There was one crucial detail Izuku forgot about his groundbreaking little idea: convincing people to clean the beach would require... convincing people.
It was time to start honing his car-hauling skills.
"It's..." a chuckle echoed through Izuku's phone speaker as he meandered his way down the streets on the way to school. "...it's that intimidating to you, is it? Goodness."
Yagi was apparently extremely bored that morning and had been since about 5 AM, judging by the timestamps on the awful dated memes Izuku found desecrating his inbox when he woke up. He wasn't sure if Yagi's sense of humor was ironic, and he was afraid to ask at this point.
"I'm just... bad at talking," Izuku murmured. If he talked a little, he got weird looks. If he talked a lot, he got weirder ones. Well, except with Yagi. But Yagi was the patron saint of longsuffering, so he was an exception.
Yagi let out a low chuckle. "You don't have any shortage of words when you're passionate about something, my boy," he said, and Izuku scowled. "You just need to choose them carefully."
He made it sound easy. Izuku stopped at a traffic light, tapping his shoe on the pavement idly. "I'm also a Quirkless middle schooler... I once got 500 likes on a hero analysis blog post, and that's about it."
That got a laugh. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"I have zero qualifications! Who's going to listen to me?"
"When you went to help young Bakugo, did he stop you and demand to see your job experience?" Yagi asked. Izuku was a little nervous that he had gone to the trouble to find out Kacchan's name. "Of course not. People want qualifications when they aren't sure who can help them. But if the answer is obvious, they don't need those extra steps. Usually."
Yagi's voice was warm, fond. "You overestimate the value of your reputation in all this, young Midoriya... and you underestimate the value of what you have to give. Deep down, nobody wants a resume. They just want to feel cared for. And you naturally care about what other people need. It shines through in what you do. It's one of the things I admire most about you."
Izuku bit down the shy smile trying to creep onto his face. He still wasn't sure if it was quite that simple. His whole life, all his potential had been sealed away before he even had a chance to show it. Quirkless was all anyone needed to know in order to write him off. The bored guidance counselors didn't understand just how damning it was. They just rattled off the same shallow advice they gave everyone else, and called it a day.
But Yagi wasn't like them. Yagi had lived through the same things Izuku had. And still, somehow, he could say these things like he really believed them.
The traffic light turned green. Izuku glanced down the road, then started walking forward.
"You'll be surprised to find how little people really care about who you are," Yagi said. "When it comes down to it, they care about what you can give them. Show them the bright future you can help them create, and they'll flock to your side."
He knocked gingerly, then peeked into the newspaper club's meeting room, a little space next to the school library that served as the graveyard for all the old computers and printers the school went through. Six pairs of eyes swiveled to stare back at him, and he choked and froze. Six kids and zero adults were terrifying odds.
There was a long pause. The other students were sitting around a table crammed with laptops and books and a few boxy dinosaur-tier computer monitors, clearly in the middle of something he'd interrupted. They looked up at him with various levels of confused recognition, because everyone at this school knew who the dumb Quirkless kid was, everyone knew not to give him the time of day, everyone had heard the vicious jokes—
A girl with iridescent freckles and pale pink hair glanced towards him, then back to the others, then back towards him, and finally broke the stalemate, hopping up from her seat and bouncing forward with a practiced smile plastered to her face. "Hello!" she chirped, with all the plastic politeness of a seasoned journalist. "My name is Hidaka! How can we help you?"
"I, I, I, um..." he had practiced what he was going to say. But the words were gone, long gone. Why was he even here?
"A proposal!" he blurted out, finally. "...like the business term! Not dating! I, um, I'm doing a proposal, to a hero agency, a-and..." his brain ran dry. God, he was awful at this.
The freckled girl frowned. "A proposal?" She glanced over to a boy slouched in the back of the room wearing big black over-ear headphones. He was the only one not staring; instead he was absorbed in his phone. "Umm... Setsu? Do we do that?"
The boy—Izuku vaguely recognized him; he was a third-year too, but in a different class—glanced up from under his long black bangs. Izuku couldn't tell what he was thinking, just that he was. "Can you explain your idea a little more?" he finally asked. "Hidaka can help you. She's our VP; she knows what we do as well as me."
"Um! That's right!" Hidaka burbled. "Sorry. He's our club president! But he's working right now." She put her hands on her hips, her freckles sparkling in the fluorescent light like she had glitter splashed across her face. "So you're proposing something? To an agency? Do you want us to fact-check it?"
His brain clicked back into its groove for the briefest second. Show them that bright future, and they'll flock to you.
Could he really make them want to help? Nobody at this school had helped him before. He didn't even want to buddy up with people who, at best, just stood by and watched as the crueler kids made his life miserable for years.
But... he cared more about getting this project off the ground than he cared about that.
"No, I, uh, I was wondering if you wanted to present it. I think it would have more impact if it, if it came from an official school group instead of just a random kid..." Show them what you can give them. "Even if it didn't get off the ground, it could still be great networking for you guys. If it did get off the ground, it'd be even better."
