Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The letter in between Todoroki’s fingers had been handled extremely carefully since he’d received it; it had not a single crinkle in it, besides where it had been originally folded by Midoriya. Even now, as he held it up before Bakugou’s face, it was in mint condition. He was rather afraid that Bakugou might lunge forward and ruin all his effort, judging by his stance.

The sour expression he’d been wearing as long as Todoroki had been talking to him didn’t shift as his friend continued to try and reason with him.

“If Midoriya is being hunted by Shigaraki, then we need to find him!”

“And do what?” Todoroki spluttered at tone – it could have been called indifferent if Bakugou’s eyes weren’t so angry. “The damn nerd left for a reason. He probably has a plan-”

“So?!” The face of Deku’s passion at the sports festival flashed before his eyes. “He’s always been there for us! He saved both of us – and the rest of the class!”

Bakugou’s eye twitched; it was a miniscule movement, but it raised both the corner of the spiky boy’s nose and the whole of Shouto’s confidence in his argument.

He leaned forward, seeing an opening. “We’ve always just looked up to him as another All Might, someone who never fails. But he’s like us, he’s one of us, and-”

Bakugou sighed right over him. “I did tell him not to do this on his own…!”

Silence befell them.

They were alone in the common room; the only sound besides their arguing was the humming of the fridge, the droning noise in the background barely a distraction. Todoroki let Bakugou grind his teeth in peace, expecting some kind of outburst if he tried to interrupt whatever thoughts he was having.

A couple of feet behind Bakugou, some of the cabinets were open, implying that some other students had been down recently and not tidied up after themselves. Or perhaps Sato was cooking and he was expecting to return and clean everything up when he did so.

Except-…

No.

It couldn’t be Sato; the oven wasn’t on. That should have been obvious, the fan from the oven would have drowned out the noise of the refrigerator, but Todoroki hadn’t really been paying attention to the room until there was nothing to focus on except it.

At least it looked like nobody was planning to come down in the middle of his and his friend’s… conversation….

Bakugou sighed again.

“I’ll go find that bastard.” He spat, turning away, as if he planned on just stepping out and starting a search on the spot.

In a panic, Todoroki flung an arm out and grasped hold of Bakugou’s elbow. “Wait!”

“Gerroffme!” He pulled his arm out of Todoroki’s gasp, only to have the other boy grab it again. “What do you want?!”

“I said I want to go and find Deku, didn’t I? I’m coming t-”

“No, no, no, no.” Bakugou tried to squirm away again, raising his arms so he could make swatting motions in Todoroki’s direction, “You stay here dammit.”

“Why?”

“I don’t need you! I’ll find Deku alone!”

Todoroki found himself taken aback by the sudden enthusiasm; he’d just been trying to get him to-!!

Wait…

If Bakugou really did want to find Deku, then… did he just not want to go with Shouto…? Were they not friends?

He asked as such.

“Hah?!” Bakugou dodged the question. “This isn’t about that!”

Todoroki tried not to overthink how he hadn’t answered. “Then what is it about?! Because if it’s about saving Deku, then me being with you is just extra help! Unless this is about your ego-”

“Oh-hoho!” The dark laughter his accusation provoked didn’t bode well, “You don’t even know the half of it…”

“So you’re just trying to leave without me to prove a point???!!” Todoroki balked.

“This isn’t about proving a point, half-and-half-wit!” He rounded on Todoroki like an angry cat who’d been caught by the scruff of the neck and just released, ready to turn on its captor now that it had regained mobility. “There’s just a lot about me that you don’t know.” He flashed his teeth. “I intend to keep it that way.”

“Why?”

“Why??”

“You know about my family-”

“You’ve just gone and answered your whole goddamn question.”

Todoroki scoffed. “That means nothing!”

“Only because you don’t know me!”

Bakugou brought his fingers up to his chest, his head hung low, predatory, despite the tremble in his hands which Shouto pretended he didn’t notice out of sympathy for Bakugou’s pride.

“If you knew why Deku left, you wouldn’t speak to me.”

Eyebrows furrowing, Shouto looked him dead in the eyes. “Really?”

“You wanna know me?” Bakugou wasn’t smiling, but it sounded as though he was. His voice was quiet, goading, dangerous.

“Sure.”

Now he grinned, but his wide eyes betrayed terror; he looked demented, he looked like-

“Fine.” His voice was shaky, his teeth were grit when he wasn’t speaking through his wide smile. “I’m the reason why Deku left.”

That can’t be right.

The sight of the boy opposite him was a spectacle, he looked torn apart, fraying, dulled and colourless because of his dark clothes. Red irises bore into his own; he could almost see them tremble.

“He went out there to face that big villain alone, not because he thinks he can do it, but because he wants to kill himself, and that’s my fault.”

The fridge noise felt louder now, though Todoroki tried not to wince at his sudden sensitivity. His impassive face didn’t seem to make Bakugou feel any better though; his hands curled into fists, which he slowly brought down by his sides.

“Deku is creepy as hell. He’s always been… unhuman. He just… does things for people… And he always seems happy, even when everything is upside down. Like a doll, like… like a Deku.

“And I hated him for it. Every day of my life I’d hate everything that surrounded him because he acted like some Godsend that had no free will and made no mistakes and it pissed me off. He didn’t have a quirk, he was meant to be a nobody – you saw read that goddamn letter! He finally told everyone that All Might gave him his power. That quirk, all that strength, it’s what finally made me realise I was an arse. Because for the first time ever, people suddenly took him seriously, and it was right after he got a goddamn quirk, even though that was never the thing I hated about him… Even though it – his quirklessness – was something that I never had a problem with I just-!!! I acted like I did because I couldn’t exactly go around yelling, ‘everyone should hate Deku, he’s too wonderful!’

“But now that he’s strong and I can… rely on him…” He choked the word out like it hurt, “I realise that he isn’t perfect. He’s fucking normal, and he’s fucked up. I fucked him up. He looks after everyone because he’s so goddamn…. Deku… But I fucked him up.

“If you knew half of what I fucking did…” He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. “You wouldn’t want to fucking hang around me, you’d hate me.”

“Who’s to say-”

“Didn’t you hate your father?”

The world shifted, slightly. The humming was even louder, Bakugou’s arms seemed impossibly wobbly, as if they might fall off him. Todoroki’s whole body felt both pulled taut and not wound tight enough, like when he would ride a rollercoaster at the funfair with his friends from UA, and he’d retighten his shoelaces every ride, afraid that his shoes would fall off, even though they should have been tight from last time. But every time he got used to the tightness he just needed more and more and-

“I’m like that.” Bakugou reiterated. “I fucked Deku up.”

He was crying, Todoroki realised, his friend was crying and he was too out of his mind to help. If he were Deku-

“Deku’s gone and it’s all my fault.” Red eyes shot out of view as Bakugou bent over, though his tears were no less visible as they pattered onto the floor, louder than the humming. Each tear cracked at the white noise until Todoroki was shifted back, and he could move.

He leant forwards slightly, unsure of whether to initiate any physical contact. “I very much doubt that.” He tried.

It didn’t work. “I’m sure fucking Deku would say that too.” He sniffed deeply as he brought his head back up. “I never got to tell him to be fucking angry for once, and he’s gonna die and I’m never gonna let him know that I really love him and that he’s always been a good friend.” His breath staggered. “And I never hated him, and I really wanted to be his friend. No-,, I… I want! I still want-!!”

“Bakugou-”

“You understand nothing!!! You weren’t there!!!! It’s easy for you to assume that I did nothing because you weren’t on the receiving end of-!!!!” His staggered breath caused his shoulders to very visibly shudder, “I trod all over him his entire life and the adults encouraged it! They did everything to make sure that Deku felt subhuman!!”

“Bu-”

“This isn’t,” He pulled a silly voice, “‘Oh Deku you’re so silly, hahaha, silly Deku! He’s a poopoo banana!’ playground bullying, this was-!!!” He gestured furiously. “What your father did to you, for ten years – Deku endured all of that!!”

Todoroki breathed.

“He wants to die, for fuck’s sake!!! He wishes for death, because of ME!!!”

Now Todoroki was frowning, his lips curling down. He raised his arms in a placating gesture.

“Breathe-”

He did so once, just to fill his lungs with enough air to scream, “GODDAMMIT STOP PITYING ME!! YOU’RE JUST LIKE HIM!!!”

Wind whipped Todoroki in the face as Bakugou blasted the surrounding air with his quirk to make a superpowered hop towards the doors to the stairs, roaring past him like an enraged bull. As he stopped for a moment to open said door, he muttered something about how easily Deku would have forgiven him, and how he’d so desperately needed to communicate with him at the hospital.

Nobody had managed to. He’d just gotten up and left.

In a similar fashion, and despite his previous insistence to go find Midoriya alone, Bakugou stormed right away from both Todoroki and the dorm exit, up the stairs.

Todoroki flinched as the doors banged open and shut when Bakugou threw them open, and the subsequent sound of the boy’s heavy stomps pounded in Shouto’s ears. Eventually, the sound got lighter, and weighed less heavily on him, and then, suddenly, it was all gone. Ears pricked, Todoroki waited a few seconds before internally declaring Bakugou absolutely gone, after which he sighed dramatically.

That hadn’t been how the conversation was supposed to go. Although, at least Bakugou hadn’t exploded… too badly. For Bakugou.

The common room was intact, and Todoroki wasn’t bruised or bleeding. Better than nothing.

Shouto hung his head, feeling limp, like soggy soba. Peering around the still-empty dorms, Todoroki eyed the sofa for half a minute before regaining enough energy to make his way over there and crash onto it. The material was firmer than he’d imagined when he did collapse onto it, and it forced a little huff out of him as his back collided with the pillows.

“Midoriya…” It wasn’t true, it couldn’t be- “…wants to die?”

“I think I’d rather die than eat that.” Midoriya said, pointing at the black rat whose beady eyes were inspecting a discarded orange peel that had fallen out of a bin.

It gave it a nibble, and then clearly found the flavour unsavoury, because it scuttled away from it, running right past Deku, further into the alleyway, into the darkness and out of sight.

“Well it was just a suggestion.” Shinomori looked rather expressionless, besides the slight upturn of his eyebrows.

