Unintentional
Thursday 6.20 o'clock
When Izuku got up this morning, he had the oppressive feeling that he was not himself. His brain pressed uncomfortably against the top of his skull and his eyes burned as if he had left them open in his sleep. He always had trouble getting used to new beds. He blinked, slid around on the edge of the bed and, blinking idly, took a sip of water. He was exhausted and tired, but ready for the day. A glance at the appointment book next to the door told him that maintenance work was on the agenda for today. He rubbed his eyes and stepped to the window.
He missed the UA building. The view out the window, no matter the season or the day, was filled with nature. Birds, squirrels and the small river at the back of the forest were a true spectacle in the early, grey-blue morning hours. An idyll that grounded him when his thought carousel threatened to derail. The forest had a decelerating and calming effect.
Here, on the reserve campus in the more industrial part of the city, everything was dirty, grey and shrouded in smog and gloomy industrial fumes. There was no birdsong, and Izuku doubted that the core temperature of the buildings here would hold snow even in winter. His gaze wandered over the nearby signal box and the countless trains still asleep in their tracks. Sighing, he turned away, grabbed his jacket by the back of the chair and shuffled out of the room.
His feet carried him through the first-floor cafeteria, where, as if on autopilot, he pulled out an café-americano too strong for too much change from the vending machine, to the engineering rooms to the south of the building. It was quiet in maintenance. Unlike survival training or terrain science, here he sat behind a digitised console calculating computing power and circuits for various training rooms in the building. Maintenance also meant overseeing the power supply and upkeep of the research buildings at this time of year, as early autumn was the last time of the year when all the people living a life without family took one last holiday before the months slowly transitioned into the winter and pre-Christmas season.
"Midoriya-kun, you look tired." One of the female supervisors greeted him and touched him gently on the shoulder.
He lowered himself into the office chair and turned on all systems before turning to her and giving a small smile. "There must be days like this, too. Is there anything else on the agenda besides maintenance today ?"
She pushed her glasses up a little with her indexfinger and cast a calculating glance at her clipboard.
"Your little medical check-up." She gave him a pitying look over the rim of her glasses. The green-haired man sighed and switched on the screen. Leaves were blown from the tracks against the large windows directly in front of him. Brown and red leaves seemed to be fighting over who would be allowed to linger longest in the bleak limbo between heaven and earth before finally coming to rest slowly on the window sill next to the late shift ashtray.
"It's no use. You can't avoid it, but I can clamp you to the monitor while you work, then you'll probably be through with your maintenance shift at the same time. How does that sound?"
"That's possible?" he frowned and turned the chair until it faced her completely, sipping his coffee without lowering his eyes.
She nodded and shrugged. "In exceptional circumstances? I'll get the equipment. It'll be a little while before all systems are online, won't it?"
"Seven minutes tops." He considered with a quick glance at the powering up mainboard.
"I can do that." She yipped out and tucked the clipboard under her arm.
Then she quickly and quietly left the room and Izuku ran both hands over his face. He hated the medical check-ups. The big ones more than the little ones, because with the big ones they put them on a soft diet for a day and took blood and urine samples, but the little ones got under his skin more. His body was equipped with electrons and scanned down to the last synapse. He was actively unaware of this, usually lying on an uncomfortable couch in the hospital room and reading a book until the constant current broke his concentration and he spent the last two hours dozing off rather than actually reading.
He thought about getting a second coffee as a precaution, but dismissed the idea. He would manage.
Finally, two minutes before eight, he sat at the main board with an electrode clipped to each temple and began to go through the security protocols.
A curse of routine is its unbeaten talent in stealth. It was there to paralyse anyone too familiar with it to notice on time. That's how it caught poor Izuku that day too, who after 2 hours of check-up slowly began to struggle with fatigue. The beeping in his ears, he thought, was tinnitus.
Only when it swelled to a full-blown wail of a siren did Izuku's brain rejoin the speed of reality. On his console, to the left of his wrist, glanced the indicator light for problems in the power supply. Below that, the lights for movement in the externally laid part of the system and the light for infiltration alarm.
