Chapter 1
Laying Foundations
Slump tests were important for concrete. It told construction workers if the mix ratio was right, if it would set correctly, if there was too much liquid or too much gravel for it to be smooth, or too rigid. There was a technique to it just as much as there was instinct to it. There is significantly less technique associated with concrete when it comes to slowly lowering individual body parts into the semi-solid liquid and pushing it into the infrastructure with a piece of rebar.
Ochako Uraraka hums softly, stirring up the concrete slush she just displaced and evening it out a bit. It's the footer for the elevator shaft- which meant it didn't have to be slick but having it level helped with future construction and keeping the site tidy.
She stands, dusting her hands off before collecting the bloody laundry bag she'd carted the corpse into the job site with. She meanders around, examining the rest of the construction as she makes her way to a burn barrel.
The steel riggers would be in tomorrow morning to start bolting the I-beams together, and from there they could start on the second and third floor of the building. Apparently, it was going to be another office building, not that Musutafu really needed it. There were plenty, but for some reason they just kept wanting to build more and more.
Not that she was going to complain. It made her job easier.
Clean up was always an issue in the city, but having infinite places to stash body parts once she'd eliminated a target came in handy.
She drapes the blood-soaked laundry bag over the smoldering edge of a broken pallet. It takes her a while to collect enough suitable wood ,partially because she refuses to break a perfectly good pallet just to burn and partially because she's working in the dark. But once she adds the chunks of wood to the barrel it doesn't take long for the smoldering coals to roar back to life into a glowing blaze, turning the muggy summer night air into a near unbearable heat.
Ochako sighs before pulling out a burn phone and hitting the speed dial. It rings twice, and even though it was two in the morning on a Sunday night when most sensible people would have been asleep, it doesn't take long for them to pick up. It never does.
"Report?" A gruff growl that hasn't changed since her first contract twelve years ago answers the line.
"Contract complete. Disposal finished. Usual routing." Ochako reports.
"Confirmed. Thank you for your work, darling." And the line goes dead.
She can't remember it ever not after a confirmation.
She snaps the prepaid flip phone in half, dumping both halves into the burning fire. The flames tickle her fingers, warming them for just a moment, and it reminds her of fresh blood spilling over her fingers.
It reminds her of sliding a knife into a carotid and watching the life drain out of her target's eyes.
It wasn't her preferred method of execution, but she supposed that some things couldn't be avoided. She didn't pick her contracts, and as long as the money kept coming–and she could keep the legacy of her parents business afloat–it didn't matter.
She reaches up, fingers brushing a trio of rings hanging from her neck. A slim chain links them all together, and it's more ritual than thought that has her rotating them.
Her fathers wedding band. Her mother's engagement ring. Her mother's wedding ring.
A little blood didn't matter to her.
Not if it meant keeping their memory alive.
Izuku's 'Shoto Special' is decidedly lukewarm instead of piping hot when Shoto Todoroki drops it on his desk.
The broth doesn't even burn Izuku's hand when it sloshes out of the styrofoam bowl and onto his desk. Izuku whines, picking up papers and shoving them elsewhere as he looks up at his partner.
"Really?"
"Told you I would do it if I caught you pulling another 48." Shoto deadpans, calmly holding his own piping hot bowl of ramen and scooping the noodles into his mouth. He slurps it slowly, mismatched eyes never leaving Izuku.
It's extremely judgey, the look Shoto is shooting him, but it's also one Izuku can't quite ignore.
Shoto did warn him.
"Mirio found a body." Izuku shrugs, using the appearance of a new case as a defense.
"I think the deceased can wait a few hours so you don't end up joining them." Shoto crosses the room, sitting down into his own chair and sliding up to his desk.
Their shared office was an economical move as much as it was a mutual one. They both got along, they both excelled at working together, they worked well on cases, and both of them had a bad habit of working long hours and trying to ignore their Sir-Nighteye-enforced-therapist-appointments.
"I'm not going to drop dead." Izuku grumbles, mopping up the last of the mess and picking up his breakfast.
Shoto just gives him a look, slurping pointedly at Izuku.
Okay so, maybe he needed to get some sleep.
