Aizawa was sure someone was following him. He wasn't sure who it was or where they were hiding, but he could feel their gaze while he was on patrol.

He noticed Iridescent spying on him from an adjacent rooftop but didn't acknowledge him, not wanting the vigilante to realize he knew he was there.

"Eraserhead, do you copy?"

He stops on a roof and taps his earpiece; the figure on three roofs behind him also stops.

"Eraserhead here. I copy."

"We have a robbery at the corner of South 4th St and Elgen Ave. Police are on their way, but they might need backup."

"I'm close. Heading that way now." He puts the person tailing him out of his mind as he gets onto the street and starts running. He gets within a mile of the store and notices a man with a duffle bag over his shoulder, running in the opposite direction of the store.

"Suspect is heading east; send a cruiser to my location." He double taps his earpiece to send his location to the police dispatch and pursues the robber. The man noticed him following him and took a sharp left into a neighboring street. Aizawa stops at the corner of the building and looks out, seeing only an empty road and alleyway entrances. Not seeing anyone waiting to ambush him, he sets a slight jog to the first alley. He moves into the opening to take a closer look.

Nothing.

Cursing, he leaves the alley to continue down the street to the next one. He makes it two feet away and hears a large crash from behind and muffles yelling. He doubles back to the alley and finds the man lying face down on the ground. Another man was tying his arms together. He was small, dressed in military armor with green accents and a glowing green visor. It was the criminal they had been searching for almost a year now.

Iridescent.

"Always pay attention to your surroundings, Eraserhead." The vigilante stands, the robber tied up at his feet. "You never know when something might try to slip past you."

"Freeze!" Aizawa sends his capture weapon out; his quirk focuses on the other man. The vigilante let the end of the scarf wrap around his arm, then looped it once more and pulled hard. Off balance, Aizawa went flying forward. Iridescent brings his shin up to catch Aizawa in the thigh, bringing one arm around Aizawa's throat as his leg crumbles under the blow, choking the hero with his own support weapon.

"Now, that wasn't very nice." Iridescent sighs. "Even after I went through all this trouble to catch the criminal we almost let escape."

"You're a criminal." Aizawa gasps. "You came through an unmarked portal a year ago at the warehouse. You killed that man and then disappeared. That makes you a villain."

"That man was a part of a terrorist group that took over my country, killed hundreds of thousands of my people, killed most of my family and friends, and threatened to kill my daughter. He put me on this side of a portal to kill me because I'm one of the few people trained specifically to take their leaders out. He's lucky he killed himself and let that thing take him over before I got my hands on him."

He drops Aizawa, leaving the hero to stand once he has caught his breath. He untangles the captured weapon from his arm and hands it back. Aizawa takes it cautiously. Iridescent sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. "I didn't ask to be taken away from my country and everyone I love while we're in the middle of a biochemical, civil war and be dropped in another where I'm hunted down like a rabid dog."

Aizawa was uncertain of what to do when the man's voice broke. Iridescent pulls a rag from his pocket and wipes his eyes, lifting the visor slightly. He wasn't doing a good job of crying silently, though he seemed to be trying to stop. Aizawa checked on the unconscious robber and prayed no one came down this street. He did not doubt that if someone saw them like this, he'd have the cops called on him again. Iridescent clears his throat and blows his nose with the rag, then pulls out a small plastic bag to seal it in. He puts the bag in a different pocket on his belt and sniffs.

"Sorry." He says. He sounded as if he would start crying again. "My brother always made fun of me for being a crybaby when we were kids. I never seemed to break the habit."

Iridescent chuckles, and Aizawa grins. "I can't just wait around for someone else to come bring me home. Until I can find my way back, I have to make the best of this while I can. I've already been here for a year and have found nothing. I can't waste any more time."

Aizawa wasn't sure what he meant. "What are you planning on doing while you're here? Or do you think someone from your country might come looking for you?"

Iridescent shook his head. "There were only a few factions of our resistance left. Most of the safe houses were destroyed, and almost all civilians were dead or enslaved. Almost 2 million people were in our country before the war, and we were down to less than five thousand free men. And less than half of them were able to fight. Sending even one unit looking for me would damn the rest of our people. I either make it home myself or, well, they've probably already held my funeral a long time ago."

Aizawa couldn't breathe. Even hearing about it sent a chill through him. But to live it, to fight in it. The sound of sirens coming closer brought him out of his spiral. Iridescent was at the alley entrance, looking out into the street. He turned back to Aizawa. "As for what I plan on doing… survive. I plan to do what I can to live and pray to see my family again someday. But I've always admired people like you, the ones who got to go to hero school and become Pro Heroes. My favorite Hero was All Might growing up. Maybe, I'll give heroics a try."