“Why would you suggest that?” Midoriya scrunched his nose – where was this man living when he was alive? In the woods- “Wait did you eat rats?”

“Why would you think that?” The answer was very fast.

“You lived in the wilderness.”

“And?”

He wasn’t having this. “Did you eat rats?”

No answer.

Midoriya’s eyebrow was raised, the corner of his lip curled in disgust. Beside him, Shinomori fiddled with his fingernails, his skin looking smoky from time to time and wafting around.

The silence was deafening.

“Ew.”

Shinomori had to audacity to look upset by the reaction. “I didn’t eat them alive!”

“That is, quite possibly, the only thing you could have done to have made what you did even worse.”

“It’s just meat-” He tried, but their quirk went off, and Midoriya silenced him with a suddenly more serious expression, and a raised hand.

“Something’s up.”

The area around them was rather busy, with a running stream of people flowing right past the entrance to the alleyway. None of the passers-by looked particularly inconvenienced or panicky – strange. Although it could just mean that there was another villain on the loose like Muscular, and that he’d picked up the signal from a while away…

He couldn’t see much from his vantage point.

Sensing that Midoriya was about to step into the open, Shinomori puffed up into a vaguely human shaped cloud of smoke. “I’ll get going then.” He said, politely.

“Mm.” Midoriya nodded back. “See you later.”

The man dissolved into air and green lightning, falling back into Deku’s quirk – not that anybody would have seen or heard him anyway, but it was best for the ghosts to not interact with him when he had an audience and the potential to make himself look crazy. For some reason, people didn’t take too well to their hero turning to an invisible person and talking to themselves.

In a day and age where quirks allowed for almost anything, it was quite rude; but Deku still decided to save himself the trouble of trying to explain himself.

Upon reaching the very entrance to the alleyway, he got a glimpse of the first wave of panic.

A few bricks went flying into the crowd before him, causing a ripple of screams and a flurry of movement, which Midoriya could thankfully fly above. The first couple of bricks had fallen straight to the ground from where they’d been dislodged, injuring no one. However, with a second wave of bricks from out of the side of a florist’s shop being collected by a criminal pair who stood above it, Deku didn’t want to take a chance and let them land again.

One of the criminals had either some sort of general psychic quirk, or some quirk which allowed him to move brick-like objects (heavy objects, dense objects, he wasn’t sure what the limits were), as he waved his arms about, extending and retracting shaky fingers, pulling up more bricks with the movements.

He may have considered the dance an obvious attempt to direct attention away from his partner (there was a chance that he was the one with the brick-moving quirk), except that the second man showed no signs of using a psychic, brick-moving quirk, but showed definite signs of having a weight altering quirk. He’d wait for his partner to psychically tear a brick from the wall and bring it to the roof, before making contact with it with both hands, and immediately straining harder to carry the brick. He’d then drop it down next to him, collecting ammo.

But for what…?

A crash sounded above him as someone landed on a tall building.

“You think you can run away, Brick and Brick?!”

Lord have mercy those were not their villain names. They couldn’t be.

“Silence!” Said the weight-quirk man (either Brick or Brick, hard to tell). He flexed his arm muscles and puffed out his bare chest.

Both he and the other man (who was probably Brick, actually) were wearing matching red trousers (brick red) and yellow boots. Psychic Brick was wearing a top however, which was the same yellow as their questionable footwear.

Psychic Brick spoke up in a nasal voice. “We’ve got our weapons now, Gutter!”

Oh please.

“They’re not your weapons.” Midoriya drawled, the life drained out of him by the idiots he was surrounded by – he couldn’t deal with this right now,, he was already so hungry dammit. “Those bricks belong to the florist that owns this building.”

“Which florist?” Asked Heavy Brick, gruffly.

Midoriya pointed at the rotund man in pink who was fleeing the shop. He had small, kind eyes, and a stylish moustache. He looked awfully tiny from where Midoriya was floating. “Him.”

Heavy Brick picked up a weighted ‘weapon’ and catapulted it at the man with his formidable arm strength alone.

With a snap of Black whip, the brick was snatched out of the sky and pulled back up to Heavy Brick. The muscly man reached out as if to take it from Midoriya’s quirk, only to be bonked on the head with it.

“Gahahaahahahaaa!!” The voice from above sounded again. “You’re really losing to some random child!” He rolled his ‘r’s heavily, cackling at the duos misfortune of trying to operate in the vicinity of Japan’s most prolific problem child.

“Shut the fuck up, Gutter,” Psychic Brick cut in, “Brick and I will kill you all well and good now that we’re out in the open and can use our quirks to the fullest!”

Oooooooh, so they had previously been trapped in some ‘not in the open’ area together. Some place where they couldn’t use their quirks easily. Like a prison.

“You may have had the advantage when there was metal to bend everywhere, but now you’re doomed!” The man ploughed on, excitedly.

Underneath Deku’s feet, the crowd had mostly dispersed, though a few screaming runners remained on the site.

“You fools! There is still ample metal for me to reconstruct! Brick and Brick, I, Gutter, will be your doom!”

Deku floated his way in between the two buildings, finally getting a glance of ‘Gutter’, still in his fashionable straitjacket.

“And I, Window Detergent, am sick of all three of you.” He announced, drawing their attention.

Just as they all got into fighting stance, Midoriya threw out three strands of Black whip and detained all of them – opting to cover both Heavy Brick and Gutter’s hands to avoid any contact based quirk usage, and splitting the Black whip strand circling Psychic Brick into small strands which each wrapped around a finger and immobilized it. He’d seen the little finger dances, and he wasn’t risking a brick to the head whilst flying to the police, even if the effort would result in failure because of Danger sense.

“Arghhh!” One of them cried out as they floated over the city.

Psychic Brick spoke out, “This is all your fault, you moron! If you hadn’t followed us we wouldn’t have gotten caught!”

“If I hadn’t followed you???” Gutter complained, “You all attacked me first!”

“And we would have won too if you didn’t make us lose!!” Heavy Brick yelled.

“Shut up, idiot!! This is your fault too!”

“Mine?!”

“Yes!”

“What about him?!”

“I hate him, and he’s too insignificant to be a threat to us!”

“Insignificant??!! Listen here-!!”

Midoriya drew in a deep breath and sighed through his nose. Closing his eyes as he travelled on auto pilot to where he’d found a good dumping ground for captured criminals. He tried to block out the petty squabbling going on between the criminals he was dragging with him.

“Next time I won’t let you get away alive, Brick!”

“I don’t even know which one of us you’re threatening!”

“I came up with the idea, that way you can’t insult us! : )”

“Yes I can, the idea’s shit.”

He was only partially successful.

Chihiro’s fingers were squishy and warm in Momoko’s grip as she tugged him towards the nearby police station. The police on standby around it looked at her, and then straight past her, presumably not finding her to be a threat. Part of her was grateful for that, another part of her….

How do they know I’m not dangerous, because my mutations are just large, purple freckles? Am I not ‘villainous’ enough for them?

Her bangs got in her eyes and filled part of her vision with their peach colouring, causing her to stumble a little, dropping Chihiro’s hand.

Just when she was flicking away the pesky hair that had poked her in the eye, her son lit up, his eyes widening and his grey irises (he really had gotten all of her features besides the freckles) lit up in excitement. He pointed over in the distance.

“Don’t use your quirk to look!” She snapped, a little too harshly, suddenly afraid of her son acting out because of it. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust herself to calm her own son, rather, she didn’t trust the police – who were now too close for comfort, when they’d been previously conveniently near and deterring for villains – to not attack him on sight.

Chihiro startled and looked like he was about to cry; think fast, think fast!

“I’ll check out whatever you’re looking at with my zoom quirk, okay? Okay!” She hurried out, turning around to try and guess what he was pointing to, “What were you-?”

Her question was cut short by the sound something slapping the floor violently.

Someone, rather.

A lone figure had landed on the ground, carrying three bickering men with their quirk. The dark tendrils supporting the squabblers looked like rope, but (since it was holding itself up) it had to be more than a simple lasso – it had to be controllable.

“STATE YOUR NAME AND PURPOSE!” The police yelled, raising their guns at him.

Despite the promise of pain that their weapons openly declared, the figure didn’t seem fazed at all.

“I’m Deku, these are criminals.”

“Deku?!” She gasped, except that her voice was over-shadowed by the cries of the three, trapped men.

“Deku?!! You said your name was Window Detergent!!!!” They all looked equally upset by the revelation.

“Well, I just wanted to fit in with the theme.” He shot back, bored, “When in Rome, and all that.”

The muscular looking topless man tried to squirm his way out of his bindings, growling in either anger or anguish, it was unclear, when one of the policemen abruptly dropped their aim and began cooperating.

“Hang on, I recognise that one,” He pointed at the one still in his prison straitjacket, “He’s from a prison just down the road!”

The other officers paused, lowering their guns with some mixture of awe and hesitance. Only their mouths were visible from under their helmets and visors, but it was enough to let Momoko know that they were all surprised when the four of their mouths opened up like fish.

“Wait!” One of them, with a slightly higher pitched voice than the last officer, yelled, “They’re all from that prison!”

“So they are!” The third said.

They all looked at each other, having a quick vote through the stretching and pursing of their lips (there wasn’t much else anyone could count on as a facial expression) before they spun back round to face the figure – oh my God that’s Deku, that’s THE Deku – and asked him to bring the prisoners over to be put in spare iron maidens.

Without any further words, the boy stepped out, his mask covering his face and making his expressions as elusive as the police officers’, and followed the cops into the station, dragging the prisoners behind him. By that point, the three of them had gone silent; it wasn’t exactly obvious what any of them were arrested for in the first place, but they didn’t seem terribly dangerous. At least, not when Deku was in charge of them.

She still couldn’t believe it. Not only was he real, but he was right there!!

An animal rubbed against her leg and she jumped almost into the road to avoid it. “ARGH!”

Grey eyes looked up at her sheepishly through pale pink hair. “Mama…?”

Oh. It was Chihiro.

“I’m sorry honey, I thought you were a cat…” She laughed, rubbing the back of her neck, which had fired up with chills the moment of contact and become itchy.

“Oh.” He said. “Are cats scary to you?”

