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“Fancy meeting you here, Eraser,” Izuku said, trying to ignore the blood rushing to his head.
Eraserhead sighed. As he did, the capture scarf Izuku was wrapped up in flexed. “Kid, you really shouldn’t be out this late.”
“I’m not in high school, and I don’t work until tomorrow afternoon, ” Izuku offered.
“And what about your parents?”
“My dad’s overseas, and my mom approves.”
“What kind of mother approves of her son becoming a vigilante?”
Izuku narrowed his eyes under the cheap tinted safety goggles. “The kind who understands that society will always try to oppress her son.”
Eraserhead held his hands up in a placating gesture. “My bad. But why not go to a hero school? UA is very open, there are paths from almost every course into heroics.”
“I tried. I went to the UA entrance exam. I got twenty rescue points. That's it. It was then I realized I would never be able to compete with other hero students. But low-level criminals? Them, I can deal with.”
Eraserhead pushed his goggles up and brought Izuku up so they looked each other in the eyes. Izuku fought back a snort as he thought about the iconic pre-quirk era scene from Spiderman.
“There are apprenticeship programs. Why not one of those?”
Izuku pushed his own goggles out of the way.
“Heroics is competitive. I wouldn’t be able to make a living. I don’t want to be a hero anymore. I just want to help people. This is how.”
“Kid, as noble as your intentions are, I still have to bring you in. At least make this easier on yourself. They do let vigilantes become heroes through the apprenticeship programs.”
When the masked teenager hanging upside down laughed, Shouta knew he was missing something important about the situation.
“Eraserhead, as much as I admire your dedication to upholding the law, I technically haven’t committed any crime.”
Shouta raised his eyebrows. “Oh really? Vigilantism isn’t a crime?”
“It is. But it’s not vigilantism if you don’t have a quirk!” The teenager replied giddily.
Eraserhead’s eyes widened in shock and his head jerked back a little, causing his goggles to fall back down. Izuku laughed.
“It’s incredible, really, ” Izuku said. “A lot of laws don’t apply to you when you're quirkless. The vigilantism loopholes are just the most obvious. Incidentally, self defense laws do still apply to me, as well as those pertaining to false arrests.”
Never had Izuku been so glad he decided to wear an oversized rubber raincoat on his late-night excursions. Wiggling out of it would give Eraserhead a better idea of his physique, but given that Eraserhead wouldn’t legally be able to arrest him, Izuku found he didn’t care.
He pulled his arms out of the sleeves and let himself drop. He angled his fall into the nearby dumpster, leaving the baffled hero on the rooftop. Izuku regained his bearings after the trash cushioned his fall and jumped out of the dumpster. He began running, making sure his waist pack was still in place. His mom would kill him if he lost the phone and first aid supplies inside it. With that, Izuku dashed away from the alleyway and didn’t stop running. He zigzagged through empty back streets and didn’t stop until he was sure he had to have lost Eraserhead. Izuku took off his stocking cap and goggles, and shoved them in his hoodie pocket. He peeled off his gloves and All-Might-Smile face mask, then put them into his waist pack. With that, Izuku decided to disappear into the crowd as he approached a more populated part of town.
Of course, what Izuku didn’t know is that Eraserhead didn’t chase after him. Aizawa Shouta stared at the empty raincoat caught up in his capture scarf. The kid was smart, he had to have been in order to slip out of the scarf like that. But the way he spoke… he had given up on his dreams. He sounded young. He had to be old enough to take the UA entrance exam, of course, but that was still such a young age to have your dreams crushed. Shouta gripped the raincoat tightly as he decided to wrap up patrol for the night. It would be easier to track down this vigilante by going through government records, anyways. How many quirkless teenagers with green eyes could there be?
The next day, Izuku gleefully recounted his encounter with Eraserhead to his mom over breakfast. He had shown up dead-tired last night, too exhausted to tell her anything. She simply checked him over for injuries and sent him to bed with a kiss on the head. She mourned the loss of the raincoat, but they had already thought of that possibility and had set aside a certain amount of money every month into what they dubbed the Vigilance Fund. It was mostly for medical supplies, but a new raincoat certainly qualified as something Izuku would need on his late-night excursions.