His heart sank into his pants with such speed that he felt the rest of his intestines would follow. He looked at the lamps, but he did not understand.
"What-" was the only sound his mouth produced, his hands resting like dead spiders in front of him, not moving.
"Here!" someone shouted through the air like a whip lash.
He jolted so violently in his chair that his jacket slipped off the back. His eyes raced across the screens, raced across the desk, but he could sense that his brain was not fully present. He could almost feel it trying to gather and network information.
"Two men to the west wing, facing the goods facility. Copy."
Midoriya's hands began to sweat, as did the skin on his back, just above the waistband of his trousers. His ears rang from the voices that suddenly roiled the office space. He took a breath, forcing himself to calm down. He needed control. He needed control. He needed an overview and focus. Now.
To his left and right, chairs were creakily pushed to his desk, but he kept his head stubbornly focused on the sources of information in front of him and began to analyse. He still felt detached from his head, as if he had drunk a calming tea, but his brain was getting into gear. First he checked the system for what had triggered the alarm in the first place.
"Track C."
His fingers ran over the keyboard, a map of all the tracks on the layout opened up on his main screen and he gulped as he caught sight of the part of the railway line lit up in red. One point was moving faster than all the others. And in the wrong direction.
A train.
He paused in motion for a millisecond. What he saw in the corner of his eye was still blurred, but he felt the adrenaline finally reach all the regions in his body and put him into problem-solving mode. He was ready to go.
Izuku minimised the map and unconsciously bit his tongue as a green dot appeared on the right edge of the screen, moderate speed, correct direction- but on a collision course.
He turned the radio to his left to the train traffic channel and called out " Wagon 34, Wagon 398 brake. Brake immediately, you're on a collision course. Wagon 34, leave the track at section D6, proceed to the siding, Wagon 398 proceed at reduced speed and the next exit next to the power distributor. Wait for further instructions."
Three pairs of eyes followed the dots on the screen, red behaved unchanged, green seemed to follow the instructions. Izuku reached for the radio again, but did not hold it to his mouth. Without taking his eyes off the screen, he initiated a scan of the surroundings.
"Movement scan of the western compound" he officially stated "Two trains on a collision course. Wagon 34 contains eight people" the scan provided further data and his voice wavered slightly as he read out the second number "Wagon 398 contains 35 people. Probably the departing late shift."
"Look here-" a hand pointed again at the train carrying some more wagons, heading in the wrong direction.
"Can we analyse this more closely?"
Of course he had the option to analyse what was inside the wagons.
Izuku's head jerked down to a smaller screen "In a moment, once the train is in range, I can do an infrared scan and see the exact location of the passengers and luggage."
His gaze flitted back up and his eyes found the green dot approaching an exit at a much slower speed. The red dot was speeding towards them unchanged.
"Confirmed danger from wagon 34," he announced, checking the distance between them and the train before putting his thumb to the lever that allowed him to start the infrared signal.
"Infrared in 3 - 2 - 1"
The lever buzzed as it was pressed, unmoved for several weeks of lethargy, if not months. The resulting image in front of them was clear.
"Four people in motion in the front of the locomotive, four people motionless in the rear. I'm trying to send a power pulse across the rail network."
"For what?"
"Then I may be able to detach the freight. And speaking of cargo" he called up the freight company's inventory list and nodded his head slightly to the side before tracking the red dot with his eyes again. "There's only one wagon listed. The train is pulling three though" he turned his head slightly to the right, lifted the phone from its station and waited for someone to take it from him.
"Call the shipping company and find out what's in the other two wagons. Do we have anything we can make visual contact with? Is the reserve helicopter there?"
"Negative."
"We have cameras on the rail line" he spoke to his left "I need a picture so we can get the carriage numbers through."
