete information platform that heroes had access to in terms of finding out about civilians, but you needed the principles permission before you could use it.
With permission gained, Shouta made short work of entering the address into the system and it didn’t take long for a page to load up.
“Midoriya Izuku, he’s a gen ed student here, I think I’ve heard Hizashi talking about him, he’s fluent in English.” Shouta said quietly to himself.
“Oh dear,” Principle Nedzu said. “It appeared we have miscalculated.”
Miscalculated? Principle Nedzu didn’t miscalculate, he was literally the smartest being alive on the planet.
“What do you mean miscalculated?” Shouta couldn’t disguise the concern in his voice. His heart started to beat unpleasantly loud, and he definitely didn’t like the look on the principles face.
“Well Midoriya here applied for the heroics course and,” Nedzu paused. Shouta had enough experience with the Principle to know he was supposed to out in his speculations now.
“He didn’t get enough points. He probably doesn’t have a combative quirk, does he? He certainly didn’t use it when I saw him.”
“No, he got enough points. The board of directors voted not to let him in due to the fact that he was quirkless.” Nedzu said.
Shit. Shouta dropped his head into his palms, desperately trying to comprehend the idea that the boy he had seen take down a thug twice his size with ease didn’t even have a quirk to rely on.
“So, we stuck him in general education and hoped that this boy, who had already proven his worth I might add, was just going to quietly accept that he would never be a hero? We really did just brush our issues under the carpet and hope that they would disappear.” Shouta hadn’t had enough sleep for this. He didn’t think he would ever have enough sleep for this irreversible fuck up.
“Well, school is about to start Aizawa, I will send someone to cover your class for you and we will call Midoriya Izuku up to talk to us as soon as he is able.” Nedzu was already typing emails, sending them as quickly as they were written. If he wasn’t already incomprehensibly smart, Shouta would have been sure he had some form of speed quirk.
“If Midoriya is willing, it may be a good idea to start him on a half general education, half heroics course. He can miss out on the history of heroics and English classes and-“
“Wait, why would he miss out on history of heroics?” Shouta asked. That was definitely one of the fundamental courses that a vigilante should be on, it highlighted all of the importance of getting an official hero license and obeying the laws that applied to heroes.
“He tested out of both of those subjects, it was on his file, did you not even read it? He tested out of it during the entrance exam. He got 100% in it you know; I was considering taking him on myself.”
And oh boy was that a terrifying concept, no world should ever be punished with two little Nedzus running about.
“Ah here he is, I will let him knock on the door I think, don’t want him to think he’s in trouble after all.”
Shouta just let out a breath. This was going to be a long day.
It really was only a couple of seconds before there was a hesitant knock at the door, the boy peeking around the corner just a little before opening the door fully.
“H-hello, you called me Principle Nedzu and… Eraserhead.” Midoriya Izuku said.
He really didn’t look like much, his shoulders pulled up to his ears and his uniform almost dwarfing his small stature.
“Come in, my boy. Would you like a cup of tea?” Nedzu asked, already pouring one out for him. He didn’t notice or didn’t care about Midoriya shaking his head. Maybe he couldn’t tell in amongst all of the other shaking that his body was doing.
This was the kid that he had seen effortlessly take down villains and thugs?
“I-I’m really sorry if someone doesn’t want me in their class. I-I’ll change seats or- or something if they want me further away from them.” Midoriya began, already rambling on about it being understandable that they didn’t want him near them and that he would do whatever he needed to as long as they didn’t kick him out.
Just how did people treat quirkless people these days? He remembered it not being great when he was younger, but it had never been this bad! He remembered the statistic that he had read somewhere about 60% of quirkless people not making it to the age of 18. He wondered if this treatment was the reason why.
“Midoriya, we have not summoned you here today to talk about that, we have summoned you to talk about your night-time activities. You are who they call ‘the Runner’ are you not?”
The change was almost instantaneous. He put his cup on the table, shoulders straightening, shaking petering off and chin rising until he was meeting their eyes.
“And what if I am?” He asked, once nervous voice now hard with the challenge.
“Excuse me?” Shouta couldn’t help but let out, his first words since this meeting started.
“Well, I’m not breaking any laws, a vigilante is clearly stated as someone who uses their quirk to do the job of the police or a hero. And as you already know, I’m quirkless. There are no laws against self-defence and every single thug has tried to attack me first.” He had picked up his tea again, taking a sip and looking over the rim as he watched their reactions.
Wow, he really was taking advantage of every single loophole that he could.
“You have no evidence that you weren’t the one to start those fights, you could still go to prison for assault.” Shouta tried.