Across the city, Shouta was sitting in his apartment, going over every inch of the raincoat he recovered last night, checking for hidden pockets or… something. Shouta was honestly hoping the kid had some sort of ID in the raincoat. But given that the kid wore a waist pack under said raincoat, Shotua knew it was unlikely. All he could tell was that at one point someone’s name had been written under the collar, but it had been scrubbed out. Shouta could barely tell there were kanji there, let alone which kanji was which. With nothing else to be learned from the raincoat, Shouta began folding it up. Until he noticed the light catching on the coat collar. Shouta brought the coat to his eyes.
A hair, he thought. Shouta set the coat down and got a pair of tweezers from the bathroom, as well as a plastic bag from the kitchen. He extracted the hair and put it in the bag. He double-checked for other hairs, but had no luck. He sighed and labeled the bag as Raincoat’s hair. The hair looked to be a dark color, maybe a dark green? It also seemed curly. So Shouta had that going for him. Shouta decided to check hero reports for mentions of a raincoat-wearing vigilante, to try and get an idea of where the kid lived.
Back at the Midoiryas’, Izuku was playing on his phone, with the news on in the background. Mom had already left for work. He had about thirty minutes before he needed to get ready for his dog-walking job. The news was talking about a new hero debut, someone named Uravity. Izuku glanced up and saw that it was a girl he met at the UA entrance exam. Izuku was glad to see her doing well, she seemed nice. And she stopped him from falling on his face! Izuku smiled fondly as he reminisced. The news began detailing how the girl’s quick thinking and clever quirk use had stopped a bridge from collapsing. The news also detailed how the local government had ignored warnings from various engineers until it was almost too late. Izuku sighed. What was this, Early 21st Century America?
The clock ticked on. Eventually, Izuku got up and changed out of his pajamas and into a t-shirt and running shorts. He grabbed his trusty waist pack, double-checked his dog treat supply, and headed out the door. He went to each apartment and house on his list, leashing dogs small and large. One of the golden retrievers he walked jumped on him every time he let her out. This time, he was prepared and caught her upper body and laughed as she licked his face.
“So you’re the dogwalker my neighbor keeps going on about,” someone said.
Izuku whipped his head around towards the source, his hands leashing the golden on auto-pilot, and finding a purple-haired boy about Izuku’s age.
“Well, I should hope so,” Izuku said. “I’d be very disappointed to find out that one of my favorite customers was singing the praises of some other dog walker.”
The purple-haired boy’s mouth twitched at that.
“Can I help you?” Izuku said, shifting the leashes in his hand so that his current pack of nine dogs was less likely to escape.
“You do odd jobs for people, right?”
Izuku nodded. The house he was currently at belonged to an old lady and her son. Her son worked a lot, so sometimes Izuku helped the old lady with chores around the house, buying groceries, or fixing her appliances. Izuku guessed that the elder of the two was the one who bragged about him.
“Would you mind being a sort of… quirk test dummy?”
Izuku blinked. The other boy immediately began rambling.
“I’m sorry, I have to ask, I need someone new to help me test my capabilities on, my teacher said it would help me get into the hero course, this is really embarrassing, it’s totally fine if you say no, you can forget this-”
Izuku held up his hand. The purple-haired boy immediately snapped his mouth shut.
“Well… it depends on the quirk. If it’s some sort of mental quirk, I’d be okay with that. I’d have to know more specifics if it were a physical quirk.”
The other boy looked hesitant. “Even brainwashing?” he half-mumbled.
Izuku beamed. “Oh, I wouldn’t mind that at all. We’d have to establish a few ground rules, of course, but that would apply to all quirk testing. And for the record, I think that would be a great quirk to go into heroics with.”
The purple boy smiled bashfully. “Well that’s a relief.”
“If you want, I could even give you some of my own analysis. I’m not quite at a professional level, but I might give you some new ideas.”
“It couldn’t hurt. How much?”
Izuku thought for a moment. “I think about 1200 yen an hour would be a good starting point. The analysis would be free, since that’s something I really enjoy doing. Your number?”
The other boy went red. “What?”
“I’ll need your number if we want to actually make arrangements. I do have more dogs to pick up.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m Shinso Hitoshi, by the way.”
“Midoriya Izuku.”
And that was how Midoriya Izuku picked up his third regular job. His fourth, if you counted running around the city at night in a raincoat. Which reminded him, he needed to pick up another one. Izuku entered Shinso’s number into his phone and carried on with his walk. Two more dogs for today, and he’d take them to the park.
Hitoshi, meanwhile, texted his mentor.
I found someone like you asked.
Good. Aizawa-sensei replied. When are you meeting up with them?
Not sure. He’s a bit busy with his dog walking job right now. We exchanged numbers and I think we’ll have an exact time by tomorrow.