The green dot on the map left track C at that second. And Izuku raised the radio to his lips " Wagon 398 evacuate. There is a smaller aircraft hangar 500m away on the right side next to the track."He flipped a switch on the lowest edge of his console, checked the hangar door unlock and cleared his throat briefly as it has decided to dry out at that moment "The door is open."
Then he took a deep breath, felt his pulse twitch through his fingers as he put the power programme and the rail network on the main screen.
"I need a link between my system and the train. Passwords, ... I need passwords..." muttering, he scoured the password archives for remote control in a flash.
"Yes!" he yelled and transferred the 3 line password into the program and looked up at the screen.
"Manual remote control activated!" he stated aloud, feeling the first spark of relief as the dot in front of them turned from deep red to orange.
"What's the status of the cameras?"
"On it, one minute." came from the left.
"How long until the train reaches the last station before this one?"
"Six minutes," came from the right.
"We can do that. Disconnection of carriages 1-3 initiated. As soon as the train passes the next switch, it will transmit the order to the train. Okay. Next, access the locomotive control. Can we get to the brakes from here?"
He ran his tongue over his upper lip, on which tiny drops of sweat had collected.
"Positive."
"Force braking."
In the following heartbeats, nothing could be heard except the whirring of the computers. All eyes were glued to the red dot whose distance was decreasing by the second.
"Not successful. Somehow the engine is blocking the command."
"Shit. How far to the next switch?" he cursed, flipping the lever on the infrared switch for the second time.
"They' d have to - now. Wagon uncoupling successful."
Movement came into the corner of his eye from the left.
"Locomotive trying to contact us. Clear channel?"
"Pos-" began Izuku immediately, but the voice to his right right barked an aggressive "Negative! Think about it, no one knows if the potential hijackers have long-range abilities. Or stuff for acoustic manipulation."
Izuku swallowed, spooked, but then nodded.
"Wagon 398 is empty, the passengers are in the hangar." Came the information and Izuku clenched his hands into fists briefly to press them against the warm edges of his control table in relief.
"We're closing the main gate. If we can't get control of the steering, we'll stop them here in the last quadrant of the track before they can reach the delivery station and enter the building, if they can steer the train themselves, they'll slow down there at the latest. Send one - no two squads over there so they can intercept them."
"What are the cameras doing? I need a picture as soon as possible!"
"I'm on it!"
"Distance to us?"
"Less than a minute. The last station has already been passed. It should rush along here any moment."
"Already?"
"Yes, it has picked up speed."
For the first time, Izuku looked out between two of his myriad screens. Outside the window there was a sparse silence, only the distant wail of the warning siren indicating the seriousness of the situation. The tracks were still empty.
"Send a team to intercept the unguarded wagons." His gaze fell out the window again. "By the time he gets past here, the braking distance will be too short." he suddenly realized, jerkeing the radio to his lips. "Wagon 34, we've closed the gate to the facility. It's four tons of solid iron, initiate emergency braking. Now. I repeat, initiate emergency braking."
"Gate now closed." Informed the voice to his left.
Deep breathing filled the room as Izuku's concern was suddenly voiced, "What do we do if the radio message didn't get through."
"Third infrared scan." What was the result of the second? He did not remember. "Unchanged 8 persons-" he faltered as he saw movement inside the locomotive "6 immobilised. 2 persons apparently leaving the cockpit."
"If both hijackers manage to leave the train, 6 immobilised people will hurtle towards our front gate."
"I have the camera footage from 30 seconds ago."
"On screen!"
Out of nowhere, the fire alarm siren began to screech.
"Fire in the track bed"
The video recording began with a huge explosion that ripped parts of the tracks behind the train out of the ground.
When Izuku opened the power programme at the same time half of the system was dark red. Flawed. Almost every second now there was another short circuit. Green eyes tore away from the monitor and looked outside- and he was only a millisecond away from choking out his coffee. In the sky was a black column of smoke that moved incessantly. The train did not brake. The radio message had not made it into the locomotive. Bellowing horns cut the air.
But the dot was still orange.
