If there was one unspoken 'rule' about the Boss as they called her, it was that none of them dared to ask her what she did when she wasn't plotting another job or in their general vicinity. Considering what a crazy bitch Harley was in general, they really did not want to know. Not even Dabi knew, though if he was aware of where she went and what she did, he might have conflicted feelings on the matter.

Harley, at one point in her life before she met 'him', had been a doctor. Specifically one trained in matters of the mind and how to deal with it.

After hearing from Dabi exactly what had happened to his mother, she had tracked down the woman in question and then proceeded to bullshit her way into the hospital.

Harley wasn't an idiot. Her 'identity' was backdated and had all the appropriate references, and since she did in fact know what she was doing, no one thought to look any deeper so long as she showed up for her shift. The fact she had a few black-hat villains adjust her schedule to suit the jobs didn't bother her in the least. It was actually rather nice, being able to ply her original profession.

It had also taken her exactly three days to realize that the soon-to-be corpse known as Endeavor, aka Enji Todoroki, was still gaslighting his poor wife even from the hospital using doctors he had bribed to keep her there.

She had already provided him a decent heir, so her 'use' was over, but getting a divorce would look bad for his image and what if she managed to successfully take the children from him? No, better for her to disappear in such a way it wouldn't be tracked back to him.

Harley had looked at the woman's medical records. There was no legitimate reason for her to still be in here, and it was clear that whomever was in charge of the medications had her on a special cocktail to keep her paranoid and docile. It had been child's play to break into her therapist's office to read her notes and realize they were deliberately reminding her of the incident and making it sound like it was entirely her fault.

Rei was a nice woman, but there was something in her eyes that made her feel...familiar.

Not to the girl she was now, but that she had known Rei before as Harley Quinn and had been passably tolerable around. Which...really limited the number of people Harley could think of. She definitely wasn't her ex-lover Ivy, or any of the other villains she had regular contact with.

(So far there had been no sign at all of 'him'. She was somewhat happy about this fact.)

She would have to plan this just right, because she had a sneaking suspicion she knew damn well who Rei was in her past life.

Dabi knew that the Boss had a big kidnapping planned. He didn't know who it was, just that it was someone who was close to a major hero.

Harley for whatever reason had him not on the extraction team, but the one who would keep any possible heroes from stopping them.

You could imagine his shock and disbelief when he finds out that the person they were extracting...was his mother.

"Boss. What the fuck."

Harley had her usual insane grin on her face.

"Surprise!" she said.

"What are you planning to do with my mother?" asked Dabi.

Harley's grin turned a tad vicious.

"I'm going to wake her up out of the fog the asshole put her in," said Harley. "Right now I plan to put her on medicines to undo the damage that was done to her."

Dabi looked dubious, but he also knew that the boss did in fact take care of her people. He didn't know where she acquired that much medical knowledge, but she was the lone reason Toga was as close to 'stable' as she was likely to get.

He kept his reservations as Harley put his mother on a special cocktail, most of which he looked up after the fact.

You could imagine how pissed he became upon realizing they were medicines which were designed to slowly ween off drugs that would keep his mother in a paranoid state. The more he looked into it, the more pissed he became.

Then he read the copies of the notes that his mother's therapist had on her, and his rage reached a boiling point. If he even saw the bastard he called a sperm donor, he would flash broil him without hesitation.

Slowly, Rei started to stabilize and come to herself. Endeavor had long since found out that his wife was missing and was trying to quietly look for her. It wouldn't do for his personal life to come to light after all.

Third POV

Rei didn't fully understand what was going on, just that her eldest son was there and that he answered to the odd doctor who had transferred her out of the hospital.

It was the first time she had a clear head in years, and unlike her last doctor, Quinn-sensei was firmly but gently steering her away from the idea that what she did to her youngest child was her fault and that she must accept penance for it.

That she had committed a grave sin by throwing that hot water onto Shouto and that she had to pay for it until the day she died, that she was unworthy of being a mother at all and that her children were better off not knowing her.

Quinn-sensei disagreed. Accidents happened and with how the world was Shouto could have just as easily become victim to a villain attack while under her care and she wouldn't be entirely to blame for it.

Touya was a tad awkward around her, but they shared a singular hatred of Enji and worked past it. It was nice, being able to bond with her oldest son without that bastard trying to force him into a mold of his 'perfect successor'.

Honestly, she preferred Quinn-sensei to Hina-sensei.

She didn't know how to feel about Touya working around obvious villains, but she could see he was happier here and that despite their...quirks...they were actually nice people. Toga would cheerfully join her in the kitchen to help make food for everyone, and while she was a little too enthusiastic about her knives, she was a good listener.

Honestly, she felt happier and more relaxed around the Harlequins than she had in that hospital.

Seeing her youngest fight in the Sports Festival, she felt an odd twinge in her heart. He looked like he was doing well, however it bothered her that he refused to use his fire quirk that she knew perfectly well he had.