The other kids were looking at him with interest now. "Okay, but what is it?" one of them asked.
"Oh!" Duh. "Uh, do you know the beach park? The one with all the trash?" A sea of nods.
Izuku wrestled through the palpable awkwardness and explained the beach cleanup idea, haltingly, with a lot of stuttering and false starts. And, shockingly, they listened. Aside from the bored-looking kid—Setsumoto—the other kids in the room were all first-years, which meant that, bizarrely, they treated Izuku like the adult. Maybe his reputation didn't precede him quite as much in the younger grade levels, or maybe the kinds of kids who went into newspaper club had some sympathy for being social outcasts.
When they asked more questions, he went over to one of the computers to open up his notes, feeling very vulnerable as he immersed himself in this group of strangers with no clear escape route to the door. Hidaka looked at the screen with raised eyebrows.
"This is a lot of info," she mused. "Why aren't you in this club doing research for us?"
A boy with mousy hair that was even curlier than Izuku's leaned in over his shoulder, and Izuku had to suppress the urge to flinch. "Y'know, my dad works in recycling... I bet if we gave him these numbers, he could help figure out what it would take to move it all. The agency probably would want some kind of estimate."
"Oh!" Hidaka said. "And I bet they'd want to know the general public's opinion too! We could make some kind of survey!"
And just like that, they grabbed the idea and started to run with it. Their club president sat off to the side, looking at his phone, and Izuku realized there was a speech-to-text app open on it and he was reading the conversation as it unfolded. Izuku watched them chatter amongst themselves, a little relieved that he wasn't being asked to lead the discussion.
Of course, as soon as he thought that, one of the kids turned on him.
"Hey, how come you're doing this anyway?" she asked. "Is this, like, for a graduation project?" All six pairs of eyes suddenly nailed him to his seat.
"I, um, I..." Billions of brain cells in his head, and not a single one had anything to give him.
Another kid piped in. "Does this have to do with the time you saved Bakugo? That was crazy! Are you friends with the hero agencies or something?"
He leaned back in alarm. "N-no, definitely not friends, I just, uh,..."
A boy who seemed to have small flower buds growing from his arms spoke up. "Everyone said that you corner people and harass them about their Quirks 'cause you're just jealous you don't have one. But you actually know what you're talking about. You're really trying to become a hero, aren't you?"
"I... well..." Dread crawled into his stomach at the question. "...Yeah. I'm trying."
He braced himself. But the jeers didn't come. "I mean, you already fought a villain and everything..." Hidaka mused. "That's more than any of us have done!"
And then they frolicked off onto another topic. Izuku stared, a little shell-shocked. He... he was unscathed. That had never happened before.
Mousy-haired kid pledged to get info from his dad and pass it along. Hidaka decided to make an opinion poll about the beach and post it on the school's social media. Everyone collectively agreed that he was, in fact, friends with the hero agencies, and he was just trying to be modest about it. They were interrupted when Setsumoto jumped and sat up straight in his chair, tapping his headphones in an excited rhythm. "I hear 'em! It's starting!" he crowed, eyes sparkling, then scurried off to a nearby laptop. The other kids followed, crowding around him like chicks around a mother hen.
Izuku wasn't sure what to do. "...What's starting?" he asked.
"Faculty planning meeting!" Hidaka blurted out with a grin. Then her eyes got wide. "...you can't tell anyone about this," she added hurriedly as Setsumoto started typing, fingers flying over the keyboard. "We can't let them know we found their new meeting spot. It took ages to figure it out."
He looked at the big headphones. "Are... did you plant listening devices in the school?"
"What? No! It's his Quirk! Sense Displacement!"
"Sense Dis..." Izuku's eyes got wide as he realized why the other boy had been reading their conversation using speech-to-text. "Like, he can move his senses to other locations? How does it work? Is it a contact Quirk or—"
"He can tell you later! Don't be weird!"
Suddenly, it made more sense how the student newspaper managed to get such amazingly accurate "guesses" of "possible" upcoming school events, way before the teachers ever officially announced anything, and why the teachers looked so exasperated whenever they read them. Also probably definitely not legal Quirk usage, but Izuku wasn't about to snitch.
He left the club room with a new group chat on his phone, a page's worth of scribbled theories on Setsumoto's Quirk, and an overwhelming feeling that sat somewhere between elation and extreme alarm. This was a real undertaking now, with other people involved. He'd probably screw everything up and then die of shame.
Somehow, he continued to survive. Still, between school, training, exam prep, and now this, he was so busy he barely had time to eat and breathe anymore. His unread Hero Chat notifications were piling up in the hundreds. There were new All Might videos that he hadn't even watched.
"So it's all finished up?" Yagi asked in a low voice, while Izuku heaved a plate onto his barbell with the loud thunking clink of metal on metal. The sports center was fairly empty that day, but they still tried not to be too noisy. Mom was over on the treadmills as usual, chatting with a lady next to her.