"Initiate manual braking!" shouted Midoriya, feeling panic wrap its cold, steady hand around his heart. Maybe this time it would work.
Without making a sound, as the canopy of pine trees turned fiery red at that moment and took his breath away, he scanned the train one last time.
And then everything happened at once.
According to the scan, only 2 of the original 8 people were still on the train. Which was good, the hostages were out of imminent threat, but two had stayed behind. On the train. More precisely, on the top of it. A combination of green, yellow and red in the corner of his eye drew his attention to the minute-old video recording of the last train station. He saw two people. His breathing stopped. Everything stopped then.
As if looking over his own shoulder, he finally saw the fireball thundering around the curve outside the window, and heard the rails squeak and groan.
"Collision with gate in 12 seconds".
Sparks and fire burst from under the train, creating a hideously fascinating spectacle. Izuku took a breath, about to say something, when the flames on both sides of the train flickered up and illuminated the scene - which immediately triggered sheer terror in him.
On the nose of the train, Kirishima and Bakugou crouched one behind the other, both obviously beaten and exhausted - in a defensive posture. The redhead's arms were crossed in front of his chest, the blond's right arm resting over his shoulder between Kirishima's jagged wrists, one grimy palm stubbornly pointing forward.
Icy horror froze his nerves.
"No, Kacchan-how?"
Painful goosebumps stretched across his thighs, arms and neck. His head was completely overloaded. His lower lip began to quiver- and he knew what that meant.
"Six seconds."
Before Izuku understood what he was seeing, before details like the wind in the two heroes' hair, or the blood on their bodies were processed by his mind, the train rushed past him with a deafening roar that made the window panes shake. Another explosion shook the entire building complex, then the squeal of bursting steel ripped the air. The smell of petrol and ash filled the room, the ventilation failed and the dashboard beneath Izuku's fingers shook with the vibrations of the explosion.
"Scan" he instructed in a voice that didn't even make it into the air in front of his mouth, he couldn't move- seemingly no one could move -no response "SCAN. SCAN THIS FUCKING TRAIN!" his voice broke, rasping like a broken violin.
He tried to jump up, but his legs failed him. He felt a hand on his shoulder, eyes glued to the window that gave a view of the city. The air was filled with heavy clouds of blood-red smoke, sparks swirling through the air like swarms of fireflies.
"Mission …positive. No survivors. Danger averted."
"Recovery team en route"
A scream without words tore from his throat, his chest burning, his eyes burning-his entire body burning inside.
"Need renewed video confirmation."
On the verge of fainting, barely on the edge of consciousness, Izuku's gaze fell on the few seconds of replay of the video recording in which the train raced through the system. Then he vomited his coffee lukewarm on the floor.
The grip on his shoulder tightened, someone pushed him into his chair, squeezing the air out of him- his ears tingled, his lungs threatened to collapse and suddenly the image before his eyes seemed to tear apart.
"What the fuck did I do?" he yelled at no one in particular and yanked the foreign hand off his shoulder. He stood up, no focus, no coordination, fell to his knees so hard he bit his tongue and picked himself up again. People looked at him, no sound reaching his ears.
"Calm down, Mid-" another voice, a more familiar one, tried to talk at him-but all he saw was red. Red as blood, red as failure, red as a certain pair of pissed-off eyes.
"NO!" he screamed again at the top of his lungs as hands reached out for him once more, but he had to get out of here. He had to get out of here.
"Hands off! Let me through- NO!"
"Let him pass." The command slid soft and heavy as velvet through the room, providing immediate compliance. No one stirred as Midoriya, shaking like a leaf and bursting into tears unnoticed, tore the electrodes from his skin and threw them away. With static ringing in his ears, he fled the room.
Aizawa's voice was calm and more dangerous than a rattlesnake's venom as he placed his hands on the back of Midoriya's abandoned chair.
"Unannounced stress test." Was the pressed reply and brown eyes looked accusingly at everyone in the room.
"Where's the other problem child?"