Iridescent was gone before the police got there. Sansa comes up to Aizawa to question him about taking down the robber, and Aizawa waves him off.

"I'll head back to the station with you. I have more information about Iridescent that Tsukauchi will want."

…..

Iridescent tails Aizawa during patrol multiple times a week over a few months. Sometimes he'd call Aizawa to collect criminals he'd already taken down to lessen the chances of the police catching him. Other times he falls in step with Aizawa as he parkour his way across rooftops, helping him on his patrols. The police allowed the vigilante to help without making too much fuss after Iridescent had tracked down the last of the evidence they needed to put a gang involved with quirk-enhancing drugs behind bars.

Tonight was different. Aizawa sat on a rooftop, watching a man following a woman with a pink pixie cut. He had a bad feeling about him, so he tracked them, waiting to see what the man would do when he felt the vigilante's eyes that he'd grown used to watching him disappear. He looks up, scanning the other roofs for his shadow, but he doesn't see him. Looking back at the street, he curses.

The man and woman were gone.

He checked both ends of the street, but there was no sign of them. None of the shops would be open at this time, and there weren't any apartments or houses nearby they could have disappeared into. He jumped to the next roof that had been closer to where the woman had been and ran to the other side. He could hear muffled noises from the alley below and peers over the edge.

Below him, the woman was cornered against a dumpster, her dress torn at the sleeve and bloody. She was shaking, staring at the two men fighting further in. One was the man who had been following the woman, a knife in his hand. The other was Iridescent.

The vigilante punched the man's throat, grabbed his head, and slammed his nose into his knee. The man crumbles to the ground, unconscious. Iridescent leans against the wall, his hand at his side. His breathing was shaky and heavy. Aizawa cursed and jumped down, going over to him.

"I'm fine." He gasps before Aizawa gets close to him. "The civilian."

Aizawa turns to the woman and goes to check on her, his hands raised. "I'm a Pro Hero, Eraserhead. Are you alright? You're bleeding."

The woman flinches, teary-eyed. Her hand clenched around her phone, and someone was trying to catch her attention from the other end of the line. He reaches out slowly, even as she ducks away from him. He gently pulls her arm away from her causing her to sob, and pushes the speaker button on the call, then steps back with his hands raised in front of him.

"Ma'am, are you alright? Can you hear me? Ma'am?" The other voice says. The police dispatch, the woman was intelligent.

"Two more men showed up." The woman sobbed. "Hurry, please!"

"Ma'am, I'm a Pro Hero." He directs his statement to the officer on the line. "Hero name Eraserhead, code 6634."

"Ok, ma'am, does the man in front of you have black hair, yellow goggles, and a long grey scarf?"

"Yes." The woman answers, calming down slightly as Eraserhead shows her the items.

"Ok, ma'am, he is a Hero registered in the system. You're safe with him. Can you see the other man?"

"No, he's tying up the man that attacked me."

"Eraserhead, do you recognize the man?"

"He's a new vigilante in the area, coded as Iridescent." He answers. Gesturing to the woman's arm, he asks, "May I move closer to take a look?"

She nods, and he moves slowly, pulling out a kit to disinfect the cut and wrap it. He checks her head too, once he notices a cut there too. The woman on the line informs him that an ambulance and police cruiser was on their way.

He feels the wind at the back of his neck and pushes the woman's head down as he ducks. She screams, and he turns. Another man came into the alley wearing the same jacket as the first. He brings the bat back for another swing and is tackled into the street by Iridescent.

"Stay with her!" The vigilante calls over his shoulder. Aizawa watches as the two men exchange blows in the street, then he turns and pulls the woman to her feet.

"We need to get you to a safer place. Can you walk?"

"Yes."

"Then come on, we'll go further into the alley." Aizawa gestures for her to move ahead of him. They get halfway there before the woman stops and holds up the phone.

"Our backup will be here soon." She says.

"We're pulling up now." The woman on the phone says.

"The police should still be 10 minutes out." The hero mumbles, confused.

"Who said we were the police?" The woman's voice echoes from the phone and behind them. Aizawa turns, his capture weapon ready. A woman with blue hair was standing next to the dumpster they had been kneeling at before with a phone in her hand. "Honestly, newbie. I thought they trained their Heroes better than to walk into a trap."

