Chapter Text
It was a cool fall evening when Shota and Hizashi were grading papers. Hizashi hated grading, but at least he was doing it with the love of his life. He would burst everyone in a 100-mile radius’s eardrums if he wasn’t able to work with Sho. Hizashi sighed. He felt like hitting his head on the table.
*MINOR MANGA SPOILERS GO TO THE “~~” FOR NO SPOILERS*
“Who’s is it?” Shota sighed with him.
“Mineta’s.”
Shota’s nose quirked in disgust, mirroring the expression that was presumably on Hizashi’s face.
“What did he write about this time? Who is he degrading now?” Shota put his head in his hands.
Hizashi read the next few lines and his jaw dropped. He was shell-shocked.
“Who is it?? Let me see!” Sho grabbed the paper from his hands and read.
He gasped. “Midoriya?! I’m going to have to put him on the ‘do-not-pair-with-Mineta’ list” Shota grumbled.
~~
It was sometime later when Hizashi finally got to Midoriya's. Not that Midoriya's name was particularly far from Mineta's, but it took a bit for him to stomach reading the graphic and gross paper-'is that- oh my gods- okay that's it' he thought as he threw the paper down. 'He'll have to wash his hands until the skin's red.'
'Okay think happy thoughts' he told himself. Hizashi can't make a big deal and be dramatic right now, Sho finally fell asleep. He had a long night during patrol last night.
At least Midoriya's papers were always easy to grade, the kid was a genius and practically graded the papers himself.
~~
Hizashi inhaled deeply. He now understood why Shota called the sunshine boy a problem child.
He shook Shota awake. "What? Is it a villain?!" He jumped up startled and his quirk activated; his eyes glowing red, hair raised-almost cat-like in a way but not- and his capture weapon at the ready.
Hizashi pushed him back down and didn't even bother trying calming the dark-haired man down.
"Listen to this." He said, still dumbfounded. Shota eyed the paper warily and hadn't let go of his tight grip around the capture weapon.
" Saving people- with a smile- without the hero commission, punishing villains as you see fit…" Hizashi exhaled sharply.
Shota’s eyes narrowed. It looked like he knew where this was going.
“That is a vigilante”
Shota groaned. Looks like Problem-ChildTM is even more of a problem child.
He had no idea how right he was.
~~
Izuku Midoriya had never been confined to the pages of his notebooks. Now his mother was never emotionally present in his life, but Izuku did everything to get her attention and love. Nothing worked. When He and his mom were around other people, Inko would act like a helicopter parent and Izuku would relish in the affection. Around that time he would be gifted a new notebook and stationery supplies. She might have been bribing him to act, but Izuku didn’t mind. He would cherish the gifts anyways because they came from his mom, and moms were supposed to give their children gifts... right?
Around the age of 8, four years after Izuku got his diagnosis, he decided that he was going to start working out so he could become a better hero. Izuku had been honing his analysis skills since he could write, and he knew that to be a hero he had to gain some muscle. It worked for a bit until he started obsessively train himself to the point he passed out during gym class. Kacchan had noticeably backed off from the bullying, and Izuku thought it might be because Kacchan thought he had caused the passing out. It was fine with Izuku.
He took a break for a while to reevaluate how he went about training. Izuku had the perfect idea, but he would need to save money for the supplies.
On his ninth birthday, Inko (She told him to stop calling her Mom while they weren’t around other people) gave him 2000 american dollars, said it was leftover from his dad, and told him to make it last till his next birthday. How was he going to manage that? How is he going to exchange it to yen?
Izuku started to plan on budgeting and saving (UA is going to cost a lot of money) and learning how to code his notebooks, because he realised that as his analyisis was getting better, the more threatening it is to those he writes about. Izuku researched a lot about codes, and realised how fun it was to decode them, so he started incorporating that into his regimen. There was this one code that was especially interesting, an old 1950’s code that was made by the “zodiac killer” who was a serial murderer. Many in the 2000s had speculated that the killer was a republican senator by the name of Ted Cruz, but that wasn’t scientifically possible for Cruz was born in the 1970s, 20 years after the mass hysteria caused by the zodiac killer. After deciphering the code, Izuku figured out that the killer was actually a man named “Gary Francis Poste'' who was a suspect in several murders. That was really easy. How dumb were they back then? Wait how has no one ever solved it before?
If you’re wondering how Izuku managed to budget enough to maintain a liveable life, well there was a good 100-yen place down the street from where their apartment was and he got good protein with rice and Ramen, he spent 5000 yen there and it should last him the whole week if he rations the portions. Even if he kept on only using 5000 yen per week, it still wouldn’t last until his next birthday, and Inko probably wouldn’t give him the same amount for his birthday next year.
By two weeks in he had 1868.75 dollars left or about 213,614 yen left. He was desperate for a new plan. One night he started going through all of his things, by value; sentimental and monetary. By 1 in the morning, he had separated about half of his things and by the next week, everything was sold.
All in all, he had gained 10,000 dollars or 1,143,145 yen. Izuku was sad his hero merch had to suffer but it was for the greater good. This is probably what normal 9-year-olds had to deal with, it’s not that hard for them Izuku, keep up.
Time to enact plan “ Technically Not a Vigilante”. After immense research, Izuku found that quirkless people did not apply to most laws. He could get away with so much and they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
He bought the supplies he would need, night vision goggles, a cheap black sweatshirt and durable pants, and his personal favorite, something that he made himself, steel-toed black combat rollerskates. You heard him right. R o l l e r s k a t e s. And he could decorate them if he wanted to! He also bought a pack of black medical masks. He didn’t need to be seen at night. It might be stupid of him, but he didn’t buy any weapons. He needed to get better at hand-to-hand combat before he started with weapons. He packed a box cutter just in case he got into any sticky situations.
Izuku’s first-night vigilantying- was there even a word for that?- was exhilarating. He fell flat on his butt a couple of times because he hadn’t skated since he was four with Kacchan. It was exhilarating. Izuku had stopped a mugger from mugging a poor college student. Thanks to the sacred rollerskates, it only took one kick to the stomach and they were down. They were very thankful, and even gave 20 dollars (about 2,285 yen) much to Izuku’s dismay. Izuku made sure to tell him exactly what to do and asked politely for him to obscure the details of him, to make him harder to track. The college student thankfully agreed and reiterated how thankful he was. The rest of the night was uneventful so Izuku spent it relearning skating and got better and better. He headed home around 2 in the morning after four hours.
As Izuku changed out of his clothes and headed to bed, he could only think one thing, maybe things were looking up for the better.