"In his room propably. I don't know where they placed the counterparts." One of the commanders spoke up.
"Bakugou was part of this? He was briefed?"
"Not briefed, sir, he was on the other team, he was controlling his own character in Midoriya's simulation as far as I know."
"How did it turn out?"
"They made him kill... Bakugou. By accident."
"What?"
Everyone in the room flinched, some exchanging uncertain glances.
"They wanted to test his psychological resistance. They didn't tell him that he was in the villain's team."
"How could they confuse him like that? He's got more brain than muscle in his body?"
"They let him slip while he was doing the test early this morning. He was hooked up to the electrodes for the health check - I don't know exactly how they did it, but he was fed into the simulation immediately afterwards. He had no chance to distinguish reality from the virtual programme. The only thing not simulated were the twins who contributed the acoustics."
"Who confirmed that test?"
"I don't know. I really don't know."
His feet slid on the freshly mopped floor and his entire body crashed into the wall on the second floor. His skull collided with the hard surface - and as the shock of the impact faded in an instant, it brought with it a bone-chilling clarity. He needed to see their faces. Now!
To his left, a door suddenly opened, and as his eyes met those of Kirishima who had curiously stuck his head out of the room, a choked sob filled his mouth. He struggled to his feet, stumbled for a moment before he fell around the redhead's neck. The hard body of the other remained frozen for a moment - then a hand laid on his back.
"Hey man, what ruffled your feathers?"
Izuku backed away and concern entered the other's red eyes. He said something, the hand on his back now on his shoulder- but that was the wrong red. Too bright, too superficial.
"Kacchan, where is he?"
A small snort left the other and he stepped back, feigning "Did you mix us up? Bakugou is a door- hey- Mido-"
But the Izuku had already run the two steps further, pushed open the door without knocking and froze to ice.
Bakugou was sitting at his desk, headphones around his neck, reading a book. When the door hit the wall, he winced so hard that he wiped his computer mouse and the jar of pens off the table. He looked to the side in disbelief and when he realised who had the audacity to disturb and frighten him, he contorted his face into a dismissive grimace.
"Do you have a death wish, little shit?"
His reply was a stifled "no" then he stepped in and bridged the short distance to the blond with two steps and a giant leap. Although Bakugou's first reflex was to take Midoriya out of the air with a well-aimed punch like a baseball, it was the other's face that stopped him. He had looked at him with the same bone-deep fear as he had back in the forest, when he was already sunk up to his collarbones in the enemy's portal.
Before he could think about it further, he managed to stand up at the last second. Then he had the other's midsection in his face, the green-haired one unable to fully control his strength at the moment. He had jumped too high, and it was only thanks to Bakugou's already raised arms that Midoriya's legs were able to clamp around his chest like a vice. Heavy arms crossed behind his neck and only shock and fear of falling over made him wrap his arms around the smaller one.
This one was a better fit. Katsuki was trained, but soft. Warm, stable and no doubt alive.
"Down. Now" he growled, overwhelmed with the situation, and the simple fact that he had allowed himself to be so surprised.
"No," was the pressed reply, closer to his ear than he had expected, and he let go of the other to reach for his head. But Izuku was sweating, temples slippery, he couldn't find a grip and pulled his hands back. Why he raised them to eye level after that, he didn't know.
"just this once, please."
Something dripped down his collar and his anger fizzled out in an instant. Blood clung to his fingertips. Not much, but enough to make him suspicious. Izuku was bleeding. And obviously crying.
"Let go." Katsuki instructed once more, his voice seething, forcing Izuku to back away a little with both hands on his ribs. Instantly, Izuku's fingers slid through his hair to his chin. He wanted to pull his head back, but those strong fingers did not let go, lifting his face until they could look each other straight in the eye. Izuku's gaze was searching, urgent and fanatical-and Katsuki reluctantly let him. In his peripheral vision, he saw a shock of red hair peeking around the corner.
"Get out of here. Close the door first."