"Yeah," Izuku said. "We double-checked it yesterday. The club said they're going to call her agency sometime today!"
Yagi tilted his head. "You're not making the call?"
"No... I suck at talking on the phone." Izuku glanced away, busying himself with the second, smaller plate. "They've been giving me tips, but I'm still not great. We figured it'd be better for the president to do it." Calling out was easy enough, but his brain still emptied itself on the floor the second he heard someone pick up on the other end of the line.
"They've really been a huge help..." Izuku continued, "They got some price estimates, and they helped ask some of our school sponsors if they would offer to chip in, and they even interviewed a few kids who got hurt playing out there a few months ago."
"That does sound useful." Yagi offered him the weight clips, and he reached out and took them. "You're adding more weight this time?" Yagi paused, then squinted. "...Wait, no, you would have added weight last time. But I wasn't here last time."
"Yeah..." Izuku murmured. He hadn't been.
Yagi fell silent, looking out somewhere across the gym floor, as Izuku got to work on his bench reps and tried to focus.
When it comes down to it, they care about what you can give them.
What was Izuku giving Yagi that drew him back here, over and over? It wasn't a salary. It wasn't the way Izuku tripped over his feet and his words with equal awkwardness. It probably wasn't the food they sometimes tried to invite him to afterwards, not knowing how else to thank him... he only ever ate a few bites, if he ate at all. (Which drove Izuku quietly crazy... if anyone needed to eat many, many bites of food, it was him.)
Yagi had said that Izuku reminded him of himself. Was this a way for him to relive his glory days? If so, Izuku's usefulness was running out. He already knew how to strength train. Yagi was wasting his time here. They were going over basic movement techniques at the beach, but Izuku had no idea how long it would take before they exhausted that topic, too. Someday, Yagi would have nothing else to teach.
"Hey," Yagi's voice cut through his thoughts, and Izuku saw that he had grabbed the barbell. "Your chest isn't a trampoline. No bouncing the bar. Do you need to scale the weight back?"
"N-no, no, I'm fine," Izuku stuttered, "Sorry... I got distracted. I was thinking."
He let Yagi lead the bar back to the safeties so he could let it go. Yagi looked down at him fondly. "I still say that overthinking things is your biggest strength... but it has some downsides here."
"...Yeah," Izuku murmured.
Did Yagi just want to pass on the knowledge he couldn't use anymore? Or were the two of them even more similar than Izuku thought? Had Yagi once dreamed of the same things Izuku did? Had he tried to get into U.A.'s hero course too? If he did try, he must not have succeeded. There had never been a Quirkless U.A. student before, much less one in the hero course. Maybe helping Izuku was a way of trying to vicariously fulfill his old dreams.
What would he do if Izuku failed too?
Yagi wasn't up to food afterwards, but he did walk with them down to the light rail station to wait with them for their train. Izuku and Mom's stop was down the south line, and Yagi's was somewhere along the north one, further into the heart of the city.
Mom was in the middle of happily telling them how she'd met another lady from their apartment complex on the treadmill next to her when Izuku's phone rang. It was the noise of a group voice call—probably the newspaper club, since that was the only group chat he had on his phone. Had they called the agency already?
He dug out his phone and hit the answer button, and the speaker exploded with the sound of six kids all screeching at the top of their lungs. Izuku winced and held the phone away from his ear.
"THEY SAID YES!" he heard through the din, and his eyes went wide.
"I'm going to mute you guys if you don't shut up," Setsumoto's voice cut over the rest of them. "They said they're interested, and they want to arrange a meeting."
"They want us to come to the agency! Her hero agency!"
"That's, that's great!" Izuku cried. He looked over at Mom and Yagi. "The agency's interested!"
"Yes, we can hear that," Yagi said with a smile.
"That's great, sweetie!" Mom cried.
Hidaka yelled over the chatter. "Midoriya! What times can you make it?"
Izuku's grin evaporated. "You want me to come? Why?"
"Because it's your project? And you're the one who's friends with the agencies!"
"I'm not—" but his protests were swallowed up in the clamor. Somehow, through the rampant game of telephone that they called investigative journalism, he had become a seasoned veteran on a first-name basis with every hero in the city, and nothing he said could convince them otherwise.
"We've never been to an agency before! You have to introduce us!"
"What do we wear?"
"Do they want a presentation? Should we be making a slideshow?"
"I have Mt. Lady memes on my Hero Chat profile, should I delete them?"
He looked over at Yagi helplessly. "What do I tell them?" he whispered, holding the phone away. "You do this kind of thing for your job, don't you? You have to, with the way you talk about it." Izuku would bet money that Yagi's job had some kind of relation with hero agencies. He dropped hero jargon like it was second nature, and his advice was too specific to be secondhand.
Yagi's eyes widened, and he sputtered and coughed sharply. "I—"
"Wait, who are you talking to?" came a voice from the phone. Oh no. There was a brief pause before the call completely erupted.
"You know someone who works at an agency!?"