But he had caught up on paperwork, emailed out the last of his vacation coverage for next week, booked a place in Osaka that he and his mom could visit, and finished up his reports from last week. He'd responded to Principal Nezu's offer about teaching an elective at UA, filled in Eri's request for an essay she was writing, texted Kota, snapchatted Katsuma back, come up with a few new support items for some of the slower individuals to use, and even jump started the End of Year Reports for Sir Nighteye on timed routes for the Sidekicks vs. Heroes.
"When do we have to be at the site?" Shoto asks, finishing his bowl and getting up. He glances at the clock, but Izuku already knows it's early. He stayed late. Shoto came in early.
They were both lucky Sir Nighteye never asked why they clocked in or out at three in the morning.
Shoto's already dressed in his Hero costume, and the new additions of exhaust ports and thermoregulators at joints gives his new costume a bit of an Endeavor-vibe. But Izuku thinks it's a good change for him. Shoto stretches, cracking his neck as Izuku stands, gulping down the last of his own breakfast and tossing the remnants into the trash as well.
"Five minutes from now." He burps, and Shoto looks at him like he's a barbarian.
Izuku gives him a sheepish smile as they walk out the door.
They don't talk as they race across town. The comm link between them remains open, but it's filled with the soft puffs of exhales and the sharp hisses of inhales as Izuku launches himself from one roof to the next and Shoto uses controlled bursts of fire and clever ramps of ice to match his speed.
The city sleeps beneath them, only the earliest of risers braving the humid summer morning. It doesn't bother either of the two Heroes. It takes a handful of minutes to get to the construction site, a nice warm up for the start of their day.
Izuku flips off the last building, feeling the burn in his muscles as the air whips around him.
Then he twists, one of eight Quirks sparking to life in his gut as he spins. Float feels like bubbles under his skin, a soft sensation as gravity bleeds away and he hits the ground with barely a sound. He cancels the Quirk a moment later, stretching his arms and yawning.
An ice ramp crystalizes beside him, Shoto sliding down and onto the street a moment later. The ice melts away after a moment- a skill that he's been working with Shoto on for a while- as the half-and-half Hero walks back to Izuku.
The reporters are already clustered around the entrance, held back by a string of yellow caution tape. Detectives are already on site, but Heroes were called in as well given the nature of the find.
A burgundy truck pulls into a packing slot beside one of the reporter vans, a brown-haired woman in overalls and a dry fit shirt jumping out. Before Izuku or Shoto can approach her, the reporters are on her like hyenas on a fresh carcass.
If it bothers the woman, it doesn't show in how she shoves past a camera and hoists a work box the size of her pickups' bed out of the back. She holds the tool containers over her head like it weighs nothing, despite it being twice her size and filled to the brim. There's no telling what her Quirk is, but the effect is the reporters immediately back away and let her pass.
"Interesting reaction from a worker." Shoto mutters, following Izuku across the lot.
They wade through the reporters themselves, ducking under the yellow tape and heading towards the half-finished office building. Izuku counts thirteen floors before it transitions to rough concrete superstructure, and then another nine before it turns to the raw iron work. It soars up another three meters before capping out, the lattice work of steel and rigging stretching up towards the heavens.
"It's kind of crazy to think how we build these things." Izuku remarks to Shoto. "Cobbling steel and concrete on top of each other, pinning it together with hundreds of little bolts and welding it together in an attempt to maximize space and reach up towards the sky."
"It's more like millions of little bolts. But close enough." Someone says, startling Izuku from his musings.
Both Heroes stop, startled to find that they have arrived at the structures entrance and the construction worker from before is waiting on them. She leans back against the left door, holding it open for them to come into the incomplete office.
"Ah. Thank you." Izuku beamed at her, and in turn she flashes him a smile.
"Ochako Uraraka." She introduces herself, holding out one hand.
Izuku takes it, squeezing it slightly, then blinking as his feet leave the ground. He jolts a little, but the woman simply laughs.
"It's just my Quirk." She explains, taking her hand away and letting Izuku float up a foot more- just so his fluffy green hair scrapes the concrete ceiling. "Zero Gravity." She taps her hands together, and Izuku immediately drops to the floor.
"Do you have a working license?" Shoto asks, stuffing his hands in his costume's pockets.
"Of course. And a contractor's license if that's in question." She shrugs her shoulders. "I'm the general contractor on the site, and Uraraka Construction has the contract for the building. I heard someone found a body in my building and I want to get to the bottom of it faster than anyone else here."