“Not really.” Crouching down to be eye-level with him, she reached a hand out and carded it through his short hair, brushing it to the side. “I was just surprised is all. You know, liiiiiiiike…” She watched as his eyes widened a little in anticipation, holding onto the word until he’d gone beyond expectant and had reached confusion, cocking his head to the side, “BOO!”

“A!” He squawked, sounding like a rubber chicken toy that had been dropped, his head snapping back upright and his little shoulders jumping.

“Ohohohohoho! You got a little scared!” She cooed.

Lips curling, he puffed up defiantly like a cold hen, “Not scared! Just surprised!”

She was about to tease him again when she noticed the dark green form of the spirit that saved Noa’s son exiting the building, muttering something.

Her interest in him must have shown, because Chihiro spun around and gasped.

“Bunny bunny! Bunny bunny!” He chanted, pumping his fists into the air, and drawing the attention of Deku. “Bunny!!”

Momoko stood up again, slowly, at the same time as the stranger made his way over to them, stopping without fully closing the distance between them to fiddle with his costume.

A white gloved hand pulled down the mouth guard, revealing a small smile; the act was swiftly followed by the boy hooking his fingers up his mask-hood and flipping it up off his face, tilting his head with the movement so as to untangle all his hair from it, before he shook out the newly freed curls. Once he was done undressing his head, he walked the last few steps to them, made eye contact with her briefly, and then focused on Chihiro.

If Momoko had to describe the stranger in one word…

He looked… weird.

Chihiro went wild the moment his face was uncovered, chanting and beaming, waving his arms about and encouraging the hero-, God-, thing to crouch down just as Momoko had, moments before.

Looking down at him, she was struck with conflicting feelings. One part of her looked at him and wondered how on earth he supposedly had such a grand presence when he seemed so normal, and yet another part of her was struck by the uniqueness to his look; something angelic and overly perfect about him. As if a master artist, known for painting solely ethereal beauty, had been told to make what they thought an everyday person looked like, as opposed to an immortal.

“Hey there!” He said to Chihiro, as if he were a small puppy – in his defence, Chihiro himself seemed to think so too; he was two seconds away from licking the boy’s face in excitement – “I hope I didn’t scare you with those villains!”

Chihiro lit up. “You were sooo cool!!” He gushed, “You had like,,” He brought his hand up and raised his index finger, looked up in thought, and then whispered odd words whilst slowly raising two more fingers. “…Three men with you all at the same time!!”

The freckles on the boys face were pushed upwards with the force of his smile. “I did!” He said, a little laugh in his voice, though it wasn’t mocking. His steady voice was like a guarded enclosure for his words, but the happiness seeping through the gaps in the wires made them energetic and boundless. His voice almost wobbled with emotion.

“Did you do it with your quirk?!”

The answer should have been obvious, but Deku gave another blinding smile and a nod, causing Chihiro’s eyes to widen as if he’d expected a ghost to be carrying the criminals, or for there to be a tiny hero in Deku’s pocket creating the shadowy cords.

“Woah!” Sparkles flooded grey eyes, and Momoko was tempted to remind her son to blink, “I just got my quirk too!!” He said as if the stranger had also only just developed his quirk.

“Really?” The same wobbly sound came through, almost incredulous and disbelieving, but not quite. It was as if he believed every word Chihiro said and hung on to them passionately, waiting for more. “What is it?”

The sharp intake of breath, and the puff of her son’s chest, was all the warning Momoko needed to know that her son was about to try and use his quirk, despite it never having ended well recently.

He brought up his hands, balling them into fists as he concentrated, and-

“Chihiro!” She burst out, voice raised slightly.

Shocked, he jumped and lost his focus, all the air tumbling right back out of his lungs. Forced to stop activating his quirk, he curled his bottom lip, and hunched over, defeated. The stars in his eyes faded, and he looked at the ground with upset written all over his wrinkled brow. He looked angry, but also resigned to his fate; she wasn’t sure if he was going to cry, or if he would tough it out before the hero.

Either way, she hated to see him like that.

But she’d also hate to see him cause trouble so near to the station.

“Chihiro…” She smoothed a hand over his hair, a little tremble at the touch letting her know that he did in fact want to cry. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the green boy look up and eye her with confusion. “You know you shouldn’t use your quirk out in public, it could be dangerous.”

“I could take care of containing any damage, ma’am.” Deku reached a comforting hand out and put it on Chihiro’s shoulder, having evidently noticed the crying as well. “What type of quirk is it?”

She shook her head at him. “It’s not destructive.”

He furrowed his brows, but she continued before he could open his mouth.

“I was actually… looking for someone who knew something about quirks to help…” Ugh, she was such an idiot. She’d prayed for him, right? And yet, it was so awkward actually telling him so. But a suggestion towards the fact had to suffice. “He’s been struggling with controlling his emotions when the quirk is activated.”

Recognition of some description appeared on his face, and his eyebrows relaxed ever so slightly, his expression going from defensive to determined.

“Whenever he uses his quirk, even though it’s a harmless quirk, he gets aggressive – the doctors don’t know what’s wrong. A lot of kids have… urges… to do with their quirks, but unless there’s some hidden part of his quirk with a different requirement for activation to the rest of it, then I don’t know why he would feel the need to fight people to use it…”

There was silence as Deku digested the information, looking nowhere in particular until Chihiro hummed a little noise of displeasure, probably because he was being spoken for like a baby (even though he was one in Momoko’s eyes), at which point Deku faced him. He didn’t flash another cheesy grin, but his eyes…

Wow.

Noa was right… His eyes were deep. The green irises, dark and saturated, and pupils, bright and white, caused something like panic to stir in her heart; it weaved in and out of her ribs, and locked her lungs together when she tried to breathe.

It was frighteningly humiliating. ‘It’ being the eyes, or the sensation they produced, she couldn’t tell.

His eyes reminded her an awful lot of that well-like lake – you know the one – she couldn’t remember the name. The American one – her colleague had shown her a picture of it that his wife who worked abroad had sent him. The one – you know – with the lake, which looked all pretty and shallow, clear as crystal and bright as day, except it was accompanied by a huge greeny blue hole, which went (allegedly) hundreds of feet underwater and had killed people.

Had Deku killed people? Or was it simply just dangerous to dive deep into his mind – eyes being the window to the soul and all. Perhaps he really was immortal, and there was something she couldn’t comprehend behind his skull, and it was for this that the strange feeling in her chest had kicked in.

Or maybe-

“You said you went to a doctor.” He snapped her out of her thoughts.

“U-uh-,,” She faltered, was she wrong to do such a thing? – there was no intonation to his voice – but he would know if she lied, surely. “Yes, I did. I took Chihiro there after the third incident at school.”

“Hmm…” The deep eyes almost seemed to open up, as if they were made of translucent glass, and behind them there were carnivorous fly-trap plants, yawning, stretching, preparing to strike. “It is true there could be something not yet unlocked with his quirk, however, I don’t want to limit any analysis of the cause by assuming an inherent link between the quirk itself and the mind.”

He made eye contact with her again, and the bewilderment and confusion must have shown on her face, because he explained further.

“There may be a reason why a doctor expecting to be dealing with a quirk issue, can’t find any reason for said problem.” He stressed. “Perhaps this is not an issue of biology.”

“Oh.” She said, not knowing what else to add.

He stood up, tapping his shoes against the floor to make them more comfortable again, holding a hand out for Chihiro, which he took instantly. He shook it and his lips upturned in reaction to Chihiro’s enthusiasm.

“I’ll help you out as much as I can,” He assured, “But, I’m uhh…” He looked about awkwardly, “Still trying to find lunch on a low,” he winced, “budget, so I might have to zip away and be back but-”

“Oh! We were about to eat out!” She said quickly, lying through her teeth – not that Chihiro would know that and be able to spoil her plan to keep the deity around them longer by blurting out that they were meant to be returning home, “You can come with us!”

She heard the dull claps of shoes slapping concrete, which she assumed was caused by a pleased Chihiro hopping about. “If you don’t mind mortal food.” She tacked on.

“Mortal?” Now it was his turn to be surprised.

She nodded at a nearby sandwich shack, “We’re gonna get a bite there, does that sound palatable to you?”

He straightened up, eyes widening, before his whole body practically glowed with relief, “Palatable, this is perf-!” His body language closed off suddenly, “No,” His voice was laced with restraint, “I really shouldn’t-!! Though…” His stomach rumbled.

“Come on,” She urged, desperate to not lose the deity she’d been praying for, “It’ll cost us nothing!”

Well it would cost a couple hundred yen but that was beside the point.

Deku picked at his gloves, his face down and his hair causing shadows to cover his eyes. Good. He’d been successfully disoriented – his grip on his convictions slipping – she only needed to deliver the final blow!

“You’ll be really helping us out anyway, so consider it payback!” The giggle she let out was faker than one she’d given Chihiro’s teacher at parent’s evening. ‘I honestly had no clue that my son could become volatile around other kids.’ Ugh.

A drop of sweat fell down the side of her face, sliding over the bumps on her cheeks and forehead; it really felt as though every muscle in her face was tense. Please work, please work!

He stared at her with a reverence she felt terrified receiving and, flustered, she tried to somehow forcefully emit the same amount back.

“Is-…” He cut himself off, his fingers twitching, “Is that really okay?”

“No, yeah, it’s-,,,” She spluttered, losing her calm as she tried to relax, “More than okay! Definitely-!”

“Please come, mister!” Chihiro interrupted, two bright stars filling his eyes.

Momoko’s breath started to flow out of her mouth silently, as she did her best not to sigh.

“Then I’ll come, if that’s really okay!”

The rest of the sigh came out, audibly.

“You’re going to kill yourself if you eat that fast.” The Third said, hanging over Deku’s shoulder as if he was welcome there.

Deku swatted him, and he fizzled out into smoke. What a pest.

The sandwich he was engulfing at the speed of sound was really good; so good that he was tempted to ask for another, even though he hadn’t finished his first, and the only thing stopping him from eating out the entire shop was the fact that he wasn’t paying. He had to remember he was grateful for even one piece of bread.

Crumbs fell from his lips as he savagely tore the crispy bread apart with his teeth, chomping down on his large bite. The bread itself was cheesy, and there was lettuce inside, among some kind of meat and various other vegetables and sauces. He hadn’t exactly been in the mood to choose something when he’d arrived, opting to take the cheapest thing on the menu and hope it was edible. And edible it was – more than just so! Even the smell of the toasted cheese on the top was wonderful; pungent and smoky, he’d be smelling the ghost of it for weeks.