"I knew it! I knew you were friends with a hero! You've been holding out on us!"
"Put them on speakerphone!"
"Speakerphone!"
Izuku stared at the device in his hand, horrorstruck, then looked over at Yagi, who was now doubled over into a handkerchief. Mom was patting him on the back, looking sympathetic.
"Nh—not in the mood for reporters," Yagi rasped.
Izuku turned back to his squawking phone, face burning. "He's not—" he hissed. "He's not a hero! He's, he's helping me train for the U.A. exam—"
"You have a personal trainer!?"
"—and he's got a very busy schedule but I'm sure if you wrote down a short list of questions, he might be willing to answer them..." Izuku glanced over to Yagi, who stared back at him from behind his handkerchief, his brows hovering somewhere in the stratosphere.
Izuku tried to wrestle the conversation back to something productive, like figuring out a date and time for the meeting, but the other kids kept circling back to the identity of his mysterious benefactor like hungry puppies to a steak, their guesses getting wilder and wilder each time.
Next to him, Mom and Yagi stood patiently, clearly able to overhear snippets of this train wreck of a conversation. The kids' theories quickly ballooned from world-renowned trainer, to Top 10 agency manager, to secret underground hero who was also an agency manager and spent his spare time teaching promising young pupils who would one day inherit his vast empire. Mom giggled every time they threw out a lurid new idea, while Yagi seemed more and more concerned by the second. At the last one, he glanced away, looking deeply perturbed, and let out another cough.
"They have me all figured out, don't they," he muttered. Mom burst into laughter, and Izuku was fairly sure he could feel the years being shaved off his life from sheer crushing embarrassment. Meanwhile, the bickering over the meeting date continued, because it was physically impossible for seven middle-schoolers to agree on anything.
There was a chime over the loudspeakers: north line train arriving. Yagi looked towards where it was pulling in, let out a short sigh, then leaned down and made a beckoning motion to Izuku. Izuku stepped closer, confused.
"If I may," Yagi said, in earshot of the phone, and the raucous conversation went dead silent. "If you can manage it, the best time to hold a meeting is mid-week, and after lunch, but not too late in the day. Everyone feels more agreeable after they've eaten."
A chorus of oohs and thank you sirs and what's your secret hero name?s bubbled from the speaker. He gave a thin smile, looking resigned to the lunacy. "You're welcome," he replied. "Secret underground hero agency managers are always happy to help citizens in need."
Then he gave Izuku a pat on the head, and went down to catch his train. "Bye!" Izuku cried after him, and he raised a hand in a wave as he went.
After that little intervention, it got a lot easier to pick a time. After what seemed like an eternity, Izuku finally ended the call, and immediately sent off a text to apologize for the travesty that had just unfolded.
Izuku 4:12pm: I'm so sorry, they do that all the time, they take the tiniest little comment and run with it until it's completely crazy...
There was another chime—their train coming into the station. Then the ping of a reply.
Yagi 4:13pm: Seems like they'll make fine journalists, then.
He smiled. But then Yagi sent another message, and his smile disappeared.
Yagi 4:14pm: I meant to bring this up before I left, but you were a little distracted with your phone call. I won't be able to make it on Fridays any longer, I'm starting a class that's being held at the same time.
Izuku's chest felt like it was being squeezed. A class? It wasn't enough that his work kept him on-call for 30 hours a day? He almost tripped as he hurried onto the train, focused on typing.
Izuku 4:14pm: What kind of class? How long does it take?
Yagi 4:16pm: It's just some certification for work. It's nothing interesting, just takes time.
Izuku hated the non-answers Yagi gave whenever he or Mom asked about his job, but he could tell when he was getting hints not to pry. He'd already creeped out enough people in his life by asking too many personal questions. If Yagi wanted to tell him specifics, he would have done so.
He felt an ugly feeling settle into his stomach as he sent off one last text, knowing it wasn't going to do any good.
Izuku 4:17pm: We could start going to the gym at a different time?
Yagi 4:18pm: Oh, no, I wouldn't want to inconvenience you or your mother. I'm not really useful at this point anyway.
Izuku stared down at the words. It was true. Nothing left to give. So no reason to be there.
Over the next few days, they all collectively begged Yagi to come with them to their meeting and use his secret hero/trainer/agency manager knowledge to help, but he politely told Izuku that he didn't want to steal their thunder. They were on their own.
"The whole thing is probably just for show, anyway," he told Izuku. "There's not much, legally, they can even discuss with minors. I'm sure it's just to give you kids a fun experience and get some cute photographs. Don't worry too much about it."
That made sense. (Again, there was that oddly specific knowledge. Maybe he really was a top-secret agency manager.) Still, Izuku spent the rest of the evening fitfully hunting for articles on boardroom etiquette.
Both Yagi and the Internet said it would be perfectly professional to show up in their school uniforms as long as they were clean and neat, so they decided to schedule the meeting right after school and go straight to the agency as soon as class got out. So once the last bell rang, Izuku was promptly ambushed by the news club. They introduced him to their club advisor, a diminutive older teacher who said he was just there to supervise, then set off for the station, with Setsumoto leading the pack and Izuku trailing along at the back next to the teacher.