“That outdated law?” He started again, confidant in his security, “Nobody has been arrested for assault in decades, it’s always misuse of quirks this and villainy that. Nobody ever thinks that poor little quirkless people would ever attack someone with a quirk.”
“We could chuck you out of this school, we have full legal rights to expel anyone we deem fit.” Shouta said, he already knew that the boy would have a pre-prepared answer but now he was just curious where he would go with it. He was right in thinking that he was untouchable.
“Imagine the outcry, how would you explain expelling a poor little quirkless boy for no real reason? You would have every news station up your ass about quirk discrimination in days.” He said, having the audacity to roll his eyes. Godamn the media, little vultures that they were.
“What if we were to tell them that you were a vigilante, that would be a solid reason for expulsion.”
“Who would ever believe that poor, quirkless little Izuku would know how to fight.” He started crying as he said it, curling in on himself and almost sobbing by the time he was finished.
He looked up at them, eyes dry and a wide smile on his face.
“I’m untouchable.”
And god damn him, he was right.
“Good show, Mr Midoriya.” Nedzu said, clapping at the performance.
Somehow, this was what caught the boy off guard, startling him out of his grin and furrowing his brow.
“Well, after I saw Eraserhead here follow me home last night, I figured I would need something to say.” He said, though it definitely took a little longer to come along this time.
He saw Shouta’s look of surprise.
“What, I didn’t come eleventh in the entrance exam for nothing.” He said, almost huffy.
“May I ask how you knew that, Midoriya, none of the exam results were published due to you and your little scandal this year.”
“Well, I have a computer, access to the main building and your online security is really bad. It’s not that hard.” He said and oh my god, no wonder Nedzu was interested in the boy.
Shouta thought back on everything that he had heard from Hizashi, Midoriya’s homeroom teacher before today. He thinks that he remembered, on the very first day of class thinking that he had an intelligence or analysis quirk, for the first two days he had been really impressed with him, even being respectful, which was unusual for Hizashi, usually he was gushing about how cute the kids were on the first day. He always enjoyed telling him about their mispronunciations over dinner. He also remembered the way that he had spoken about him changing after the second day, always seeming to be poor little Midoriya that, and it’s so impressive considering this.
It really was true; nobody ever suspected the quirkless kid.
“Say, Midoriya, do you want to be a hero?” Nedzu asked, grinning into his cup.
“I just want to help people, sensei.”
That was the first thing that he had said that sounded real since he had come through that door.
It was silent for a minute until “Perfect!”
Nedzu’s squeaky voice sounded almost like shouting in the silence that had descended.
The furrow was back in Midoriya’s brow. As much as he respected the kid’s brains and skill, he was also a complete baby face, and he looked like a confused little kid when he did that.
“Well, here is your new schedule, and here is the paperwork that will have to be filled in by Thursday,” Principal Nedzu carried on unperturbed by Midoriya’s muddled expression. “And of course, if you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions, we should get you to your second class just on time!”
“Wait, I’m confused, this says I have hero classes as well as general studies classes? Where did my English period go? And shouldn’t there be a hero history class of some sort?” Midoriya said, staring at the timetable like it had attempted to steal his purse.
“Well, you have tested out of both of those subjects, and if you give up one of your study periods, you should come out of this with two qualifications, which will be very useful for you.”
“I have rooms scheduled in two of my study periods though, do I have to study in a separate place from the other courses?”
“No, that will be your individual time with me, Midoriya, we will hone those analytical skills of yours until they are a fine-tuned instrument.” Nedzu said, and if Shouta didn’t know better, he would say that there was an evil glint in his eyes.
Shouta didn’t know better.
“But there must have been hundreds of other applicants who would’ve done as well as me if the exam wasn’t biased against non-combative quirks the way it is. Why should I beat out all of them?”
“Because you also didn’t have a quirk that was suitable for the exam, and yet you still managed to beat two thirds of the current hero course. That shows brains and guts.” Shouta interjected, not wanting to light the fire that he could see sparking in the rodent’s eyes.
“But even All Might told me I couldn’t be a hero; would he even want me in his class?” Midoriya muttered, once more scanning over his timetable.
“What do you mean All Might doesn’t think you could be a hero?” Shouta was anxiously scanning through the press broadcasts that he’s seen, trying to figure out if he had ever been explicitly anti-quirkless.
“Well, after he saved me from a sludge villain a little while ago, I asked him if I could become a hero, and then he deflated and told me why he thought I couldn’t, which I totally get, but he didn’t have to be a jerk about it.” He said all of this with a sheen in his eyes that told of other things going on in his brain, he probably didn’t even realise he was saying it.