Aizawa feels something hit the back of his knees and crumbles. Rolling to the side and coming up to a kneeling position, he sees the woman who was attacked, untying the man Iridescent had knocked out. The man was awake now. It was now three-on-one. The two women were further away from him, and the man was getting to his feet. He curses and scrambles off the ground.

"Where's your backup now, little hero?" The man laughs. Aizawa realizes that there wasn't any. The woman hadn't called the police; no one was on their way.

"Right here fucker!" Someone comes flying through the air and knocks the man further into the alley in a heap.

Iridescent comes to a stop by Aizawa, the two thugs trying to pull themselves off the ground and failing. One of the men makes it to his knees and vomits while the other lies groaning on the ground. The blue-haired woman scowls and steps forward, her finger taking the shape of a gun barrel as she points at them. Iridescent moves to the left, and Aizawa to the right. He uses his quirk on the blue-haired woman as she tries to shoot him. He wraps her up in his capture weapon and looks at the vigilante.

Iridescent had his arm wrapped around the pink-haired woman's neck in a choke hold with one knee in the small of her back. He lets her go when she goes limp and lays her on the ground before trying her up. He bound her arms and legs together, then bound her arms to her legs. He gets up and goes to the men still on the ground, knocking the one man out before trying them both up. The sound of sirens and red lights at the end of the alley has him looking up in surprise.

The police.

Tsukauchi meets Aizawa as he releases the blue-haired woman to one of the officers. Aizawa questions him before he comes to a stop. "How did you know where to find us?"

"We got a call to pick up a guy from you at this address." He holds out his notepad with the street address on it. "Though it seems to be more than just an assault like we thought. How'd you take all four of them out, kid?"

Aizawa scowls, "Don't call me kid. And I didn't; our pet project showed up and knocked three of them out. Pretty sure he's the one who called you. The woman who I thought was a victim was actually in on it. I thought she was on the phone with the department and gave out my ID number. I wasn't sure I would be able to call you until after I'd dealt with them."

"Iridescent is here?" Tsukauchi gestures for one of his officers to come to him. "We have a potential vigilante on the loose in the area, spread out and-"

A commotion by the police cars caused them to turn just as the blue-haired woman got an arm free and punched one of the cops, and turned her arm, now a machine gun, towards them. A loud screech of metal echoes around them as a dumpster comes from their side towards them, stopping just shy of Aizawa. They take cover behind it as the bullets tear up the alley. Aizawa's head pops up at the scream of pain further in. Iridescent was dragging himself behind another dumpster, his leg in front of him.

He watches the vigilante pull out a bandage wrap as the gun cuts off and there's shouting by the cruisers. Looking up and seeing the woman on the ground with a suppressant collar, he dashes towards the man. The bandages are already soaked in blood when he gets close enough to help. Tsukauchi calls for an ambulance while Aizawa puts pressure on the wound in the vigilante's leg.

"Rookie mistake Eraserhead." The man pants. "Always call your own backup. Don't trust civilians to do it for you, especially when hunting down a trafficking ring. And don't brush someone off as a suspect just because they're a woman. That's how you get killed."

"They're part of a trafficking ring?" Tsukauchi asks.

"They're just hired help that picks the targets." Iridescent groans as Aizawa binds the leg higher up to slow the bleeding. "Not really part of the ring but used enough that they think they'll get protection from the gang running it."

"We have to get him to a hospital." The other officer comments. "I'll grab the medic."

"Can't." Iridescent gasps in pain. "Can't go to prison. Have to get home. They might know how I can get home! They might be able to find him."

Aizawa and Tsukauchi exchange glances. The medics arrived, putting him on the stretcher, and taking him to the ambulance. Aizawa climbs in with him, leaving the paramedic's room to work. He sticks his head out and tells Tsukauchi to meet them at the hospital before they drive off.

Aizawa watches the medics tend to the man's wound, cutting away part of his pants to reach the bullet hole.

Iridescent fights them, sobbing as they rip the fabric. "Please, it's all I have left! Please!"

Aizawa remembers the warehouse a year and a half ago, where Iridescent fell through the portal. He had been wearing the same clothes then as he was now.

"It's gone… my only way home is gone."

"I didn't ask to be taken away from my country and everyone I love."

"I can't just wait around for someone else to come bring me home. I can't waste any more time."

"Maybe… maybe I'll give heroics a try."

"Please, it's all I have left! Please!"

Aizawa remembers Iridescent's screams upon realizing the portal was closed, with his home and his family on one side and him on the other. They echo and overlap with his pleads all the way to the hospital.