Mt. Lady's agency was in the densest part of the city, sandwiched into a gridlock of tall buildings and packed roadways. If the big sign proclaiming her name wasn't enough, its roof had two enormous gaudy purple horns perched on top of it that instantly made it the highlight of the whole block.
"So, um, because of her size, it's hard for her to deploy straight from the agency onto this cramped little street. But the reason she picked this spot was because..." Izuku pointed over to the busy street nearby, "...this is the biggest commuter route in Musutafu. Everyone knows her name, because they drive by her agency every day!"
The first-years oohed and aahed and started chattering amongst themselves about the importance of location in media exposure, and Izuku saw Setsumoto smile from his spot at the front of the group. It was strange to actually have a reason to rattle off his obscure hero trivia, and even stranger to have people appreciate it. He liked it.
Aside from the horns, the building was surprisingly normal-looking up-close, like any other cookie-cutter office space. As they walked through the double doors, Izuku noticed, through his haze of nerves, that the floor map only listed Mt. Lady's agency on the bottom two floors. The other floors looked like they were occupied by a call center and an accounting firm.
The inside was a strange clash of wildly exciting and weirdly ordinary. There was a bright 3D decal splashed across a whole wall as they entered, and a big flat-screen TV blaring clips of Mt. Lady's exciting exploits... and then there was a water cooler, rows of cubicles, a copier that looked like it was on its very last legs. Some of it was color-coordinated in purple-and-cream, the rest looked like it could have come from any office supply store. It probably wasn't cheap to deck everyone out with royal purple office chairs.
To his horror, everyone in the room immediately honed in on them as soon as they arrived. He did his best to blend into the potted plants near the entrance as the office workers, mostly women, flocked around them and cooed over their little group. Luckily, the rest of the news club students were outgoing enough that they absorbed most of the attention, plus they were already aware that Izuku was, quote, "a big baby" and needed to be protected from things like direct conversation. Luckily, it didn't take long before a secretary shooed the other adults back to work and herded them over to the stairs.
The meeting room they found themselves in was surprisingly plain, but Mt. Lady's presence made up for it. She was in full hero costume, and even in her normal form she seemed larger-than-life. She strode forward with a dazzling smile, arms swept wide.
"The great Aldera outreach group!" she crowed. "You made it!"
The news club kids exploded into excited chatter, and she grinned wider. "Let's all take a seat, hm? I'll introduce you to my team here!" They instantly obeyed, bowing and scurrying for the empty chairs around the table. She kept up a friendly dialogue as they got settled. "Let me tell you, we were really impressed when we looked over what you sent. Usually it takes months for discovery to come up with that much info. That's part of why we don't try stuff like this more often... it's so much effort just to figure whether it's even doable!"
Izuku breathed a sigh of relief as he crept into the farthest chair down. He had been worried how this would come off. Whether they'd just been arrogant, a bunch of stupid kids trying to talk about things they didn't understand, whether her team had probably already researched the beach and written it off as a bad idea. But it didn't seem that way. She seemed genuinely grateful.
"So, I'll go down the line," she said. "This is Ms. Tanaka, she's the head of media relations, so she tells me what not to say on TV. This is Ms. Sho..."
Mt. Lady went down the list of her staff (Izuku badly wished he could take notes, but Yagi had said he should focus on socializing instead of putting his face in a book. As if). Then she asked the news club to introduce themselves. His nerves pitched higher and higher as each kid gave a little intro, and when they got to him, he mumbled out his name and something about research.
There. That wasn't so bad.
Except then, Mt. Lady looked him in the eye and pointed a finger straight at him. "...You. That's right. Izuku Midoriya!"
The walls closed in on him with dizzying speed as everyone turned to stare. "Um...?" he squeaked. "Yes?"
"They said you're the one who came up with this whole idea. But you're not part of the club, and your name's not even on the proposal."
Somehow his mouth was still working, even though every other part of him was completely frozen in prey-mode panic. What on earth had the other kids said about him in that phone call? "Well, I... I figured it would look better if an official group pitched it..."
"You were part of that one hostage situation too, a few months ago! You ran in there like a maniac! Then ran off just as quick. Backdraft said you were the whole reason he realized he could take on that villain, but you didn't take any credit at all. And now you're doing this." She cocked her head. "So what's your angle? What're you trying to accomplish here? Why dump all this stuff on us for free?"
"I..." he looked down at a scuff on the table before her stare could bore a hole in him. She made it sound like he was trying to pull one over on them.
"I... I don't have an angle," he finally blurted out. "The beach is gross, and someone needs to do something about it. But heroes already have so much to handle, it's hard to set up a project like this on top of what you're already doing. I thought, maybe I could help put together some stuff that would make it easier..."
The room was still, apparently waiting for him to continue. But that was as far ahead as he had thought. Being around the raucous news kids had helped him get over his tendency to freeze completely under stress, but he still wasn't great at handling it.