Good. In the meantime, keep at your vocal exercises.
About two hours later, Izuku returned the last dog to their home, a yippy little chihuahua mix who Izuku was surprised hadn’t killed a man. What was it with small dogs and being angry at the world, Izuku wondered.
Shouta went over his lesson plans as he waited on the phone. He had to have been put on hold at least a dozen times that day. Every time he got through to the quirk records department, past the proper security clearances, given his hero license number, and then was laughed at when he said he suspected a quirkless teenager was Mustafu’s newest vigilante. Then they refused to give him the necessary records. Every time, without fail. Shouta was about to call it quits.
Shinso texted Shouta again. Shouta hoped it was an update on Shinso’s test subject.
Hey, I forgot to ask, can we conduct the tests at UA?
Yes. I’ll need to run a minor background check on him to get him the proper security clearance, though.
Okay. His name is Midoriya Izuku.
Switching gears, Shouta logged into the Hero Network on his computer and began the process of checking someone’s name with the criminal records. Midoriya Izuku brought back a name and a face, but only in that he was a victim of a crime. A villain made of slime had attacked the boy while he was in middle school, but he was apparently saved by some hero with a terrakinesis quirk. Graduated middle school over a year ago, never attended a high school. Would have been in his second year if he did. Shouta almost gave the kid a mental checkmark, but he paused when looking at the kid’s reference photo.
Dark green curly hair, green eyes. Lived in Mustafu.
What are the odds? Shouta thought.
Shinso said the kid was walking dogs, which would reasonably be an afternoon job. Raincoat said he had an afternoon job. The freckles made it hard to tell, given that he couldn’t see the lower half of Raincoat’s face under the mask, but if you drew an All Might face mask on the kid and put a stocking cap on him, the kid could have reasonably been Raincoat.
I need a better name for him than Raincoat, Shouta immediately tacked on. At least Shouta now had a name to search, rather than telling the government he was looking for a quirkless teenager.
Meanwhile, in a little gym tucked away on a backstreet, Izuku sneezed while dusting off some old bamboo mats. The gym owner, one of Izuku’s current employers, was getting ready to sell the mats as antiques. Given the amount of dust on them, Izuku was inclined to believe the man. They were in remarkably good condition, though. After that was done, Izuku got ready for the Sunday Night Mixed Martial Arts class. (The owner’s idea to call it by the English acronym never quite caught on. SNMMA just didn’t quite roll off the tongue.) His agreement with the gym owner was simple, Izuku could attend one free class per hour of work. Izuku came out ahead on that deal, the classes cost slightly more than minimum wage. Tonight they were working on some self-defense basics. Izuku would be expected to drill with some of the younger students, as he was pretty good at this part and could help them understand it better.
Sure, Izuku's experience with self-defense came from taunting muggers into making the first move, but whatever works, right? He was good at dodging and redirecting hits, and that’s what mattered.
Izuku made sure to wear himself out a bit after classes, letting the kids wrestle with him and practice basic grappling. He was going to get up early the next day, and he needed to go to bed on time. Once he and the kids had both been sufficiently tired out, he changed, left the gym, and almost immediately spotted his mom’s car. He gave her a hug as he slid in beside her and they began talking about their days. There wasn't much to say, but Izuku mentioned he might have picked up a new job helping someone work with their mental quirk. He went on a rant about how useful brainwashing would be for hero work, from non-violent villain takedowns to hostage situations.
When they got home, Izuku was surprised to see a package waiting on their doorstep. Neither he nor his mother ordered anything, but it was addressed to him. Maybe his dad had sent a surprise gift? Izuku put it in his bedroom to open after dinner. They ate in companionable silence as a cheesy reality show played in the background. Izuku went to bed after his mom, intrigued by one of the participant's quirks. It seemed like a standard cat transformation, but the way her eyes glowed when she activated it was fascinating.
Izuku had almost pulled his blankets into place, but then he remembered the package sitting on his computer desk. Sighing, he got back out of bed and turned on his desk lamp. He grabbed one of his scissors and dragged it across the tape. Izuku opened the box, yawning as the remaining tape tore. There was a folded note. It had a phone number written on the front. Izuku furrowed his brow as he took the note out to open it. Before he could read it, he noticed what was in the box under it. Izuku screamed.
His raincoat was in the box. The one Eraserhead had taken the other night.
Izuku opened the note.