The quality of the food was unexpected seeing as, to put it bluntly, the shack itself looked pitiful at best. The seating area was outside, but covered by a pink and white gazebo, which blocked out the sun and let in the wind. The gazebo itself was square and flat-topped, like a box, with little wavy trimmings hanging over the folded edges of the tent-like ‘roof’. The stall, where the sandwiches were distributed, was tiny; an even smaller, bright red box filled with sandwiches, cakes, a cooler for cold drinks, and the odd hot drink machine. There were only ever two servers in the thing at once, and Deku would watch them struggle and suck in to get past one another. Nonetheless, the queue was surprisingly fast, given that everything was prewrapped and prepped, and the only thing one would need to wait for was a hot drink.

A young man in a red shirt came down from the building behind the little stall, which likely housed whatever kitchen they made the sandwiches in, and delivered another box of fresh, steamy items.

Deku focused back on his own sandwich; now that he thought about it, he’d probably been lucky to get one still warm, unless the shelves they were stacked in were heated. In fact, maybe – Deku pondered as he watched the same young man from before sneezing all over his plastic gloves and then not removing them before re-entering the kitchen – the sandwiches weren’t all that godly, and he was just famished.

The crust crunched under the force of his teeth. Tastes pretty good still.

“Chihiro, eat the tomatoes…”

Deku’s gaze landed on the boy sitting opposite him just as he tried to throw them on the floor. “Yuck!”

His mother gasped as the sliced fruits went flying from the boy’s small hands, but Deku had snatched them out of the sky with Black whip in seconds. Right as the mother sighed in relief, Deku suddenly felt guilty about whether or not Black whip was washed, which was ridiculous because how could it be dirty? And even if it was, it was still undoubtably cleaner than the floor. Oh well, five second rule, Deku shrugged, shoving the tomato pieces into his mouth before the thought could register that he was supposed to be giving them back to the child and telling him to eat his greens-, or… reds…

The tomatoes let out a gush of water as he bit down on them, his cheeks puffing comically to catch it all. Oops.

The boy lit up, his tiny fists trembling a little in surprise and then rising up in excitement. Before his mother could stop him, he’d tossed as many tomato pieces as he could at Deku’s plate; for his part, Deku just sat repentantly on the opposite side of the bench, awaiting further instruction from the mother.

“Oh, Chihiro!” She groaned, reaching over to try and prevent him from throwing the last slices at the hero, “You’re lucky Deku ate those ones! Stop bothering him!” She scolded, as if Deku wasn’t the one eating her out of her money and her son out of his lunch.

“Oh no, it’s no problem!” Deku waved his hands about, frantically trying to not upset the young child. “I love tomatoes!” He lied, scooping what was on his plate up and stuffing it into his mouth.

The mother sighed once more, and returned to her own food, now that her son was placated. The son in question messily gobbled up another bite of his bread, visibly ecstatic at the lack of watery, red fruits in his mouthful.

Deku gracelessly shoved the remainder of his sandwich into his mouth, encouraging the child to try too, despite having a whole lot more sandwich left than his hero.

“Chihiro!” His mother complained, but this time doing nothing to stop it, as the boy seemed to realise the effort was futile after dropping filling on himself.

The kid’s brow furrowed and his lips pursed as he stared down at the mess, confused. (It was always hard to tell with children whether they were embarrassed about their actions and playing dumb, or if they really had no idea that mutilating their sandwich would cause its insides to fall on them.) Either way, the display was rather cute, as much as it was disgusting…

BURP

The boy almost threw up the sandwich, and his mother – ever vigilant – threw out a hand with a tissue to catch whatever he would let loose. It ended up catching only a puddle of saliva and the vibrations from a hiccup, but it was worth the effort.

“So,” He began, since he had promised to talk when he came here, “You seem to know who I am…?” Which was quite the feat, considering that nobody except other heroes knew him at all, and even they were thrown off by the mask.

She perked up, eyes widening, “Of course!”

Of course? Was… was he well known…?

“If you don’t mind me asking,” The sweat prickling at the back of his neck where his mask, hood, and hair overlapped was shot with a bullet of cold wind, causing him to shiver, “Where have you heard of me?” He then added in an undertone, “I’m not very well known…”

The woman in front of him panicked, as if the answer was incriminating – though Deku was fairly certain it couldn’t be. The only criminals who knew of him weren’t partial to working in groups… except the villain league of course, but them supporting a young mother and her child didn’t seem very on brand.

Another gust of wind stabbed him in the spine, and he whipped a hand up behind his neck to wipe away at the remaining sweat in frustration, trying not to let it show on his face.

“Well-,,, you see-,,,” She was spluttering, and her son turned to her – it seemed he hadn’t known about Deku beforehand either, definitely wasn’t raised by Shigaraki then – and he tilted his head.

In response, she looked back at her child, eyeing him with uncertainty, her grey irises shiny and contemplative. For a few seconds the only sounds at the table were the trio’s cold breaths, and the occasional, and infuriating, gust of wind. Her son got bored and looked back at his unfinished food, making to eat it. In that moment, she must have found some answer to whatever she was searching for because when she spoke again, it was clearer.

She turned back to the ex-hero student, the glitters in her eyes rolling around her irises, as if the light was swirling around them until collecting into one bubble of light above each pupil, shivering with her resolve.

“A friend told me about you.” She said simply. “She was… she and her family…” She looked at the table, smiling sadly, “They were saved by you.” Oh. “She was really happy.”

Who was this woman, he thought, out of all the people that he’d saved, who’d found out his name, and what happened to her-

“Oh dear, I make it sound like she died.” The woman chuckled, waving a finger, “She’s fine.”

Oh, okay. “That’s good.”

“Mm.”

Silence overcame them, alongside a complementary blast of wind.

The child – what had she called him? Chihiro? He didn’t want to get the name wrong – was chomping away at his sandwich, oblivious to the awkward air. Deku looked over at him – he was the reason his mother had been so invested in talking to him after all. Actually, considering that he didn’t even know their names, maybe that would be a good way to break the silence. Duh.

“So, uh,” Wow. Smooth. What a hero. Just like All Might. “I, uh,,,… Ate… Thanks to you… And yet I still don’t know your names…” He trailed off meaningfully.

“Oh of course!” She clapped her hands together loudly, startling both boys at the table. Criss-crossing her fingers and lowering her joint hands onto the table, she continued more quietly, looking more relaxed. “I’m Amamiya Momoko, and this is my son, Chihiro.”

Chihiro lit up did a little jelly worm dance and waggled the remainder of his sandwich about with his outstretched arm, smiling as if it were the first time that day he’d seen Deku in person – and that he’d known about him beforehand. As it was, he really had no reason to be excited. Briefly, Midoriya pondered if maybe it was a learned reaction, if his mother had pushed him to always do a happy wiggle dance whenever introduced, like a dog doing a trick to strangers or how parents made sure you’d always pretend to be excited at Christmas when your aunt gave you pants. (A/N: underwear if you’re American. Trousers are actually quite nice presents.)

Either way, it didn’t really matter, because it lasted seconds before he went back down to eating, at which point Ms. Amamiya started to speak again.

“So,” She thought for a moment, “Mr.-,,, or…. Lord-,”

“Just Deku is fine!” He waved a hand, trying to ignore the flip-flopping of his gut at being called ‘Lord’ for the second time that week. Actually, screw that- the second time in two days.

Was this going to be a daily occurrence?? He wished he could expect a vestige to pop up and whisper the answer in his ear but, apart from the fact that it would be rude not to reply and seemingly insane to do so, none of them had a foresight quirk, so none of them would know.

“Deku, then.” She nodded twice, her light hair bobbing a little, her freckles blurring slightly with the movement and making her face look a whole lot more blue. “My son has been struggling with his quirk, like I told you before, and I… need help.”

Not really sure what sort of reassurance to give, Deku steeled himself, and nodded.

Ms. Amamiya took a deep breath and, “I don’t actually know where to begin.” She said, coolly, blinking at him thoughtlessly like a goldfish.

“Eh…”

She continued staring at him. Is she expecting a prompt or…?

Another gust of wind slapped his left cheek and he was moments away from standing up furiously to beat up the source of it, as if it were a particularly annoying sibling – or just Kaminari – who he could throw a shoe at. Seeing as the clouds were intangible however, he decided to give them another chance – though it would be their last; he could reach them, you know. He could fly.

“I’m finiiiished!” Chihiro was buzzing with positivity, and Midoriya tore his eyes away from the grey ones opposite – who still stared at him, quasi pleadingly – and gave Chihiro a heartfelt thumbs up, which the boy returned even though Midoriya had done nothing to warrant one.

“Where should I begin…?” Ms. Amamiya mused, probably to herself, though Deku took that to mean that she really was waiting on instructions.

Poor thing, she must have been really stressed. “Why don’t you tell me what his quirk is and how it works?”

“Oh! Yes!” Her eyes focused back into reality, “Chihiro’s quirk is called ‘Lock On’, it allows him to pick a target, like,” She faltered for a moment, gesturing at random until an old man squeezed past the back of the bench, his greyish jacket brushing against Midoriya’s hair. “Like that man!” She pointed at him, enthusiastically but said, “Or something…” With an air of humility, as if shy after raising her voice.

Deku just nodded along, interested in the quirk already – Lock On; was it more physical or mental? Did the quirk hold the person still somehow, or did it mean that the user could always see the target after they’d activated the quirk?

“One Chihiro chooses a target, he can track them – tell Deku how it looks!” She aimed the suggestion at her son, who faced her, and then Deku, and began to prattle on about his power.

“When I use my quirk, the person I used it on gets glowy! Like a stick man appears on the outside of their-” He gestured at his body.

“It outlines their figure exactly, like an unfilled outline of a silhouette.” His mother supplied, much to his chagrin.

Pouting fussily, the boy made a little yapping noise at his mother for stealing his spotlight, which she returned with a fond roll of the eyes.