He scrambled to come up with something else. "I... I thought of asking you specifically because your Quirk would be good for it, and because, um... because heroes with size Quirks get a 16% lower than average approval rating compared to other heroes with the exact same success metrics... because you get assigned to jobs that cause more property damage no matter what, which makes people mad even if it's not your fault... and agencies take a 3% loss on average for incidents that exceed 2 million in damages, but the commission system doesn't take that into account even if that's what you specialize in..."
He caught himself. Numbers were soothing, but it wouldn't be good to rattle them off forever. "Anyway, that's... it's not fair... and... I thought, this could be a way to, uh, help offset that... to help people see that you do good things... to help get people to appreciate what you do."
A long silence stretched on after he finished. He glanced up. Mt Lady was looking at him, but her lively attitude had vanished. She had an almost somber look on her face.
"...You memorized all those statistics?" she finally said, her voice quiet.
"He does that," one of the news club kids piped in, then let out a muffled yelp as another kid elbowed him.
She didn't reply, just kept looking at him with that oddly lost expression, and Izuku was suddenly struck by how young she was, sitting there dolled up in her costume and stage makeup, at the head of a table that looked too big for her. She was older than him, of course. But she was younger than all her staff. She was the same age as the university students he saw around town, except instead of bumming around the karaoke bars on Saturday nights, she was taking on the grief of a whole city, pulling undercompensated shifts and putting her life on the line only to get labeled World's Biggest Bimbo on the local tabloids.
Now she was the one to glance down at the table. "...Nobody ever thinks of that..." she said. "Nobody thinks about how we're bleeding every time we take these jobs... and every little thing feels like it comes with a price tag..."
She gave a strained smile. "It's... been a long time since someone did something for us just to be nice. It... means a lot."
She took a deep breath, like she was trying to reinflate herself. "So—" he could hear the bubbly edge forcing its way back into her voice, "—we want to make sure you get your name on this, at least! You deserve it!"
And with that, her peppy front was back, like it had never slipped. She slapped one hand on the table. "You've got to think of your future, kid! Exposure is everything!"
He felt a little afraid again as she stared him down with a grin. "I, I, um, ok..."
The rest of the meeting passed in a nauseating haze of adrenaline. Yagi had guessed right: they spent the end of it doing picture time while another staff member pulled the club advisor off to the side and gave him a handful of forms. Izuku probably looked terrified in all the shots, but he was too stressed at that point to care.
The smoggy city air had never smelled sweeter as they finally burst out of the building to freedom. Some of the news kids were trying to chatter at him, but he outright ignored them. He was beyond done. He had been personally singled out by a Pro Hero and forced to give a speech in front of everyone, and he was still alive despite it... but only barely. He wanted to lock himself in a soundproof room and not come out for two days.
Then a familiar voice rang over the din of cars and noisy middle schoolers. "Sweetie?"
He glanced up. "Mom!" She stood a little ways off from the entrance, smiling.
She held her arms out, and he raced over, feeling her Quirk tug at his clothes as she pulled him into a hug. The relief washed over him in a wave as she wrapped her arms around him. He didn't even care how he looked, clinging to his mom in the middle of a city street. He had survived, and Mom was here, and she was warm and soft and familiar and everything was going to be okay.
"How did it go?" she asked.
"I-it was awful," he whimpered. "I mean, it went great, but..."
She laughed. "Oh, I know what you mean. It's so stressful, even when it turns out well, right?" He nodded into her shoulder, swallowing. She understood; she got just as anxious as he did. There had been so many times that she had come home from work meetings and cried her eyes out all evening while he kept her supplied with blankets and ice cream and hugs. Now she was returning the favor.
Then mom perked up. "Oh, hello—" she tapped Izuku on the shoulder. He bit down a frustrated noise. He didn't want to talk to anyone else anymore, he just wanted to bury himself in Mom's cardigan and somehow teleport straight home that way. He grudgingly pulled away and turned to see who she was talking to. Hidaka was standing a few meters away, bouncing on her heels.
"Hey! Um, Setsu says he's going to treat us to a convenience store raid! Do you want to come get something?"
Midoriya looked out at the overwhelmingly lively pack of kids further off. Another hour of strangers and loud noise? He leaned back against Mom. "...N-no thanks... I'll pass... I hope it's fun, though. Thanks."
"That's fine! We kinda figured," she gave a sympathetic smile. "You look, uh, stressed out. We'll celebrate together sometime else, okay?" He nodded mutely, and she beamed, freckles sparkling. "We did good! Talk to you later!" She hurried back to the group. A few of them waved.
It struck him then: they had just tried to include him. Without being coerced by an adult. They wanted the Quirkless kid to join their outing.
He couldn't remember the last time someone his age had invited him to anything.
Mom watched them chatter and banter and slowly move down the street. "That's actually good luck, that they're not heading straight to the station..." she mused.
What? "Why?"