You need to be more careful, kid. Someone a lot worse than me could have figured out our identity. Text me. You have potential. I’d like to see you grow. - Eraserhead.
This time, Izuku stifled his scream, but he did make a squeaky noise in the back of his throat. Frantically, Izuku grabbed his phone and inputted the number.
This is a joke, right?
Depends. Midoriya?
Oh god, it’s not a joke. You’re really Eraserhead.
Yes.
Izuku collapsed on his bed. His phone buzzed again.
If it makes you feel better, I figured out your identity much faster than I would have on my own due to a stroke of bad luck on your part.
I ran into you, how much worse did my luck get?
You offered to be a quirk test dummy for my personal student. He suggested conducting the tests at UA, which I agreed to, as long as I followed protocol and ran a background check on his test subject. I took an educated guess after I saw your photo in the Slime Villain report and pulled up your quirk registry.
Shinso attends UA?
Yes.
Which means you teach at UA.
That’s correct.
Izuku screamed into his pillow.
So now what?
Well, I’d like to teach you. Talk you out of vigilantism, if I can.
Once again, not technically vigilantism if you don’t have a quirk.
It’s still dangerous, especially for someone your age who hasn’t had any formal training. There’s not always going to be a dumpster to land in.
Not true. I’ve taken some martial arts classes. I learned parkour from the internet. I’ve survived this for the last five months.
That doesn’t mean you’ll survive every time. What happens when you get involved with something bigger than petty thieves and street fights?
Not going to happen. I’m quirkless, remember? I know my limits. I plan on avoiding anything bigger than assault like the plague. It may not be much compared to what your students will go on to do, but I’m still helping people. That’s all I ever wanted.
There are criminals out there who do the smaller crimes you’re talking about in service of bigger plans. Eventually, you’ll run into something big and you won’t be able to get out of it. Something that makes you a target for the kind of people who’d try to kill me if they had half a chance. Kid, like it or not, you need a support system. You should become a legal hero.
Izuku was going to launch a counter-argument, but he stopped. He didn’t have an argument against that. Worse, he realized that the sort of things that would make him a target would make his mother a target. Izuku had long considered that he might be an acceptable casualty, but Mom? She’d never be worth it. Ever.
You’re right. Sort of. I still don’t think I’d be able to scrape together any sort of living as a pro hero. But I do need some sort of support system. For my mom’s sake, at least.
Shouta sighed with relief. The kid was starting to see some reason. He still wouldn’t give up vigilantism, apparently, but he at least seemed open to getting some help from Shouta. Small victories.
Glad you’re seeing reason, kid.
So how are you going to tell Shinso he accidentally caught your “vigilante” for you?
No idea. I probably won’t.
Why not? It’d probably be funny to see his reaction.
We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. That said, I’d like it if you at least agreed to get combat training from me.
Sounds fine to me. Maybe I could spar with Shinso. It’d be good for both of us. He probably can’t use his quirk in every situation.
And so began Izuku’s tenuous apprenticeship under Eraserhead. He still went out at night, still told his mom everything, except for his reasoning behind accepting Eraserhead’s help. His mom laughed at Izuku’s helpful nature betraying him like that, but she seemed relieved that there was someone else looking out for her baby boy.
Shinso practically blue-screened when he found out. Or was it purple-screened? Either way, he didn’t blink until Izuku waved a hand in his face.
“Even my test dummy is better at heroics than me,” he said, burying his face in his hands.
Izuku turned red.
Izuku often hung around with Eraserhead on patrol. He wasn’t allowed to help Eraserhead when he fought, and he still had to hide when the police came, but it was nice to have someone to talk to late at night. Eraser had also gotten Izuku a kevlar vest to wear under his raincoat. It was one of the older man’s spares. His mom did have to alter it a bit to fit Izuku, and then Eraser inspected it to make sure it was still secure. After Eraser found it still met his standards, he let Izuku wear it on the streets.
Eraser, or Aizawa-sensei, as he preferred to be called, was also teaching Izuku how to fight with a knife. He taught Shinso too, but he gave Izuku extra lessons on that. As it turned out, even getting hit with the flat of a dull knife hurt. (The kid may have been smart as a whip, but no way was Shouta trusting the kid with a real knife. If someone took it from the kid mid-battle, Shotua would never forgive himself.) And there was a slight surprise factor, too. Criminals expected to get stabbed with knives, not smacked in the face. All in all, Izuku was learning a lot.
Eraser kept trying to talk him out of vigilantism though.