"Hey Boss, I just got word Stain hit Ingenium," said one of the minions.

"He did what now?!" said Harley angry.

Rei observed Harley carefully. While Harley had no love for the 'supes' as she called them, there were a scant few she respected to some extent.

Oddly enough, Ingenium was on that list. Something about how he was a 'proper sort of hero' compared to the majority of the people who took up the profession.

Touya winced at the tone Harley was using, as she clearly took affront to Stain damaging him so badly. That meant bad things...for Stain anyway.

Rei watched as Harley reached out to her network to find Stain's location. She wanted to send a message, and if Stain ended up a corpse by the end of it then so be it.

Rei waited until her son and the others were out of the room before she cautiously asked "Is there anything I can do?"

Quinn-sensei gave her an inscrutable look.

"Right now, if you went out of the base there's a strong chance Endeavor might find you and send you back to that place. As you are now, you're nothing but a liability."

Rei flinched, but at the same time there was a strange stirring in her. Quinn-sensei was speaking the truth... however there was something in her voice that implied she believed that Rei could be something other than a doormat. That she might stand at the same level as her son and her little girlfriend.

"What...do I have to do?"

"That depends...on whether you want to remain the doormat known as Rei, or rise above that pathetic excuse of a 'husband' as a real player and show everyone why they should fear the winter cold," said Harley.

The way she said that resonated with her in a way she couldn't fully explain.

Rei was out with Toga getting groceries, as the girl had cheerfully elected herself as Rei's official minder-slash-bodyguard.

They were having a bit of fun chatting when some...thing...came out of nowhere.

"Shit! What's a Noumu doing here?" said Toga.

"What..." started Rei, before Toga grabbed her hand and started running.

Boss had been rather firm...no harm was to come to Rei and if she kept the woman safe until they returned, then she'd give Toga extra knife training.

They might even move on to 'that' finally!

Rei was bewildered and confused. The Noumu seemed to be focusing on the fleeing women, and chased after them. It was fast...too fast.

Toga barely pulled her to the side before it swiped at them.

Rei did not want to die. Toga's quirk wasn't exactly great against fighting in such close range against someone with a strength quirk. All she had was her ice quirk, and it wasn't very strong.

Seeing that fist come racing towards her face with the full intent to cave it in, something inside her snapped.

She had no real thought about why she did it. All she knew was that she refused to die like this.

Toga began to shiver next to her as the temperature dropped to below freezing levels. The area around Rei began to ice up as if she was absorbing all the heat from around her.

The second the Noumu touched her, ice raced up it's body. It was almost moving in slow motion, until all that was visible was an ugly ice statue.

Just as quickly as it had begun, the threat was over. Rei breathed hard as she stared in shock at what she had done.

Something inside her purred content, as if this was the way things SHOULD have been from the start.

The two vanished before the heroes could show up. It wouldn't do for someone to recognize Rei.

In the secondary hide out

Rei looked at her hands, still in a state of shock. She had never done that in her life, and yet she had killed that... thing...so easily. Almost like it was nothing.

The second Harley came in, she made a beeline for Rei and wrapped her arms around her.

"I'm so proud of you! Toga told me everything! I knew there was a total badass in you!"

Dabi hadn't believed what Toga had told him, and had gone to investigate himself. He was still dumbfounded his mother had done that, and was baffled as to why she even put up with any of Endeavor's bullshit if she had that sort of power.

"I...I didn't know I could," said Rei.

"Oh I knew you had it in you," said Harley proudly. "I even have the perfect villain name for you...Killer Frost."

Rei looked at her in shock.

She knew that name. It was the same name that haunted her dreams, and had only been getting stronger since Harley had begun to counteract the drugs in her system to keep her docile.

That name resonated inside her soul, and every time it did, she had to resist the urge to brutally murder her damn 'husband'.

Harley's smile was downright deadly.

"Don't worry Frosty...your birth family might have let you go without a fight, but your real family will be right there with you to help deal with the corpses," said Harley. "After all, you're one of us!"

"Yeah! I'm sure Dabi won't mind turning any of your victims to ashes for you, so there won't be any evidence!" chirped Toga with an insane smile.

"Could be a fun mother-son bonding experience," joked Dabi. "Cleaning up people too stupid to live is hard work after all."

Something inside Rei loosened. Her 'family' had handed her over to that bastard with nary a fight, and she had to spend almost twenty years of a living hell being little more than a brood mare for the 'perfect' quirk.

Harley didn't have to look to know that deep inside Rei's mind, a subtle shift had begun.

Frosty would have had a normal, boring life as a civilian... had Endeavor not chosen her to act as his broodmare. Harley hated assholes like him, so the idea of waking up Killer Frost and introducing Endeavor to his natural enemy was too good.

It wouldn't be long now. All she'd need was the right push, and Endeavor would be in for one hell of a nasty surprise.