She had a gleeful twinkle in her eye. "You'll see!" He straightened up, thoroughly confused now. She kept watching the group of kids as they meandered down the street. When they turned the corner, she whipped out her phone and began tapping away. Was she texting someone?
She gave the screen one final tap with a satisfied smile as he looked on, mystified. And then a few moments later, he heard another familiar voice.
"They're gone? Thank goodness. You certainly know how to pick a media team, young Midoriya."
His heart slammed against his ribcage as he whirled around. Peeking out from the entrance of the building next door was the wild mane of gold-yellow hair he knew so well. Yagi glanced down the street, a small half-grin tugging at the edge of his mouth, then stepped out of the building completely when he seemed sure he wouldn't be ambushed by a horde of hyperactive aspiring journalists.
"Congratulations, it looks like you survived!" he called. "I wanted to make sure in person. I thought that it might be strange to just show up, but your mother said it would be all right."
His sudden appearance was like a hammer blow to Izuku's already shattered composure. He should've felt happy to see him—he did, he was overjoyed—but all the anxious, off-kilter worry that had been building for weeks slammed into him at the same time. His breath lodged in his throat, and he fought back a sudden mad urge to dash forward, like Yagi would disappear again at any second if he didn't get to him in time.
Instead, he managed to keep himself to a trot. The man ruffled his hair as he got within arm's length. "So, was it as bad as you feared?"
Izuku shivered. "M-Mt. Lady singled me out in front of the whole room."
"Really? What happened?" Yagi looked truly surprised. "And to think I told you there was nothing to worry about..." Izuku let out a shaky laugh.
Mom made her way over to the two of them. "Izuku, I need your help," she said. "I bought ingredients for katsudon tonight, and I told him that you'd love if he came to celebrate with us, but he won't believe me."
Something jumped in his chest at the same time his stomach growled. It would be a better end to the day than he could possibly dream of.
Yagi laughed and waved one hand. "I couldn't possibly steal your food. I didn't even help with this project! It was all you!"
"Y-you're the whole reason I even thought of this!" Izuku protested. It was a weak, dumb excuse to ask someone to give up their evening. It wasn't like food was much of a reward for Yagi anyway; he barely ever ate anything. But today had been too much. Izuku was exhausted, and worn thin, and the only thought that filled his head was please don't leave.
Yagi smiled at him. "I just wanted to congratulate you. You're both very kind, but you don't need to entertain me. You just finished doing something very generous already. You deserve a break! Go enjoy your evening!"
Izuku stared, dumbfounded. Yagi's words were so backwards they didn't even register properly at first, like he was speaking a different language. Like they would be the ones wasting their evening entertaining a needy acquaintance, not the other way around.
Then Mom spoke up. "Izuku," she asked. Her voice sounded pointed. "Would you be happy if Mr. Yagi came over?"
Izuku froze. He knew he wasn't supposed to be clingy, he knew. But...
"Yeah..." he murmured, half-hoping the sound of traffic would swallow up his words.
Yagi stilled. "..Oh," he said, after a long pause. "Well, if that's the case, who am I to refuse? This celebration is for you, after all."
Mom smiled knowingly, and a part of Izuku felt guilty. But a much bigger part of him felt immensely, unimaginably relieved.
When they got to their apartment, Izuku hurried off to his room to change out of his school uniform, then got distracted as the news club kids texted him some questions. When he came back out, Mom and Yagi were in the kitchen. Their murmurs drifted out down the hall.
"I suppose I never had a reason to learn very much..." Yagi was leaning over a pot on the stove. "I've only ever cooked for myself. Is this what you mean by a low boil?"
Mom glanced over. "Not qu—your bangs!" Yagi reared back, one hand flying up to cover his mouth, the other hurriedly pushing back a long crimped strand that had almost dipped into the water.
He wheezed. "I, ah, I'm sorry—"
"We're boiling vegetables, not hair!" she chided, and laughed, and after a hesitant second, he started chuckling too—quiet at first, but quickly deepening to that deep, warm baritone that always seemed to fill up the whole room. Izuku looked at the two of them framed in the little kitchen alcove, standing together, laughing over little things, and something lodged in his throat at the sight. Then Yagi glanced out and caught Izuku's eye, a soft, contented smile on his face, and whatever was in Izuku's throat spread through his whole chest. It was warm, and it ached.
He swallowed and ducked his head. "Do you guys need any help?" he asked, staring at the hardwood.
"You could get this man out of my kitchen," Mom quipped. "Too many cooks!"
"Ah, but I was doing so well at ruining dinner. I can't stop now."
"Go show him your All Might collection, Izuku!" Izuku's eyes snapped wide at the suggestion, and Yagi's smile abruptly disappeared.
Dinner was delicious, as it always was. Takeout katsu tasted like stale frying oil and sadness compared to Mom's cooking. Piping hot, sticky rice topped with eggs and sweet caramelized onion, topped with golden-brown cutlets so crisp they were practically still crackling.
