Chapter 1
Chance meetings to wreck the world
"Oh, cheer up, Inky" Mitsuki's voice rang out from her right side as Inko Midoriya sat staring solemnly into her drink. "Why are you so sad, anyways? This party is to celebrate your graduation!"
Inko leveled a pitiful stare at her best (and only) childhood friend. "I'm twenty-seven and single, Mitsuki. Hell, I've never even kissed a guy."
Inko slumped further into her chair and placed her chin against the bar Mitsuki had dragged her to and pouted at the wall in front of her.
"That's cause you spent the last decade studying to be a nurse and refusing to come out with me, but don't worry I have the perfect solution to your woes"
Mitsuki puffed out her chest with a proud smirk on her face as if she had just negotiated world peace and hunger at the same time, then turned and faced the party and people she had amassed from who knows where.
"Hey, everybody, we all know why we're here, right? It's to celebrate the graduation, and future career, of my best friend: the lovely Inko Midoriya. Well, guys and gals she has a bit of a problem I think one of you might be able to fi-"
The last part of Mitsuki's impromptu speech was cut off after Inko grabbed the bottom of her dress and tugged her off the barstool she had seemingly manifested from the depths of infinity. Mitsuki fell backward with no worry that her friend would catch her, quickly having her suspicions confirmed as Inko's arms wrapped around her waist.
Seeing her friend smiling without a care or worry in the world made Inko want to drop the blonde woman to the floor, but she couldn't do that. It just wasn't in her nature to hurt someone else, knowingly or otherwise.
Mitsuki smiled up at her friend before standing and facing Inko. "Well, party pooper, I have another solution then. Or more of a threat."
Inko could feel the jaws of doom as Mitsuki made a face that could only be described as taunting or even straight-up sadistic. Mitsuki leaned as close to Inko's face as she could and began to whisper.
"I am going to get a drink from this wonderful bartender and then I'm going to go mingle and I will check back in on you in exactly ten minutes. If you are not talking to someone of the opposite sex or viable sexuality, I will jump up on that bar right there and scream, for everybody in this party to hear, that my innocent little friend needs someone to come up and bend her ov-"
Mitsuki was cut off by Inkos hands yet again, instead this time they clamped over her friend's mouth as the embarrassed woman practically passed out from blood rushing to her face. Mitsuki slowly stood up and removed Inkos's hands from her mouth.
"Inko baby, if you don't take a proactive approach or no one makes you, I do think you'll die a virgin. More than that if anyone on this earth deserves the happiness provided by a good boyfriend it's you, my little cinnamon roll."
Mitsuki finished her mini-speech, cupping Inko's face in her hands and lifting them so Inko was forced to look Mitsuki in the eye.
"However, we both know for a fact that I will take massive amounts of sadistic pleasure in ousting you to this whole bar, that being said please don't make me, Ink."
Mitsuki reached behind Inko and took her drink from the bar top before turning, winking, and sashaying away into the crowd. Having been left alone at the bar with the looming threat of embarrassment and shame hanging over her, Inko was left to pout at her chosen wall yet again.
She ordered a drink from the admittedly handsome bartender before turning around in her stool, hoping to find someone that looked "in her league". At this point she realized something that she had yet to notice: the occupants of this bar were mainly men, handsome men, with a capital H.
So this was Mitsuki's plan all along. Inko sighed before tugging at the downright shameful dress her friend had shoved her into. The getup Mitsuki had bought for her was scandalous; it had a heart-shaped neckline that was much too low. On top of that, the dress only just came down past her knees and hugged her form. Who did Mitsuki think she was, a prostitute?! Inko pouted, looking down and pinching her stomach. A chubby prostitute, maybe.
"Can I just get a whiskey, fireball if you have it?"
Inko was thoroughly distracted from trying to get her dress to cover up to her neck and past her knees by the sound of a man's voice next to her at the bar. Inko turned to her right to try and look at the stranger next to her, only to realize she wasn't even looking at his chest. She was face to face with the man's stomach, he was so tall. Might as well try to talk to him, I don't want Mitsuki to go crazy.
"U-um hi there, uh, sir." Smooth. Like butter. "How are you?" Hey, that wasn't so bad. "My name is Inko Um Inko Midoriya"
"Hi, My name is Enji, I'm doing good, how about you?" Oh, shit, he's talking back!? Most people just ignore me till I go away unless Mitsuki is with me and then she makes them ta-.
"Are you okay?" The man Enji was looking down at her worriedly and almost like he was going to reach out to her.
Shit, I was mumbling again wasn't I, I need to try harder to control that. But the doctors say it's not serious or anything it's just a nervous tick and that's okay, right?
