Chapter Text
Izuku wishes that he could have found a better spot for tonight’s meeting.
There’s only so many places where he can meet up with his clients. It can’t be at their house in case they turn on him and call the police. It can’t be near whatever place he’s staying that week in case they turn violent and he needs to run. Public spots are not ideal, as he doesn’t want to risk any commotion. Private, rented spots cost too much money, and he barely gets enough as it is.
Sticking to sheltered, semi-abandoned places is the best option that he's found so far. It puts him on relatively equal footing with the people who ask for his help. He can check a location for escape routes, safety hazards, and possible traps if he’s the one who sets up the meeting place. If his client tries to backstab him, he has a better chance of getting away. He rarely finds a comfortable spot, but the exchanges never last long, anyway. He can tolerate it.
This time, though, is a little tougher than others. The abandoned warehouse that he picked seemed good at first glance; the main door had been torn down ages ago, so there was no issue with getting into the place; no one was squatting there; the building itself was stable compared to some of the places he’d slept in. Izuku hadn’t anticipated any issues at all.
And then it had started to rain. Heavily.
The air is thick with mist thrown up by the onslaught of rain. Water continuously trickles in from the open entrance, forming a series of shallow puddles that Izuku barely manages to evade. His hoodie is damp from the walk over, and it clings to his skin uncomfortably, somehow managing to be cold and hot at the same time. The warehouse stinks of salt and iron and mold. Pulling his hoodie over the lower half of his face helps with the smell, but not much. It’s a terrible place to wait for any length of time. Izuku has been there for an hour.
Under different circumstances, he’d pull out his phone to see if his client had sent a message saying they wouldn’t be able to make it. As it is, he doesn’t want to risk potential water damage; his phone is a cheaper model, and it is definitely not waterproof. Checking the time isn't worth the few thousand yen he'd need to repair or replace the device. He can wait a little longer.
Fortunately, he doesn’t have to. He spots the approaching figure before they spot him. The man is dressed in a flimsy red windbreaker, jeans, and thoroughly-soaked sneakers. He’s tall and stick-thin, with colorless hair that clings to his face and neck. Izuku suspects this guy isn’t much older than him.
“Are you Hidaka?” he asks as soon as the man crosses through the entrance. The guy startles before he spots Izuku, and then he laughs dryly, not sounding amused at all—more like he’s trying to sound tough and failing at it.
“Are you Deku?” the man—Hidaka—replies cheekily.
“You’re here for the quirk trade, then?” Izuku asks with a raised eyebrow. He already knows the answer; Hidaka had sent him half a dozen messages about wanting to exchange his ‘useless’ quirk for something tougher. “You brought payment, right?”
Hidaka scoffs, but reaches into his jacket for his wallet anyway. From there, he pulls out ten one-thousand bills and four five-thousand bills. “Thirty thousand is a bit steep for a trade, y’know. Seems unfair that you’re getting a new quirk and a lot of cash from this.”
Izuku takes the money once Hidaka’s hand gets close enough, and deliberately gives the illusion of shoving the bills into the front pocket of his hoodie. They don’t remain there, of course: they go straight into Pocket along with the rest of the money he keeps in his item storage quirk. The gesture is just to hide the transfer. He'd rather not reveal the existence of Pocket to a stranger.
“You said that your quirk lets you tell time down to the second,” Izuku says coolly. “That’s not something that is an obvious inconvenience to you, nor does it have any undesirable triggers or side-effects. You want to trade it because it is, as you said, ‘not badass enough’ for you.” He levels a glare at Hidaka, who squirms uncomfortably. “It is also not a quirk that will greatly benefit me. On top of that, I had to go and find a quirk that fits your criteria. This entire exchange is for your benefit. I think it’s only fair that I get paid in return for my service.”
He does not mention that Hidaka does not seem to be scraping by. The wallet had more bills inside of it from what Izuku had seen, and the guy had chosen to wear expensive and weather-inappropriate clothing to an area where there is a somewhat decent chance of getting mugged. If Izuku had to guess, Hidaka is the definition of a trust-fund baby, with more money than brains and an overinflated ego that needs constant stroking.
Not that he cares enough to be petty about it. People like Hidaka make the best customers.
“Hold out your hand,” Izuku orders. After a pause, Hidaka does as he was told, raising up a closed fist. Izuku reaches out and covers his client’s hand with his own.
Taking quirks is like pulling teeth—or that’s how Izuku has always visualized it. A quirk can be loose or deeply rooted into the person holding it, depending on how much they used it and how attached they were to it. Hidaka’s quirk is at an awkward middle point—something that he does not want but regularly uses anyway—and so it takes more than a few seconds to wrench the quirk away from him. Hidaka yelps, which Izuku ignores in favor of setting the new quirk into the empty void the previous one had occupied. It falls into place with little effort. Under Izuku’s hand, bands of metal sprout and encircle Hidaka’s knuckles and joints. He moves back, letting Hidaka see the result of the transfer.
“Brass Knuckles is the most ‘badass’ thing I could find on short notice,” he explains as Hidaka brushes his fingers over the other hand. “It will give you an edge in a fight, be obvious enough that people will think twice before messing with you, and you won’t be charged for carrying unlicensed weaponry.” Of course, if Hidaka does get in a fight, he’ll get slapped with a fine for illegal quirk usage, but that’s not Izuku’s problem.
“It’ll do, I guess,” Hidaka says, not-quite able to disguise his glee with a casual tone. “Still don’t think it’s worth thirty thousand yen, though.”
“I can give you a refund, if that’s what you want,” Izuku offers lightly, too-pleasantly. “All of your money and your original quirk in return for the one I had to hunt down on your request. Although, if that’s what you pick, I’ll never take another offer from you again. You can live the rest of your life as a walking clock if you think thirty grand is too much for a combat-suitable quirk.”
Hidaka pulls back, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “Hey, no, man, it was just an observation. Didn’t mean anything by it. I’m not looking for a refund.” He laughs nervously. When Izuku does not respond, he backs up further. “Uh… thanks for the new quirk, man. I… will get going now… if there’s nothing else?”
Izuku nods in the direction of the entrance, and Hidaka speed walks out of the rotting warehouse. It takes a good twenty seconds for Hidaka’s footsteps to fade out entirely, and even then Izuku doesn’t try to leave. Instead, he walks away from the entrance to a spot that is a little drier and pulls out his phone from Pocket.
It takes a minute for the device to turn on properly, but once it does, he is greeted by a cheerful sky-blue screen that hurts to stare at. The top of the screen is filled with white numbers declaring it to be a quarter after ten at night. Izuku calls up his newest quirk to confirm it. The time does match, which isn’t really surprising—he hasn’t had any prospective client outright lie about their quirk (although many of them hide details). The new quirk—Clock, it was called, according to Hidaka's email—also seems to give him a dead-accurate sense of a second and a minute, and (if he waits long enough) he’ll probably be able to tell when one exact hour has passed.
“Hidaka’s an idiot,” he whispers to himself. “Sure, there’s no way to fight with this, but that doesn’t make it useless. It would be useful for someone who cooks or bakes to know how long it takes to prepare and cook certain dishes. It would help anyone keep a good schedule. Plus, it also means that you don’t need to look at your phone to check the time every five minutes. It’s better than nothing, that’s for sure.”
Something bitter swells inside of his chest; an old ache that hasn’t gone away over the years. He ignores it as he always does.
He might have a quirk now, but it doesn’t make him any more useful.