Still with his bottom lip curled, he looked back at Deku and continued. “I give them outlines,” He shot an exaggerated angry glance at his mother, obviously not appreciating the help, “And if they move behind a wall and I can’t see them anymore or something, I can still see the outline glowing. And because of that, I can see if they’re doing stuff – yanno, like if they feed the birds or something, I can see them go:” He pretended to sow seeds, reaching into his pocket and waving his hands about, rubbing his thumb against his fingers, “And stuff.” He finished with a nod.

Midoriya nodded back just as seriously, even though he was now also wondering why on EARTH that make anyone violent? Or, more rightfully, how could one use such a passive quirk to even BE violent? Although, if by violence his mother had actually meant ‘violation of privacy’ then the answer was obvious.

Judging by his mother’s tense and expectant expression, he doubted that was the case.

“Oh yeah!” Chihiro cried out, oblivious to his mother’s worry, “I can also zoom in on the person that I’m using my quirk on! So I can see them moving easier and stuff!”

“That way you’ll always be able to see when old men are feeding birds.” Midoriya physically felt his braincells try to rein in the sarcasm as if it were a particularly malicious deer, tugging the sleigh that was his tongue along with it.

Of course, since young children tend to miss vocal cues, Chihiro took the question seriously. “Of course!”

Ms. Amamiya took a breath and reached out to her son, probably to tell him that Deku really hadn’t been serious, but the guilt that her finishing the act would have caused made the hero reach out to the kid faster. Almost striking him, if not for his good control over his strength, in order to put his hand on the boy’s head before his mother’s hand could reach his small shoulder.

Channelling as much honesty into his voice as possible to make up for his previous unfairness, Deku ruffled the boy’s hair with a proud, “Great!”

Ms. Amamiya took her hand back, resting it on her lap.

Shoulders shaking with his giggles – man was this kid easy to please – Chihiro basked in the attention, and Deku – having been a kid who never got any affection from anyone besides his mother, who always laced hers with pity – found himself incapable of dropping his arm for a good few seconds. Even though it was aching and uncomfortable.

When he finally did pull his hand back, he did so with a question. “So is that it? Anything else to add before we get into the serious stuff?” He tried to ensure that he didn’t belittle the quirk; he wasn’t asking ‘is that really all there is to it?’ but ‘is there anything else I should know?’

Again, Midoriya had experience being the kid who heard the grossed surprise in adult’s voices when he wasn’t good enough.

“That’s it??” Incredulous, disgusted, the words were alive and viscous, like slime, green, falling down onto him, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, why didn’t anyone pull the slime away, no, All Might punched the slime away, the sludge villain didn’t manage to kill him, but then all might coughed up slime, and blood, ‘you can’t-’

“-Use it on anything except living beings.” Ms. Amamiya was saying, not in the slightest perturbed by the fact that Deku had entirely tuned out, though he had been told that his dead-to-the-world face and his thinking face often looked alike. But then again, whose didn’t?

“I can use it on plants though!!” Chihiro exclaimed.

“Yes, well,” Ms. Amamiya sighed, “Those are also alive.”

“Really??!”

“Yes.”

“And they don’t talk to me?” He looked hurt.

“No, well… They can’t talk.”

“Oh.”

“Not every living thing talks. Not even all people talk.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.”

Man, Deku was behind in the conversation – thank God he was used to picking up things halfway through thanks to his need to catch up with school work and train for the entrance exam all the way back when.

All the way back-

His mind flashed with green.

Dark green.

Toxic.

Sludge Sludge Sludge.

Put it away, put it away, oh God put it away. He didn’t have time for this-

“So it only works on living things?” He asked, aiming to sound like he was asking for clarification, not because he’d heard nothing. “Like people and plants?”

“And animals!” Chihiro chimed in, raising his arms.

Ms. Amamiya sighed a second time, “So you just said, Chihiro.”

Well I didn’t hear it to be fair.

“Anything else? Limits?”

“At the moment he can only track one person at once.” Ms. Amamiya waved a hand and then brought it up to her hair, to fiddle with it, “And the longest I’ve seen him track someone was when his father went to work on a Saturday; he tracked him all the way until he got out of the car, and lost him on his walk to work. My husband guesses that that’s about three miles away from home.”

Midoriya curled his lips down and raised his eyebrows in appreciation. Three miles… Not too shabby. “That’s pretty good.” He didn’t even have to inject the approval in his voice.

Chihiro, predictably, puffed up proudly like a small bird in the cold, his face that of the smug feline who’d caught it.

Next to him, his mother looked a whole lot less proud, her face creased with worry.

“So that’s it.” She concluded.

“Mm.”

There wasn’t really much there in their explanation that could hint at why it made him aggressive; no odd prerequisites, no bad memories of the quirk, no backlash to the child… What else could he look for…

His head snapped up, “Ms. Amamiya, you said that there were incidents that occurred that made you get him checked…?”

Judging by her wide eyes, open mouth, and stunned but quick nods, this was indeed something important that she’d forgotten about.

“Of course! The incidents!” Her mouth upturned briefly, before her mood came cascading down. “Chihiro got into fights with other kids on three separate occasions.”

The hero sat static, perched on the edge of his seat, face darkened slightly as he concentrated, waiting for the rest. “So…”

“Yeah.” She finished.

If he weren’t so apathetic in general these days his eyes would have been bulging from the shock. How,,, how utterly useless as a retelling could that be?? Would it have killed her to have given him a crumb to work with??

He turned to the child. “Tell me about what happened each time.”

The kid looked back at him, utterly emotionless. It wasn’t a face one would generally associate with fear, but considering that the boy had been smiling like he was at Disneyland, and not at a cheap sandwich shack with a homeless hero, saying the grey look of blankness that wiped it off completely showed fear wasn’t a stretch.

Deku gave him a momentary smile that didn’t reach his eyes. It dropped as quickly as it came up.

“You’re not in any trouble, I just want to know more about you so I can tell what the problem is.” He gave another smile, this time actually trying to not look as dead inside as Aizawa.

Wait.

Did…. Did he give the poor kid the Aizawa smile…?

Chihiro blinked at him, searching for something. Before Deku had processed that he should smile again or something, the boy’s grey eyes had been pushed half closed by another smile and he was agreeing to speak.

“Ok mister!”

Well, whatever smile he’d thrown at the kid he’d clearly taken it like a champ. Phew.

“One time,” He started, looking over Deku’s shoulder pensively – if he weren’t recounting a story that probably took all of his toddler brain to remember, Deku would check to see if Third had come back to be a pest, “I saw Ume being bullied and I wanted to lock onto the bullies to tell a teacher, but when they came back I punched them,”

“Good, good,” Deku monitored without really thinking about his words.

Ms. Amamiya shot him a horrified look.

“Another time, the same guy came in the class-”

“Which same guy,” Midoriya interrupted, feeling a little bit more like a detective with each expressionless line he delivered, “One of the bullies?”

“Mm!” Chihiro nodded, “He’s older than us I think, but some of the dumbos in class-” Ms. Amamiya squawked in the background at her child’s ‘language about other classmates!’ “-hang around him, and think he’s cool.”

“You not one of them?” Midoriya asked, coolly. (Wow, he really was turning into Aizawa. Would his voice break deeper soon too?)

“No. I’ll kill him!” Chihiro replied just as easily.

“Good, good.”

He felt more than saw Ms. Amamiya rounding on him again.

“But anyway, uhh…” The kid leaned back, cheeks puffing, lips pursed in thought, “What was I saying…?”

“You saw the same guy again…” Midoriya prompted.

Chihiro snapped back into focus, chattering away, brightly, “Oh yeah! I saw him again, and I went to lock onto him to make sure he didn’t hurt anybody, and then I followed him, and when he saw me following him, he tried to hit me, so I kicked his peenie in!”

“Goo-”

“Chihiro!” Ms. Amamiya snapped, “Why would you do that?!”

The poor boy looked shaken up by the sudden shout, and Midoriya hastily cut between them with his arm, pushing his chest over the table so that his face would be in Ms. Amamiya’s view when he spoke.

“Come now, I did say he wouldn’t be in trouble.” The tone he used was almost patronising, but – though he was still slightly bitter about her terrible information gathering skills – he wouldn’t antagonise the kind buyer of his sandwich. “We need to let him talk.”

He turned back to Chihiro, waving a go-ahead sign at him, nodding and raising an eyebrow in a very Aizawa-y way to tell him to continue. By god… You leave them for a month and you become them… What the-

“Uhm…. So that was that.” A chubby finger wormed its way into the child’s mouth; he sucked on it and then took it out, clutching his wet index finger with his other fist, twisting his hands against each other as if to grind his fingers. “The third time was… uhh… I don’t-,, I don’t remember…”

Well.

“You don’t remember?” Ms. Amamiya looked surprised; and that meant that this woman had actually known every incident all along and had just refused the information.

“Do you?” Deku asked, recalling how she didn’t tend to expand on things unless prompted.

“No.” She said. “But he should.”

She pointed at her son.

“He was the one who tracked someone in his class and then bit them!”

“Who?”

“The same guy.”

Midoriya looked between them. “So you did know.” He murmured.

The two of them stared back at him, as if awaiting a verdict.

Silence couldn’t really reign over the table, seeing as there was noise and – Deku noted as a slap of furious air clapped the side of his face, sending his hair flying in all directions –that god damned wind coming from all over the place. Still, the three of them sat without speech for a few seconds – which Midoriya really wasn’t sure why he waited through, when he knew damn well they weren’t going to speak – before Deku’s sharp intake of breath cracked their moment of muteness.

He leant back on his bench. “Okay,” He tried, pitching the word up at the end despite his best efforts to not be notably at wit’s end. “So I’m seeing a trend.”

Ms. Amamiya looked shocked. “You can see into the past?!”

Midoriya opened his mouth, and then, realising he wasn’t even sure what she meant by that or where it had come from, he closed it, scrunching his face up in confusion.

“You can see my past?!” Chihiro echoed.

What?

He brought a hand up in a pinching motion. “I meant that figuratively.”

“Oh!” Ms. Amamiya said, copied instantly by Chihiro, who almost definitely had no idea what the word ‘figuratively’ meant.

“But yes, I am seeing,” Their identical grey eyes practically glowed, “I am hearing similarities between the stories.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the trend?”

“I believe,” He brought his hands together, less in a deliberate attempt to look more like a detective in a tense movie scene, and more so he could pray to God for help, “That he may be less violent because of his quirk, and more because of his bully.”