"Izuku!" she scolded. "You're blowing crumbs all over the table! We have a guest!" Izuku paused briefly in his attempt to get the piece of cutlet down to sub-volcanic temperatures as fast as possible so that he could shove it in his mouth.
Yagi looked on, chin in hand. "I don't know... it could run away and escape if he lets it go uneaten for even a few more seconds."
Mom rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't encourage him." Izuku grinned, bit down on the piece of cutlet, and burned his tongue.
Yagi kept up his banter, but it seemed more put-on than Izuku was used to, and he lapsed into silence when not being spoken to. In the comfortable wane between conversations, he would gaze around their little apartment quietly, his movements slow and careful, like everything around him was somehow fragile.
He had barely made a dent in his bowl of katsudon by the time Izuku and Mom finished theirs, though he lavished praise on Mom's cooking every time he did take a bite. It was no wonder he was so thin, if he only ate a few mouthfuls of food at every meal. Was it related to the coughing? Izuku tried not to think too hard about it, and Mom seemed to vent her own concern by insisting that he take his leftovers home with him.
By the end of it all, Izuku had no more excuses, and nothing else to give.
He felt that familiar anxiety pitch up in his chest as Yagi made his way to the entrance area and knelt down to slip on his shoes. He would leave, and it would just be mom alone in the kitchen alcove again, like it had always been. He and Izuku would go on like before, being useful to each other, until one day they wouldn't be.
Before Izuku completely knew what he was doing, he was hurrying forward, reaching out a hand, both hands. He touched Yagi's sleeve, and the man turned to see what had brushed up against him. His gaze fell on Izuku, and Izuku suddenly felt on fire with shame. What was he doing? He was being a creep, he was making Yagi uncomfortable—
"U-um," he squeaked. He curled his hands back against his chest.
Yagi stared for a second, mouth opening slightly. Then a little smile tugged at the edge of his mouth. He set down the container of leftovers and reached out an arm, and Izuku didn't need any more invitation than that; he surged forward and flung his arms around Yagi's neck. Yagi let out a small whuff of air and a chuckle at the impact, and folded his arms around Izuku.
It wasn't the most comfortable hug. Izuku could feel every rib and bump on Yagi's spine through his shirt, and his collarbones jutted out against Izuku's cheek. But Izuku wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. One huge hand seemed to span across Izuku's whole back, the other rested gently on his head. Yagi let out a soft little laugh that Izuku could feel now, reverberating all through him from where he was tucked safely against Yagi's chest.
Tears laked in his eyes. "T-thank you..." he whispered into Yagi's collar, feeling blond hairs tickle his nose. "I... I'm really glad you came."
"Thank you, too," Yagi said. "You and your mother have always been so kind to me."
It took him several moments to work up the nerve to speak again. But even if he screwed up, how much worse could it be than watching him leave?
He clutched a handful of shirt. "Did... you like it? Being here?"
"Of course.." Yagi said. "Spending time with the two of you makes me happier than I've been in a long time."
"Then, um..." Izuku swallowed. "E-even if it doesn't have to do with training, or U.A... would you want to come over again? Just to spend time."
Yagi went still at the question, and his arms loosened their grip, and Izuku was suddenly consumed by dread. But he didn't pull away, though his hold wasn't solid and comforting anymore. Instead, it felt like he was cradling something very fragile.
"I don't know if I should," he finally said.
"W-why not?"
Yagi didn't answer. But he didn't try to pull back, either. Pressed so close, Izuku could hear a faint crackling sound from Yagi's chest as the man breathed in and out.
Izuku had already pushed things this far; there was no point in stopping now. "If it makes you happy... then... isn't that enough?"
When Yagi finally answered, his voice was barely a whisper.
"Is it?" he asked. It was a tone Izuku had never heard him use before. And something about it, the way his voice dipped low when he spoke, made the realization wash over Izuku in a wave.
A hundred little details suddenly clicked into place all at once. The deference. The little barbed jokes he made about himself. The unsure, almost reverent look on his face as he stood inside their home. The long, long pause on the beach, when Izuku had asked him how he learned to cope with being born as something that wasn't enough.
People care about what you can give them. And then: I'm not really useful at this point anyway.
He always thought Yagi was his polar opposite. Calm where he was a panicked mess, confident where he was crushingly insecure. But the two of them were more alike than they were different, weren't they? Deep down, they were both asking the same question to themselves.
"I... I don't know," Izuku murmured. "...but I'd like it, if it was."
Yagi gave a slight shudder, then took a deep breath in, out.
"Me too," he said, his voice soft. "I'd like that very much."
Notes:
1) This chapter was a real labor of love: my beta reader, journalxxx and Siriusfan13 all helped immensely with looking it over and tightening it up. Thank you so much.
2) This is the most OC-heavy chapter in the story, I think. If the show had given us canon middle-school newspaper club characters, I would've used them instead. But alas.
3) Inko, I really hope you changed out that water before using it.
Tune in next time to meet a new cast member who joins to help Izuku towards his goal.