"Alrighty!" retorted the other with a tone that made it clear he was caught.
The legs around his ribs went slack and in the next moment the other slid heavily down his body, seeming to be able to stay on his feet for a moment before his knees gave way and he slid further down to the floor. Katsuki dug his fingers into the other's shirt at the last moment to keep his upper body upright. He crouched in front of him, twisting his fist with the fabric in it so Izuku had to turn his head. There was blood on both his temples. Not much more than if you scratched open a mosquito bite or cut yourself while shaving, but he didn't understand why it was even there in the first place.
Suddenly Izuku pulled his head between his shoulders, or at least wanted to try- but Katsuki grabbed his chin with two fingers and forced him to look ahead.
"Spit it out."
Two heartbeats passed without a reaction. Then the smaller one seemed to crumple into himself in defeat? Relief? Exhaustion?
"I thought I killed you. I thought I- I thought-" he gasped, fresh tears suddenly spilling from his eyes. Katsuki frowned and let go of him.
"What kind of bullshit are you talking about? I'm here, as you can see."
"Yes." He swallowed and clumsily licked his lips. "You really are, right?"
"What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah damn, I'm squatting right here with you and you can't get it together long enough to tell me what's going on. Get up." He pulled him roughly by the collar to his desk and pushed him down on the chair. Katsuki, on the other hand, sat down on the bed, at last a little more distance away.
And at that second, Izuku's eyes fell on the screen. It showed the classic screen of a mission simulation. With the difference that it was already over, and judging from the writing at the bottom, not successful.
"You- what were you supposed to do?" he gestured idly with his hand to the PC, and Katsuki sat down cross-legged with a doubtful look on his face. He looked past Izuku for a moment, then cleared his throat.
"We were supposed to bring a goods train safely into the base, but... but somehow it didn't work."
"Why not?"
"We were attacked just before we reached our destination. Four people jumped on the train. Our brakes were remotely disengaged, our cargo was manually uncoupled and our last attempt to get in didn't work. We thought they would open the gate again if they thought we had hostages on board, but no go. Had a good fight, then we immobilised the four idiots and threw them off the train with Mina and Denki."
"Why did you stay on the train?"
To Izuku's shock, Katsuki shrugged.
"We wanted to prevent the train from hitting the gate actually. The mission was fucked anyway, so we wanted to do as little damage as possible."
While he had started nodding unnoticed he had sunk deeper and deeper into the chair. He also no longer seemed to notice that not another word was spoken. He muttered and mumbled to himself, his eyes only half open, and Katsuki growled in irritation.
"What's this now, nerd. First too much energy and now none?"
A knock on the door made him cringe - what was going on today? And Aizawa hesitantly took a step into the room. He immediately spotted Midoriya in Bakugou's desk chair.
He had fallen asleep.
"What. The. Hell. is going on?"
With a long sigh his Sensei crossed his arms in front of his chest and rested his head on the doorframe
"They fed him into an unannounced simulation. He was responding to a rogue attack. He was phenomenal. But then ... he saw you standing on the train, which subsequently hit a steel wall and exploded."
"We were on display?"
"Yes, they wanted to make it as real as possible. Izuku has an incredibly high IQ, they wanted to know how he would deal with the worst case scenario."
"What, blowing out my lights is the worst case?"
Hesitating, Aizawa stepped into his room and closed the door with care, to not make a sound.
"Not exactly. If he's responsible for you dying in combat, for whatever reason, that's the worst case situation."
To this, the blonde replied nothing, only scratching his neck in the uncomfortable silence.
"This shouldn't seem as strange to you as it does right now."
Taking a long exhale, he rose from the bed, slipped an arm under Izuku's knees and one around his shoulders, and lifted him up with an ease as if he were clearing a bag of rice into storage.
"Leave it alone. I'll carry him down to his room."
"Thank you Bakugou."
He opened his door skillfully with his left elbow and stood in the doorway for a second.
"And after that, I'll skin the asshole who allowed this shit alive."