Silence.

Real silence.

It was one of those moments where everyone would take a bite out of their sandwich at once and one poor fool would announce something incredibly personal to the whole world, assuming that it wouldn’t stop turning just for their announcement.

As with all random silences, it passed fast, the hum and buzz of the people restarting in seconds.

He was expecting either for Ms. Amamiya to complain that it was most definitely the quirk, or for her to look amazed at his expert deductions. He was starting to feel a little bad about his low standards for her reactions. It was as if the poor woman’s brain had started to rot because of all the children’s TV she must consume – or maybe she was just exhausted. She didn’t appear to have eyebags, but they weren’t always visible, and besides, the purple of her skin dots would draw attention away from any under-eye purple.

Nevertheless, his expectations were thwarted by an expert reversal courtesy of whatever higher power played human’s lives like instruments.

Ms. Amamiya looked to the side, looked back at him, tilted her head toward him at an angle, frowning, and then nodded at him encouragingly.

A pleased huff escaped his lips before he could supress it; he found himself smiling again, bringing the mood back up for the whole table.

“I don’t think his quirk is making him violent, I think his bad experiences with the bully do.”

“But he gets agitated whenever he uses his quirk…” She said, but her musings were cut short by her son, who verbally charged in.

“I hate that guy! Back before I got my quirk, he stole my bag!”

“Oh.” Deku was rather stunned by the childish fury that he’d accidentally unleashed.

“But!” Chihiro chuckled triumphantly, “I got my quirk just then, and so I locked onto him and went to get my bag back!”

Oh… the manifestation of his quirk...

Information he’d forgotten to ask for, but that he now recognised was absolutely crucial.

“He looked soooo shocked too, haha!”

As his squeaky laugh came to a stop, so did his proud grin.

“He punched me. Really hard. And then he kicked me. But he still had my bag… So…”

“You tracked him again and he beat you again.” Midoriya concluded.

“Mm. Yeah.” Chihiro said, his voice wobbly and blue, like water, like tears. It was likely due to embarrassment; he probably didn’t like admitting defeat to a hero.

“There’s no shame in that.”

The kid brightened up slightly at that remark, and admitted a little extra. “He actually did it again-again. After I followed him again.”

Midoriya raised his hand to his lips. “So he beat you three times.”

“Mmmmmm…” Chihiro threw his head back and looked up, thoughtful, “Yeah. Yeah, three times.”

By his side, his mother’s eyes were blown wide with panic.

“You never told me!” She cried, her voice half hushed.

Reprimanded, he shrunk back into himself like a tortoise, and just then… the sparks of… something… burst to life in his eyes.

He scowled.

“Chihiro.” Midoriya clicked a finger, drawing the child’s attention to him.

Once the enraged toddler had him fixed in his fiery glare, Midoriya leant over the table slightly to be eye-level with him.

“Nobody here is going to hurt you, Chihiro.”

The boy didn’t even blink, utterly unconvinced. In the corner of Deku’s vision, Ms. Amamiya reached an arm out as if to hold Chihiro back, stopping just short of touching the boy.

“Chihiro,” He tried again, patiently, doing his best not to sigh, “It’s me Deku. I brought those nasty criminals to the police remember?”

Nothing.

The boy’s tiny hands were balled up into trembling fists on the table, his grey eyes now a bright green, pupils erased. Just to check his assumption, Deku leant left and right, slowly then quickly, and watched as the boy’s head followed his movements like a bird of prey. He’s locked onto me alright.

Smoothing his own scarred hand over Chihiro’s soft, chubby one, Deku looked down at the table, hoping that maybe Chihiro would, like a cat, feel less threatened if his ‘opponent’ was submissively avoiding eye contact.

“Hey! Our eyes are both green now!” He smiled.

Chihiro recoiled as if a plate full of dirty pants had been thrust under his nose; with his concentration broken, his eyes lost their glow, and he tipped forwards slightly, letting his mother catch him.

For a few seconds Chihiro seemed almost dead to the world, but Ms. Amamiya didn’t seem too worried, simply shaking him a little – cautiously, as if he’d been known to snap out of his quirk just to snap right back into it.

He did not.

“Uhm…” His fists unclenched and he brought a hand up to his right eye, rubbing it and blinking rapidly. “Uhm, I-”

“That’s quite alright.” Deku waved him off, his casual tone causing Ms. Amamiya to sigh in relief.

Her tired eyes met his own equally exhausted ones, “You weren’t worried at all?” She asked, as if he’d subdued a bear and not a baby.

“No.” He said, aiming for a not unkind tone but veering into dry territory.

Does Aizawa actually have a personality under all his tiredness? Because maybe I don’t sound like him, we’re both just knackered-

“I didn’t mean to,” Chihiro blubbered, having come back to himself whilst Deku’s thoughts drifted away to his old teacher – who wouldn’t see him again for quite a long time… if ever. “I just-,, I got scared!”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“You know?” Ms. Amamiya parroted.

Deku nodded. “Yes.” Another gust of wind bat him across the face, throwing his hair over his eyes and cheeks. It must have looked rather dramatic since he couldn’t dredge up the energy to blink despite the prickly onslaught of green in his eyes. “I think I’ve worked it out.”

“Oh!” Ms. Amamiya looked positively taken aback, her hands flying up in line with her shoulders and then flapping about, her mouth wide open, “Well that’s-!” Another hand flap, “That’s great!”

To her side, her son was looking back and forth between her and Deku, his sadness having morphed into curiosity. “What have you worked out?”

“Your quirk.” Deku rest his head on his hand, “Your aggression.”

“Aggresh-?”

“Anger.” Ms. Amamiya cut him off, leaning over to Deku, almost covering up her son completely from his view, “What do you think it is?” She spoke in a rushed tone, breathless. To put it lightly, the undercurrent of worry in her voice was more of a waterfall.

With a deep breath, Deku called on all the gods of restraint to keep him from pushing the lady back into her seat and out of his face, and instead took his head off his palm, and sat up. With a final once over in his head, he was ready to deliver the verdict.

“It’s actually quite simple, I think.” Ms. Amamiya’s eyebrow rose in response, “Chihiro first activated his quirk in a crisis, and then continued to only activate it during similar scenarios, wherein he’d be immediately beaten up each time. After he got home on the day of the quirk’s manifestation, he was probably still working out how to use it, and didn’t activate it again, right?”

The woman opposite him, to her credit, did take the opportunity to get out of his face and sit back in her seat, pondering over it, though her thoughts were cut short by her son.

“Yeah, after I came back home, I ate and went straight to bed.”

“When did you next use it, do you remember?”

“I think it was the next day, at school.”

“Was that one of the ‘incidents’?”

“Yes.”

“I see, and then what happened?”

Chihiro’s lip curled subconsciously, and he fiddled with his shirt sleeve, “I got told off by the teachers.”

“And then?” Like his mother, he seemed rather shy, and in need of constant prompting. Poor thing, he’s probably terrified of his own quirk, or… He thought back to how she tried to call him ‘Lord’, maybe they both think I’m way more important than I actually am…

“And then I went home, and I played games, and went to bed.” Before Deku could ask another question, he let out an ‘Oh!’ and added, “And I ate too!”

Deku chuckled, “Good. And did you use your quirk at home?”

“No.”

“And the next day?”

“Nu-uh.”

“When did you next use it?” The boy opposite him shivered as another gust of wind hit them all, damn what I wouldn’t do for a pudding. Not that that had anything to do with the weather, but sometimes a shock that brings one out of a situation is the perfect reminder of what one would do if they weren’t in it. But since he was currently knee deep in somebody’s crisis, he did have to get to the bottom of it. “It’s okay if you don’t remember exactly.”

But Chihiro was already there, “It’s okay! I do remember!” He said proudly, “Same week! Is-i-dent 2!”

“Oh, incident 2,” Deku couldn’t supress the smile any longer, it was looking more and more like he was right, “And then what happened?”

“Uhmmmm…” It was unclear whether the boy had forgotten or if he didn’t want to say.

Deku saved him the trouble. “Your teachers realised that you activated your quirk, didn’t they? They told your mum, and everyone told you not to use it anymore, right?”

The boy nodded.

“And then when did you next use it, incident 3?”

Another nod.

“When was that?”

Just as the boy began to ponder over it, his mother re-joined the conversation, answering for him. “It was two months ago.”

“A long time between incidents?”

She nodded, “We thought that stopping him from using his quirk for a while might make him less angry about it, we thought it might just need to settle in first, is all.”

“What if it never did settle in?” The question came out colder than he anticipated it, and he hoped his icy eyes and strained smile didn’t frighten her, not when he hardly had the energy to-

“Well-! I-!”

Aaaand he’s scared her.

“It’s a genuine question, don’t worry.” He said, despite the original anger behind his statement not being false at all. How did parents think repressing anything in children made them better? Unbelievable.

She shrugged. “I don’t know, we were hoping it wouldn’t get to that.”

At least she hadn’t outright told him that she’d have banned him from quirk use forever. “I see.”

Chihiro piped up again. “So what does it mean?”

“Good question!” A genuine smile formed as he turned to the small creature, “It means that every time Chihiro has activated his quirk, it’s been in self-defence.”

He let that statement brew for a second, watching as Ms. Amamiya’s brow furrowed as she tried to understand the significance of the observation.

“When his quirk manifested, it did so out of urgency, and then he was attacked viciously every time he used it. We’ve already established that Chihiro and this bully don’t get along at all, and that the very sight of this boy – the mere mention in fact – is enough to enrage him, but it hasn’t been acknowledged that every time the boy has personally targeted your son, it’s been whilst his quirk was activated. He’s practically been Pavloved into associating his quirk being active with a tremendous beating from someone he hates. Unfortunately, the fact that he was told to restrain himself from using it doesn’t help. He seems to only be able to activate his quirk when in emotional anguish since he isn’t well practiced and doesn’t know how to consciously activate his quirk without great effort,” He thought back to Chihiro trying to show him his glowing eyes when they first met a few hours ago. “Since the quirk is only ever active when he’s about to go and fight, the whole ‘quirk active = beating’ conditioning becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Ms. Amamiya nodded along, worried eyes boring holes into the table. She was silent.

“That time that Chihiro locked onto his father,” Deku tried to make eye contact with her, but she was refusing to meet his gaze; though a slight inclination of the head told him she wasn’t passively listening, “Did he get violent then too?”