“You know about All Might’s weakened form?” Shouta asked, almost panicked with the knowledge that All Might’s secret was already out there.
“Well, yeah, don’t worry, I wouldn’t tell anyone, I know what happens when you lose someone who you look up to so much, wouldn’t want society to collapse.” His voice had turned bitter as he said that, and it took a lot out of Shouta not to hunt Yagi down and shake some sense into him. How could he do that to a child! He was lucky this one just wanted to help people and didn’t decide to just take down the entirety of society. This was how villains were made!
“I’m afraid you won’t be able to avoid All Might, but we can ask him not to bring up any previous interactions that you’ve had during school time if that would make it better.” Nedzu proposed. Midoriya nodded. “Now, we do have some questions that we legally have to ask you, is that alright with you Midoriya?”
“Fine by me.” He sat back on his seat, crossing his arms and gesturing to ask away. This boys flipflopping confidence was going to drive Shouta crazy. He already had enough traumatised teenagers to deal with, but what was one more added to the pile.
“Well, first off, we don’t actually expect you to stop being a vigilante, we just want to nudge it slightly into a more legal territory-“
“It wasn’t technically illegal in the first place, sensei.” The boy piped up. Goddamn problem child.
“Well, now you can drop the technically. And stop interrupting, you problem child.” Shouta said, dragging his hand over his eyes. This conversation was just making him want his sleeping bag more and more.
“As I was saying,” Nedzu picked back up, “We will be limiting your hours,” Izuku put up his hand as if he were going to protest this but put it down when Shouta glared at him. (He knew his students called it his angry dad stare. No, he didn’t agree with them.) “and assigning you a pro hero to work with who will be giving the final call on all decisions and fights. These will change every week. Now, we have a few questions for you.”
“First off,” Shouta got the ball rolling, “What sort of professional training do you have?”
“Oh, I’ve been doing gymnastics since I was eight.” Midoriya said. And then didn’t carry on. That was all the training he had? Seven years of gymnastics training.
“No martial arts or fighting training?” Shouta prodded.
“No sensei, why do you think I rely on a baseball bat so much? You think I carry that thing around for fun?”
Which was a fair point, those things weren’t easy to transport inconspicuously. Which was a point, where did he hide that thing? He wrote the answer down.
“Okay then, where do you get your woven ties from? It was theorised for a while that this was your quirk, but we need to know who your provider is.”
Midoriya laughed at this one.
“My provider? I make them myself. I have a bunch of them, they’re super strong and can resist a lot of heat. I started making them as a stress reliever, but they came in super handy when I first happened upon a mugging, so I made a bunch more. I have an online store if you want some. It was the easiest way to explain my making of them to my mom, but the money is super useful for buying new gear.”
Really? This whole time they were just bracelets? They really needed to stop being so quirk orientated at the police station.
“How did you always find crimes, you seemed to know where they were before the police and you were never seen patrolling.”
Midoriya perked up when asked this question. Teenagers and their mood swings.
“Well at first I was just in the right place and the right time, or I guess the wrong place at the wrong time. I helped out and then started freaking out about vigilante laws, which is when I realised that not many violent or protective laws actually apply to quirkless people. Anyway,” He dismissed that like it was nothing, he really could’ve gotten away with so much if he hadn’t been a fundamentally good kid. ”Really though, it came down to the fact that criminals are predictable.”
“I compiled the data from police and media reports, as well as first hand encounters from the past five years, although I made sure there wasn’t any duplication don’t worry, and made a comprehensive grading system of most likely to least likely streets and areas for crimes to happen in depending on the time of year. I combined this with information I had collected before about what kind of crimes happened where and it made it really easy to predict the criminals!” He finished off, putting his hands in his lap as if he hadn’t done the jobs of an entire team of fully trained analysts at the age of fifteen.
“I sent it in to the police, don’t worry, but I don’t think they use it much because I never really see them there before I get there.”
As if that was what they were worried about.
Oh god, Nedzu was smiling again.
“Perfect, that’s all our questions answered, thank you very much for your time, remember to get your forms in for Thursday and I will see you Wednesday afternoon.” Nedzu dismissed him. He quickly scurried out of the door.
“Well, that was unexpected. Also, Aizawa, you wouldn’t mind being the boys first hero escort, would you? We will need time to set up a rota of willing heroes, preferably with non-combative quirks so he can learn things from them, and you are the only one who already knows about this.”
Shouta sighed, he knew he wasn’t going to get out of this.
“Just make sure that he isn’t late, that’s all I ask.”
And then he left, making a be-line for the staffroom. He really needed another coffee.