“Still not happening, Eraser,” he said on one of their routine chases on the rooftops.
Even if Eraser wasn’t going to arrest him, that didn’t mean other heroes wouldn’t try. It would be simpler for everybody if he was still fast enough to get away from them. Or if they kept up the appearance of Eraserhead trying to catch him.
“Kid, you’re good enough to go through the apprenticeship program. And it’s not like you would have to stop your other jobs.”
“I’m happy the way things are. As long as I’m not actually breaking the law, it’s fine.”
“It’s not going to last forever kid. I’m not going to be around forever, and Shinso might move out of Mustafu.”
“You’re even assuming they’d let me get a hero license. I’m quirkless, after all. Who’s to say the commission would let me?”
“It can’t hurt to try.”
Izuku pondered that. Unfortunately, he slowed down enough that Eraser caught him and yanked him upside down. Again.
“Not bad,” Eraser said. “You’re getting better.”
Izuku groaned as he began the lengthy process of disentangling himself from his mentor’s capture weapon. It was easier than the first time he got caught in it, when his mentor was focused on keeping him in there.
“You could help, you know,” Izuku said.
Eraser only smirked.
“I didn’t know you had an apprentice, Eraser!” a new voice said.
Eraser’s smirk immediately disappeared and he dropped Izuku. Izuku yelped, but he managed to pull himself into a roll.
“Joke. This is pretty far from your usual patrol.”
“I’m working a case, you know how it is, dear!” the voice said, laughing.
Izuku blinked as he righted himself, standing up.
“No way, Ms. Joke, the smile hero! Your quirk lets you force villains to laugh, stunning them while you take them down!”
Joke beamed, clearly pleased that she had been recognized. “Aw, did you tell him about me?”
“No,” Eraser growled. “Are you done?”
“Jeez, someone’s grumpier than usual. Oh well. See you Eraser!”
Eraser and Izuku watched as the smile hero climbed back down the building.
“Well… at least I don’t have to worry about her arresting me?” Izuku offered.
Eraser sighed. “Did you think about what I said?”
“Trying for a hero license? The exams are competitive, you know that. I don’t stand a chance. Not without a quirk.”
Eraser sighed. Then, without thinking, he spoke. “Then I guess we’ll just have to get you a quirk.”
Izuku started. “What?”
Shouta decided to double down, ignoring how crazy he was about to sound. “Anything’s possible, problem child. And if you end up with a quirk, then you can’t be a vigilante anymore, since you’d then be violating the law. That would solve all our problems.”
“It would solve yours, you mean.”
“Maybe.”
As Shouta spoke, he realized that maybe, there was something to his idea. He may not have been thinking before he said it, but getting Midoriya a quirk would be perfect. There had to be some sort of quirk out there that could do that, right? That became something of a joke between the two. Until Eraser was briefed on the cause of All Might's condition. The man was set to start teaching at UA, but somehow that information was leaked before the announcement, and UA was attacked. All Might showed up, of course, but Class 2-A was shaken. Especially their fight against what the leader of the attack had called Nomu. Shouta was hesitant to call Nomu a villain, given that they didn't seem sentient. Shigaraki did call them a bioweapon. It wasn't until the meeting where the teachers were briefed on the existence of All For One that he gave them a second thought. And then... another thought, one less than heroic.
If he can give and take quirks...
Shouta ignored the thought, but he did wonder what Midoriya would say. The kid had quite the mind for analysis. So Shouta threw himself into tracking down All For One, as any sane individual would do. Class 2-A could manage. Sure, Bakugo might attempt a murder, but Kirishima would probably stop him. Probably. The poor substitute. They had to be interviewed by Nedzu, the Hero Commission, and then deal with the Hell Class. At least Shinsou would be joining soon. Midoriya and Shinsou trained together more to make up for Shouta's absence. He still ran into Raincoat on patrol but kept Midoriya far away from his current investigation. Or tried to. When Raincoat came up to him one night with Shigraki bound, gloved, gagged, and inside a trash bag, Shouta reevaluated his life choices.
"Raincoat... what the hell?"
"I brought you a present!"
"How?"
"I snuck into the League of Villains by pretending to be interested in joining, gained their trust for a few days, waited until everyone was asleep, drugged Shigaraki just to be sure, dislocated his pinkies, put special gloves on him, checked him for trackers, and went out the window. He woke up while I was trying to find you, so I bashed his head against a dumpster. He should be fine, though."
Shouta put his head in his hands and crouched on the roof. Midoriya patted him on the shoulder.