“Yes.”

Chihiro looked appalled, “Nu-uh! Don’t lie! I didn’t hurt you!”

“You-!” She started, but Deku quickly silenced her by placing a hand over hers.

“Were you angry at all?” He asked Chihiro.

He thought about it, head tilted and eyes looking off to the side, “Mm. I think so. Yeah. It was a Saturday.” He stated as if that made perfect sense.

It… did, actually.

Deku nodded sagely, indeed, he was rather proud of how perfectly everything lined up with his observations. It was just like that training exercise he’d done with Uraraka, Iida, Todoroki, Asui, Kacchan and the teachers. The one where All Might had pretended to be a criminal in a shop who’d killed himself to avoid getting caught. The one where Midoriya had correctly identified that Miss Midnight-

Miss. Midnight….

Argh…

The description of the body, the condition it was found in. There had been no pictures of it, all the images shown of her on the news had been from when she was at her prime: looking stunning and spotless. But Deku had heard rumours of the state of her cadaver in passing, both in whispers at the hospital (‘I hope they killed her first’) and outside of it (‘how ironic a death for someone who campaigned for the awareness of sexual violence during warfare’).

She…

“That was wrong of him, right?” Chihiro asked, pulling Deku back to the present.

Now wasn’t the time to think about the school life he was missing… Or the entire lives others lost at… Then.

“Right. So,” Deku ignored Chihiro’s excited dance at the answer, and continued his analysis, trying his best not to make it obvious that he was trying to rerail his train of thought. “At that time, Chihiro must have activated his quirk because he was upset that his father had left him on a day that they were meant to spend together along with you, as a whole family. In his agitation he stared at the locked-on form of his father, until he was approached by his mother for whatever reason, at which point his conditioning came into effect, and he felt trapped.”

So far Ms. Amamiya seemed to be in agreement, if her silence was any indication.

“How did you manage to calm him down?” Though he already knew the answer.

“I…” She sighed and finally faced Midoriya, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, “I didn’t, really. I realised that he was angry and didn’t want anyone near him, so I left him alone. He calmed down eventually.”

“I see,” He said, his head bobbing up and down slowly, “I think… that the best course of action would be to try and untrain him; you should sit him down on the balcony, and tell him to use his quirk on whatever he likes, the birds, a distant tree, a bee – you name it.” He turned to Chihiro, addressing him directly, “Try to use your quirk on whatever you can, and try to beat all your high scores for using your quirk!” After all, if it took him a while to calm down, tracking one thing and staying focused on it would probably be more beneficial than tracking lots of things over small distances and potentially working himself up and getting overwhelmed.

“Spend a few weeks practicing using your quirk on the balcony when you come back from school, tracking- or, um, locking onto things over a long distance- so, uh, lock onto a bird and watch it go really far away! Or lock onto a bee and count how many flowers it stops at! Or maybe look over at the people down below and be nosy!”

He winked at Chihiro, who gave him a mischievous smile in return.

“Go and see what somebody is doing, what food they’re eating! And once you’ve done that for a few weeks, try to use it in day-to-day life, lock onto mum when she’s making dinner so that you can play a game and still know when it’s going to be ready, things like that.”

Chihiro nodded along with wide eyes, beyond amazed at the range of definitely useful things his quirk could be used for.

Deku turned back to address Ms. Amamiya again, “As for you, try and keep an eye on him, but make sure you and your husband keep your distance for the first few weeks as he practices, and then try and encourage his quirk naturally. Make sure that his teachers know about all of-,,” He gestured vaguely at the table and her son, “This. And make sure they keep that bully kid away from Chihiro, make sure the two of them don’t interact at all. Oh, and, whilst you’re at it, do alert them that the kid is a bully and should receive counselling…”

“Of course!” Ms. Amamiya produced her phone and started taking notes furiously. At least she’s serious. He thought.

Though how a doctor missed this was beyond Midoriya – it should have been basic stuff. Oh well, better late than never. He only hoped that his amateur advice would be helpful; he couldn’t see it going more wrong than repression, but he also wasn’t sure it was the best solution… Not much else he could offer but his best though.

Ms. Amamiya’s incessant phone tapping hardly did anything to soothe Midoriya’s newly acquired nerves (I’m not a professional. what am I doing. oh god what if I make it worse-) but he did his best to hide it. The silence that had washed over them – alongside another wave of torrential wind – was hardly uncomfortable, but Midoriya still had to physically restrain himself from clearing his throat to ask what they were going to do next. Ms. Amamiya was concentrating, and that would be rude.

“Do you think I can be a hero one day?” Chihiro’s voice broke through the silence.

A quick glance to his mother proved that the beginning of a conversation hadn’t bothered her at all, so Midoriya responded with a question of his own. “Do you want to be?”

Chihiro looked baffled, as if the answer was obvious. “Of course.”

“But do you want to be a hero,” He stressed the word, and then carried on in a faux whisper, “Which is secretly a fancy word for soldier,” Chihiro’s brows furrowed further, pensively, “Or do you want to use your quirk to make people happy?”

There was another moment of silence, punctuated by Ms. Amamiya’s nails on her phone screen.

Chihiro nodded a little subconsciously, then leant forward a bit, cupping a hand to the side of his mouth and mumbling, “What’s a soldier and why do you think that… that it’s not as good as a hero?”

Was it normal for toddlers to be that aware of tone of voice, or was Chihiro just sensitive? Either way, it was an impressively mature question – he’d been expecting some sort of childish outburst, a chant of ‘Hero! Hero! Hero!’

But being able to count on Chihiro to be smart was a welcome surprise. “A soldier is someone in boring clothes and an ugly helmet,” Best to dispel the glamour associated with heroism, “Who fights people to protect others in wars and things. They often get very hurt, and if you get sent to war, you are expected to die.”

“But heroes don’t die.”

Ms. Midnight… “They did recently. That’s why a lot of them resigned.”

At the tilt of the boy’s head, Midoriya realised his mistake. “The ones that lived quit their jobs.”

“Ah.”

“I don’t expect you to understand,” He said with sympathy rather than condescension, “But soldiers… No… Where should I begin…” It’s not like the kid asked for a whole history lesson, but it couldn’t hurt… “When quirks first popped up, the government panicked, and made a silly decision.” He stated.

“Heroes were a silly decision?”

“They weren’t heroes yet, they were soldiers. With guns, no quirks. They were afraid of quirks, they’d tell soldiers to go to war with anyone who had one.” A little simplistic, but it got the point across. “But as more people got quirks, they needed more soldiers – of equal power to the quirked people – to fight anyone who stepped out of line- I mean,,, caused trouble.”

“Why does step out of line mean cause trouble?”

“It…” Hm, he was going to give this child a lot of lessons today, huh. Though Ms. Amamiya either didn’t mind or hadn’t realised, so he took that as a go-ahead. “It doesn’t really. To ‘step out of line’ means to do something outside of what people wanted or expected. Like, imagine someone draws a line and says, don’t cross it, and you do. Usually when you say it, the stepping over ‘the line’ means to breaks laws and stuff, not literally stepping over someone’s lovely line.” He chuckled, “Which really just means causing trouble.”

“Mm.” Midoriya assumed that the definition went right over the child’s head, but he surprised him with his interest in the discovery of the phrase. “So, you could say that, that bumbum from school crossed my line when he stole my homework?”

“Yeah. You could.”

Chihiro beamed. “Ok! Ok! I get it!” He seemed awfully proud, as he ought to be. “Why were we talking about crossing lines?”

“Uhhh… Criminals… Yes. Um, the government needed lots of soldiers so that if anyone crossed their lines, they would have people who could catch them in no time at all, because the police weren’t ready to.”

“Why weren’t they ready?”

“The government didn’t give them enough tools to deal with it, like I said, they panicked and called in the army when it wasn’t necess- needed. And once they started doing that, they had to carry on. Except nobody wanted to join the army, so they allowed people in the army to have cool costumes, and called them heroes instead of soldiers, and suddenly everyone thought it was really cool.” He shrugged, “But it’s still the same job.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah, ah. All Might made the job easy, because he dealt with all the really bad line crossers, but now that he’s gone all the heroes who didn’t actually want to be soldiers left, because they wanted to make people smile with their quirk, not sacrifice themselves.”

“Sacrifice? Like an offering?”

“No, I mean they weren’t ready to die for other people. Not a lot of people want to die.”

Chihiro studied him closely, shit, he’d forgotten the kid was perceptive, and he already knew what was coming.

“Do you want to die?”

“I,” Deku’s breath caught in his throat – he should say no, by all accounts. Especially because Ms. Amamiya was no longer tapping, which meant she’d probably tuned in at last. “I don’t want to die, but I don’t mind if I do.” He decided on saying.

“How come?”

“Cause I’d rather that I get killed than that somebody else, who wasn’t ready, and just wanted to live a normal life, does.”

“Don’t you just want to live a normal life?”

Damn kids and their sharp curiosity. “I never have really, so I don’t expect to have one now.”

Ms. Amamiya made a movement which caught Midoriya’s attention, and when he met her eyes, they were blazing with interest – for which point of conversation he wasn’t sure, but it was certainly off-putting.

Sweating a little, he turned back to Chihiro with an uneasy smile, “So, do you want to be a soldier in fancy clothes, or do you just want to make people happy with fun tricks?” After speaking, he decided that perhaps someone as quick minded as Chihiro wouldn’t want to be associated with the group of people that had recently quit being heroes and had been hailed by the media as utter wastes of space. “It doesn’t make you a bad person if you want to just make people happy, by the way. It just means you should aim for a different job.”

His eyebrows drew together again, serious. As if Deku were about to hand him a hero licence on the spot if he chose the former. His mother seemed to notice too, and she sheepishly spoke.

“You know you don’t have to be sure Chihiro-”

“I want to die.” He said passionately, meeting Deku’s gaze with eyes of fire, which would have been inspirational if not paired with his almost comically tragic choice of words.

“Uh,” Midoriya looked over at Ms. Amamiya – whose eyes were wide and disbelieving – and back at the kid, “You mean, you’re prepared to die, if you have to?”