"Hey, are you ok? Inko, right? Just uh, calm down and breathe, it's gonna be fine." Even in a civilian setting, Enji couldn't shake off his hero training to help calm a distressed person, even if he was by far the worst in his class on it.
Inko breathed as deeply as she possibly could, trying not to hyperventilate in front of her possible savior from Mitsuki's wrath. "Yes. Thank you, I'm doing much better."
Enji let out a sigh as he took the seat next to the woman and took a swig out of the glass the bartender had recently set down. "So you never answered my question about how you were, Ms. Midoriya."
"I'm okay, just kind of sad, and to be honest, I don't want to be here." Inko slumped farther into her chair, pouting at the man.
"Not your type of place, huh? I understand that. I've never really liked places like this either. It's too loud. Too many people." The part that Enji left out was the fact that he was extremely paranoid, and the real reason he didn't like these places was that they were crawling with unknown threats that could come from any direction.
"Yeah, my friend decided that I need to be drug out to a bar to find someone and have fun. Why couldn't we just stay at home and drink wine or something?"
"Ah, so you must be the Inko that women were shouting about huh?" The woman blushed so completely that he had a hard time not bursting into laughter.
"No I'm n-not u-" This time he couldn't help it he laughed for the first time in a long time letting out a large belly laugh as the woman stuttered and tried to tell him she wasn't who he thought she was.
He interrupted her tirade after a couple of seconds by placing a tall whiskey in front of the short woman. "Here just drink up, it's okay I promise."
Inko tried to return the smile she was getting from the tall man at the bar but was just too embarrassed so she took the drink as a grateful distraction from her woes.
Enji couldn't remember the last time he had so much fun. It was easily long before U.A. … before All Might and his stupid smiling face.
"Are you okay? You look so sad and angry all of a sudden." The woman was looking at him, concerned and trying to make things better.
Enji Todoroki was a man of morals... was. He had done things and stepped on people to get to the top. He had done horrible things to worse people but had done even more horrible actions to those that didn't deserve it at all. Enji Todoroki was a man that had pushed his morals and his conscience aside long ago to meet his dream: Beating all might-winning.
But sitting here at this bar, destressing for the first time in how many years, he couldn't tell. He looked to his side at this woman that seemed to make all of his actions and inactions disappear. He made a decision. One that would change the fate of the nation and maybe even the world.
Enji Todoroki slipped his left hand into his pocket and, with a little fiddling, he discarded the wedding ring that went unnoticed by the woman into his pocket, and just once for tonight, he opened his heart, leaving out details like his marriage and specific names that would give away his identity. He talked about how, no matter how hard he trained or worked at his job, someone was always better than him, or that it seemed like everyone hated him. When all he wanted to do was be successful, about how he had sacrificed his morals and just about everything in his life to accomplish his dream, and yet he just kept failing.
And for once-for the first time-when the woman consoled and held him, Enji didn't feel like he was weak, or that he had failed, or even that the woman was faking and only doing this to get in his graces, and for the first time in his life when he kissed the woman he met that night he meant it.
Inko Midoriya woke up warm, very warm, with a pounding headache, and her face snuggled into something firm, yet soft.
It took her a few seconds not just to identify exactly what was wrapped around her so securely, but also to identify the events that led her to wherever she was in the first place.
It was a person, specifically the man from the bar, Enji, wrapping her in his arms and holding her against his body. Inko sighed gently before snuggling herself even deeper into the man's embrace. Well, I guess Mitsuki was right… yet again.
Inko sat in Enji's embrace for a good few minutes, soaking in the body heat, before she had a great idea. She would find his clothes and take care of them. After all, he had told her that he did have to go to work sometime today. Besides, didn't everyone love to wake up to the smell of coffee and someone taking care of your tedious chores?
As Inko slipped out of bed as skillfully as she could, she finally got a good look at Enji, not blocked by the fog of smoke, alcohol, or sudden feelings from nowhere. She couldn't help but push her chest out in an increased confidence boost as she slipped on a complimentary robe from the hotel they had found. She hadn't just gotten a man-something she didn't think she could get in the first place-she got a very handsome one at that, even if there was a weird feeling of familiarity to him.
Inko started her morning bustle wrapped in the nice, warm robe, picking up Enji's shirt and jacket and putting them on hangers after brushing them off and smoothing them out. It wouldn't take away all the wrinkles, but it would help. Her attention was focused back on the bed when she heard Enji breathe deeply, and then stretch filling the room with the sounds of popping joints and a series of groans.
She couldn't help but smile over the cup of coffee at him before walking towards the bed and offering him the coffee, which got her a small but amazingly bright smile from the seemingly gloomy man. Inko turned around and kept bustling around the room, gathering her clothes together and making sure to gather all the things that should have been in her purse before it was knocked over during their activities last night.