"You can arrest me if you want, I'm fairly certain my quirk status doesn't exempt me from the laws on this."
"It's not worth it. I tried to keep you away from this case, and then you went and did this," Shouta gestured to Shigaraki's limp form.
"I also raided their fridge," Midoriya pulled a yogurt tube out of his pocket and began eating. "Want one?"
Shouta decided his life couldn't go any further off the rails. "Sure."
So the two of them sat on the edge of the roof, slurping from yogurt tubes and watching the city, with one of the most dangerous villains of the era restrained inside a trash bag laying behind them.
"Maybe I shouldn't have raided their fridge. If I hadn't, they might still trust me and I could kidnap more of them."
"What did you find out about their leader?" Shouta asked.
"Not much, just that he's really old and only talks to them over a staticy tv screen. They call him Sensei. There's also some doctor working for them, he's probably the one responsible for the nomu, judging by the way they talked about him. Sensei also really hates All Might. By the way, Kurogiri requires coordinates to be able to warp."
You should tell him, a thought whispered. Shouta ignored it for a moment but thought about it again. And so he told Midoriya about All For One.
Midoriya, to his credit, kept slurping on yogurt tubes the entire time, but his face grew more concerned as the conversation wore on.
"So that's why you tried to keep me away from the case. You thought I might be tempted."
Midoriya sounded hurt, and maybe it didn't sting him that badly, but it tore through Shouta's heart. He had trained this kid for fifteen months, and somehow he held a place in Shouta's heart no one else could ever take.
"That's not it at all, kid."
"Too dangerous?"
"Yes and no. I guess keeping you in the dark is part of what caused this, but..."
Shouta sighed and pulled his knees to his chest.
"If anything, I was worried that I would be tempted."
"Oh?"
"Because more than anything, I want you safe. Even if it was a useless quirk, you would have to stop being a vigilante, and I could get you into a hero program, or something. I know I can't stop you unless you actually break the law. When I was younger, I lost a really close friend of mine. We were just second years, it was our first internship, and sometimes... you remind me of him. You have similar smiles, for starters. You hold a similar place in my heart, too."
Shouta heard the bawling after he was tackled by the hug. Midoriya got some yogurt on Shouta's suit, but that was fine. Eventually, it was time to bring Shigaraki in. The two of them snuck back to UA. Nedzu let them in. He spoke with Midoriya, although Shouta never let the kid out of sight. Nedzu did give the kid ten thousand yen and an extra-large chocolate bar, then sent him on his way. Nedzu then proceeded to order Shouta to go with the kid, much to Shouta's relief. Nedzu would handle the cover-up.
Midoriya was chowing away on his chocolate bar when he saw Shouta come back.
"I guess our jokes about you getting me a quirk are kind of ironic, looking back."
"Yeah."
"Now what?"
"We keep going after the League of Villains. Please just... stay safe. And don't pull a stunt like this again,"
"I won't. And you won't try to get me a quirk, right?"
"Of course, Problem Child."
Shouta still couldn't get the thought out of his head, but it was lessened. He still didn't return to teaching his classes regularly, but he was able to come back and check in on them. Shigiraki's capture wasn't publicized. He was thrown into Tartarus and that was that.
While Shouta was running down another lead, the League of Villains attacked the summer camp, and Shouta couldn't breathe. Shinso was taken. Twelve students were hospitalized. If Shouta had been there, it could have been less. Shinso could still be safe. And Shouta had a good idea of what they wanted his other personal student for. Shouta was going over everything on the League's case file, trying to find a hint as to where they might be, when Nedzu tapped him on the shoulder.
"You have a visitor," the rat said.
Shouta looked up and did a double-take. Midoriya was standing in the doorway. The kid was wearing his raincoat, but it was unbuttoned and he didn't have his hat or mask on. The cheap goggles hung around his neck, though.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" Shouta stood up, going over to hug his kid. (Shouta gave up denying it to himself.)
"Thought I would check on you. I heard the news, after all. My mom sent cookies," Midoriya said, lofting the plastic bag. "Anything I can do, or..."
"Not really. Intel gathering, at best."
Midoriya nodded. He set the cookies on the conference table.
"Well, if that changes, you know how to contact me. I'll hit the streets, then."
Midoriya pulled his face mask out of one of his pockets and winked at Shouta.
"Stay safe," Shouta called.
"I'd say the same to you, but given the situation, I wouldn't blame you. Good luck!"