“Yeah.” He said, just as gravely. “But,” He looked back down, “I don’t know if I’m good at fighting, but I want to help heroes however I can, with my quirk. I think it would be useful for finding people’s secret bases and stuff; I could follow a criminal aaaaaaaaaall the way home – without moving at all!”

Deku wasn’t really sure how prepared to die the kid actually was; it would be unfair to write him off completely, he’d risked life and limb (from a child’s perspective) for his homework and to save schoolmates… And hadn’t Deku back in the day? But still, there was no need to endanger a child when, “I don’t think you need to worry about becoming a hero for that.”

Chihiro glanced back up at him, curious again, eyes wide, trusting.

“I think you could easily become a detective with a licence to use their quirk.” He stated. “They don’t fight, but they do help heroes investigate.” Like detective Tsukauchi… and…

Nobody else… off the top of his head…

“I’ll be honest with you, the police, and detectives that work with them, are underfunded – they don’t have much money,” He explained in an undertone, “And they aren’t well respected. It’ll be hard to be able to get a job as a detective, and, even once you do, it’ll be tough to work on many cases at first, so long as nothing changes. But I want you to focus on that dream if you really want it and,” He decided to be confident, after all, wasn’t the fate of Japan already in his hands? “I’ll do my best to change everything,” Ms. Amamiya gasped in the background, her fingers twitching in the corner of Deku’s vision, “So that kids like you can grow up to live in a world that suits you.”

Chihiro’s face was a painting of awe, though he was also… green…?

Oh. Deku blinked the light out of his eyes, willing One for All down as if it were an over excited dog. I was doing The Glow again.

A glimpse at Ms. Amamiya’s face revealed that she’d noticed The Glow. In fact, she was still staring at his eyes, as if they might glow again any second.

Hm. Still staring…

She’s really dedicated, huh?

Still staring.

She isn’t blinking…

Should,,, should I light up again just to appease her, or-?

Oh!

She blinked. All good.

“Woah!” Chihiro stole his attention again, “Really?! Can you do that?!”

A self-deprecating chortle slipped out from between his lips, “So long as I don’t die to Japan’s most notorious, first.” He said with a grin that he really wasn’t feeling.

“You’ll be fine! I’ll watch the fight!!” Chihiro bumped his fist in the air.

“Great!” Deku replied, knowing full well that nobody would be suicidal enough to record-

The Kamino ward…

Hm. Perhaps he underestimated the press.

“But please don’t feel like you have to, hahaha,” Sweat felt like it was pouring down his face in fat globs, “It might get ugly.” It would definitely get ugly.

“You’re going to fight the worst criminals in Japan?” Ms. Amamiya cut in, her voice infused with a mixture of worry and reverence. Again, they were thinking he was waaay more special than he was.

“I mean, yeah?” He said, scratching the back of his neck, and simultaneously trying to wipe the sweat from it. “But I’m not like,,, super important or anything…. I’m just,,, the right guy for the job is all… I’m not even on the official hero charts, I’m probably too young for it.” He tacked on quietly.

Ms. Amamiya absorbed the information for a moment.

“How old are you?” She inquired, and then backtracked and feigned humility when Deku turned to face her with what he had thought was a neutral expression. “If you don’t mind me asking, of course!”

“I’m sixteen.”

“Sixteen!!!” She expectorated back, as if her lungs were a trebuchet and he’d set them off with his answer.

“Um… Yes…?” Was it unwise not to have lied about his age? He couldn’t really imagine that it’d matter, after all, most people still recognised him from the sports festival.

Clearly, Ms. Amamiya was not most people, because she looked him up and down, stewing in the knowledge that he was, in fact, a small child. Her face was carefully blank, her lips scrunched and brows furrowed, but nothing gave away whether she was impressed or two seconds away from throwing all of his advice out of the window.

“You’re a lot younger than I thought you’d be.” She said finally.

It took a moment for Deku to remember that she had mentioned a friend of hers telling her about him, otherwise he’d be really worried that the press had picked him up. There was no way that UA wouldn’t come charging at him if they worked out his location. And that would be bad. For them more than him.

“I’m a lot younger than I thought I’d be too!” Slipped out of his mouth before he’d processed that what she’d said wasn’t a compliment or statement that needed to be returned.

Shooting his gaze between Chihiro and Ms. Amamiya, he found that whilst Chihiro looked confused but unbothered by the statement, Ms. Amamiya’s eyes were practically bulging out of her skull.

“Did you not get to choose your age?” She asked.

Which definitely caught him off guard. “Di-…. Did you…?”

Eyes narrowing, she studied him intensely. Another trickle of sweat rushed down the back of his neck, though he refused to shiver at the feel of it.

“No….” She began, and he sensed the adversative conjunction before it hit him, “…But I didn’t…. I was just born like this. You know,,, normally, as a baby,, and then I grew.”

It was his turn to narrow his eyes in confusion, looking off to the side at a man in a bright pink top boogieing back to his table, his children laughing at his antics. “…And you think I wasn’t born naturally?”

“Well, you did say you didn’t expect to be sixteen…. Were you expecting your,, um,, human form to be older-looking?”

Human form???? “Uh,” This was a terrible misunderstanding, but the face opposite him looked insecure not because they were confused… No, it was like they knew they were right but weren’t sure how to ask him about his… non-humanness? Alien-ness?

“I am human.” He said. Unconvincingly.

“….I see.” She said. Unconvinced.

Far too much was being ‘revealed’ right now, and there was really no way of going back on his word – would they believe him if he told them he’d just incorrectly formulated a thought?

He opened his mouth to say it, but was beaten by Ms. Amamiya.

“Don’t worry, Lord Deku,” Her voice dropped lower, as if she were in on a secret of his, “I won’t tell anyone.”

Chihiro, who didn’t seem to have understood anything spoken in the last few minutes, was again quicker minded than Deku had given him any credit for, as he came to a realisation (probably that Deku “wasn’t human”) and winked at the ex-hero student.

There wasn’t really much he could say now. Except…

“I’m really nobody important, you don’t have to call me ‘Lord’…”

The young woman blinked twice, as if the idea that him being not human and not important were not statements that could coexist (though they didn’t need to considering that Deku was human). As she tilted her head subconsciously to the side, a lock of her hair obscured her vision in one eye, and she flicked the offending peach strand out of her face.

“Alright then.” She smiled, the expression wide and all-seeing, like a mother’s knowing gaze.

But there really isn’t anything to know-!

Wind rushed through them once more, throwing their hair about and freezing them through to their cores. The boys’ hairstyles righted themselves with just a shake of the head, but a scoff from somewhere diagonal to Deku told him, before he even saw Ms. Amamiya wrestle her hair, that it’d done much worse to the lady at the table.

One she’d combed through her thin strands – it occurred to Deku as the colour faded from them that her purple freckles lit up when she was angry – and deemed her hair fixed, she whipped her head around in search of something. Deku followed her gaze with less enthusiasm, but equal speed.

They both saw it at the same time: a clock. It was-

“Oh my God we’re so-” She stopped abruptly, turning to Midoriya looking horrified, “I’m so sorry!!! I didn’t think before I said it!!”

“What?” What was she even- what had she said? God? Oh, did she think he was religious? In this economy?? “Oh, no, I don’t care, it’s fine.”

Clearly, it’d been the right thing to say, because she sagged in relief before continuing her previous tirade with just as much passion as before, facing her son once more.

“Oh, we’re so late!!” She addressed Midoriya now, “I’m so sorry to cut off the meeting like this, but my husband will be so worried!”

“Oh no it’s no problem-” He tried to put in, meaning it with all sincerity seeing as he got a free lunch, got to analyse a quirk and the quick departure meant that he was then promptly left alone.

Wow.

He really was turning into Aizawa.

“Or Shinomori…” Banjo, who he could only assume had been reading his thoughts again, materialised by his ear.

Not that either of them had much time to ponder as Ms. Amamiya barrelled on, oblivious to Midoriya’s complete lack of concern over her supposedly ‘rude’ abruptness.

“I really am sorry!” She said again, thinking for a second and then digging through her bag and pulling out something small and blue. It clicked open – a purse. “Please, if you wanted to get some pudding, feel free!”

“Oh, no, really! I can’t possibly accept-”

She threw a random assortment of yen notes at him and took off, barely giving Chihiro time to put on his backpack. Tempted to send a tendril of Black whip after the boy to help his slide on his second strap as his mother dragged him by the opposite arm, Deku watched as the boy struggled with it, but valiantly got his arms through both bag straps, jostling the bag about to make it comfortable before he fell into step properly besides the taller woman.

“Well.” Banjo declared. “Odd woman.”

Deku could only nod.

As the man turned back into mist – somehow, despite being the loudest, he was one of the least litigious and frustrating individuals in One for All, with him and Shigaraki popping up the least in the real world – Deku was reminded of the money on the table. It was weighed down by nothing, and the wind was bound to whip itself back up into a fury within seconds, so he snatched up the small pile and looked through his… payment? Spoils? Tip?

He wasn’t expecting much, but if it was at least enough for a brownie that’d be-

Uh…

She… She’d left him… She’d left him with a pile comprised of two ¥5000 notes, four ¥1000 notes, and a ¥2000 note…

Oh my God I can’t accept this.

Was his first thought, but she was already out of his sight… And he was desperately in need of grocery money lest he actually resort to eating rats. Could it be that bad to accept the charity…? Surely if it turned out she did need the money back he could shamefully trudge back to UA and beg his mother for some change…

No, he couldn’t put her in danger…

But he could rob a warehouse for ¥16000 worth of items they wouldn’t miss-

“How dare you! And after we let you use our quirks!” Second hissed, unexpectedly close to him – he usually never spoke, he hated Deku’s guts for some reason, and so rather than just leaving Deku alone like Shigaraki, he would actively neglect him – making Deku almost throw the cash to the wind which would surely rush by soon.

Second’s sharp eyes pierced into the corner of Midoriya’s vision, and the boy refused to turn his head to give the stroppy man the time of day. Instead, his pupils slid across his large, half-closed eyes, and stared dully into Second’s own. They watched each other passively as Second melted away into smoke. The wind, as anticipated, returned with an unwarranted vengeance, and Second shot right over Deku’s head in a burst of movement as the gust threw the man’s remains forward.

At least he’d kept a firm grip on the money.

Maybe he wasn’t going to starve after all…