All the while she was moving, Enji sat at the edge of the bed just watching her before finally speaking up.
"What are you doing?" His tone was between questioning and teasing with just a sprinkle of amusement.
"If you must know I'm getting your clothes together so they don't smell as bad or wrinkle too much so you can go to work."
It was the last article of clothing left that Inko had yet to touch, and Enji was so caught up in early morning bliss and happiness he hadn't felt in so long that he completely forgot about the two things in his pants pocket that would change his life forever.
As Inko picked up Enji's pants, she folded them over and gave them a shake to make sure they were lined up correctly, and things began spilling out of the pants pocket.
"Oh, shoot don't worry ill pick it...up." Inko's eye had become focused on one thing more than the small bundle of business cards that came undone and spilled out in a circle was the ring, a bright silver wedding band laying smack dab in the middle of the ring of business cards, and was the only thing she could focus on.
She bent down and slowly grasped the ring and scooped up a business card before looking at Enji-no, she looked at the pro hero, Endeavor, a married man, and a man she had slept with last night.
Quickly, Endeavor got off the bed, holding the blanket around his waist. "Wait, Inko, you don't understand I can ex-."
"No, you can't. You can't explain," Inko couldn't keep the tears out of her eyes, and in an uncharacteristic action, she pushed Endeavor backward onto the bed. "You can't explain because there is nothing to explain. You are married and you slept with me. We slept together."
Inko was crying freely at this point. She felt hurt, lied to, betrayed, and downright filthy from sleeping with a married man. Of course, she didn't know, but her gut told her she should have. That there were signs she could've seen, even if they weren't there.
"Inko, I'm sorry, I just don't-" She interrupted him again, but this time instead of words, for the first time in her life, Inko Midoriya hit somebody.
Endeavor was a strong man, a pro hero. Inko Midoriya was a nurse who had barely ever worked out in her life and only to keep fit, not for strength training, and yet her slap hit harder than any blow he ever received. Even hits from All Might never carry the pain of shame, right shame, that burned worse than any cut or wound.
"No, shut up. You are a pro hero and a married man, how could you do this?" Inko sobbed, throwing the ring to the ground at his feet before the room fell into silence save for Inko's sobs.
"How much?" His question interrupted her crying to confuse her feelings and her mind even more than before.
"What?"
"How much for you not to talk?" He looked at the ground, staring at it defeated, his shoulders slumped and his head down a far cry from the tall proud man who had opened up to her just the night before.
"I know how this works. I pay to make sure that you don't say anything and we go our separate ways. It happens all the time to idiot heroes like me, although this will be my first." Inko looked down at the back of his head as the man she saw was deteriorating in front of her, and she realized that she wasn't the only one crying.
"I just liked the way you helped, the way you listened and didn't hate me, the way I could talk and look at you without feeling disgusted with myself."
Inko Midoriya was nothing if not a kind soul, and even a man like Enji was someone that she could forgive, especially with the pain he seemed to be going through. But that didn't excuse what he'd done, not to her, but to his children and to his wife, or the reputation and precedent he was supposed to set as a pro hero.
"I'll tell you what it costs. My silence comes at the price of you being a good man, going home to be a good husband, a good father, and a great hero. That's what my silence will cost, but most of all, it hinges on you not only telling your wife what you did but also making sure it never happens again."
Inko Midoriya had already formed and fleshed out the two sides of Enji she had seen and she had concluded that Enji Todoroki was not a bad man. He was just lost, extremely lost, and in his darkness, he lashed out, and as he lashed out, he pushed others away, creating his torturous hell-like cycle.
"That is the cost of my silence, but don't doubt me for even a second if I don't see you standing up and being a true hero from here on out, or I catch even a whiff of someone saying that you did this again, then I will tell everyone. Every person on the street will know that the pro hero Endeavor hid his identity and marriage from me and picked me up in a dive bar, and then tried to bribe me so I wouldn't tell."
Inko turned around, grabbing her purse and the hanger that had her clothes on. She left the hotel room to find a restroom she could change in and get home, leaving Enji Todoroki to stew and replay every word she had said over and over again.
However, there was one thing Inko forgot. Between the fog of alcohol, rage, and excitement from her morning, Inko Midoriya would not even give a thought to birth control-or any contraceptive, for that matter.
AN: This is my first story so, I want you to judge because I won't learn anything if you don't, but more importantly I was planning on waiting until I had the second chapter complete to post this but my Beta said "No balls" and here we are.
This chapter was beta'd by my best friend KatelynTheFireFist20 over on wattpad so feel free to go over there if you see anything wrong in the grammar/editing department.