It's a sensible logic, and she turns on her heels, beckoning them down the hallway.
"I heard Lemillion was the one that found it, is that correct?"
Izuku nods his head in confirmation.
"Can't imagine that was fun," she continues. "Phasing through concrete only to end up in someone's chest cavity."
"A-actually it was their skull." Izuku can't quite stop himself, and grimaces at the detail.
Uraraka glances back at him, cocking an eyebrow but choosing to say nothing about it. If the discussion of gore bothers her, she doesn't show it, and instead they continue down the hall, following her through a few twists and turns before stopping at a larger concrete doorway.
Lemillion is waiting for them, his usual smile replaced by a tight grimace.
"Lemillion." Izuku greets, stepping up to the senior Hero.
There's a quick exchange of nods before the Heroes step down into the small room. Ms. Uraraka waits at the doorway. It's lower than the rest of the floor by about a meter or two, and Izuku wonders what it's for. But that question can wait, the main question is in a carved-out section of concrete.
There's already a police tech working on the body… part. It's just a head, dried up and mummified from being wrapped in a heavy plastic and dropped into the concrete slab. The tech is pulling the plastic back with a pair of tweezers, carefully storing the degraded wrapping in a separate baggie of evidence.
"Initial findings?" Lemillion asks, squatting down next to the hole.
"They knew what they were doing." The tech mutters, pursing her lips as she considers the plastic.
Izuku surveys the room as Shoto and Lemillion focus on the evidence. Ms. Uraraka lounges against the side of the doorway, watchful eyes considering them.
"What was this room meant for?" He asks her.
She gives him a casual glance before her gaze goes up. The room is less of a room and more of a shaft, a doorway mounted above Uraraka leading to the next floor. It goes up and up and up, until the concrete ends and all Izuku can see is the pinprick of light at the top and the fraying edges of rebar sticking out of concrete.
"Elevator shaft." Uraraka says finally. "We pour the concrete pretty thick here in order to make sure that the foundation won't crack once we put the elevator system in. I was here for the initial pour. Layered the rebar myself, double checked the slump, but I can assure you there wasn't a skull in the slurry when we poured it in."
"When did you pour the slab?" Izuku furthers the question, hoisting himself up so he doesn't have to look up at her.
She offers him a hand, her pinky sticking out so she doesn't float him up the shaft. He grabs it, and she pulls him up. It doesn't even faze her, hoisting a 80 kilo man out of a meter deep hole. She's muscled and built, and…
Izuku swallows, one eye flicking down to admire the muscled appearance of her biceps, the smooth way she stretches her arms out and then lets her wrists hang in the loops of her overalls. The loose-fitting overalls might have masked some of her feminine features, but the tight dry fit showcased all the others. The stretch and ripple between her breasts, the slight swell of her biceps- no doubt from managing heavy steel beams and construction in general.
"Elevator shafts are among the first poured, so…" She shrugs, eyes still on the top of the shaft. "Six or eight months ago?"
Izuku hums, pulling out a notepad and pen to jot that information down. It's useful if only to help set a timeline.
He clicks his pen a few times, uncertain what to say after the initial question. "You mentioned that you were here on the day of the pour. Do you recall anything happening that day?"
Ms. Uraraka shrugs, considering it for a moment. "If we poured the elevator shaft, we roped the area off. Couldn't work in that area till the concrete set- didn't want stray rebar dropping in and messing up the structure. Weather should have been mild, no rain or it'll ruin the slump. I don't think we covered it." She shrugs. "Nothing out of the ordinary I'd dare say."
"Do you keep records of that?"
She cocks an eyebrow at him, "In the trailer…"
"Would you mind showing me? I just want to be thorough." Izuku gives her another smile, hoping this isn't getting too awkward.
Ms. Uraraka shrugs, and when Izuku searches her expression he sees the eyes of a businesswoman. He can sympathize.
Any sort of investigation created delays, but a murder investigation on a construction site? He could only imagine the pressure she was under even just day one. He offers her a small smile as she pulls her hands from her pockets and crosses them under her chest.
"Should be in one of a few cabinets. Care to give me a hand, Mr. Hero?" She finally says, turning away and walking down the hallway.
She doesn't waste any time, nor does she check behind her to see if he's following. She just walks.
And if Izuku's guilty of observing the swing of her hips and the measured weight in each of her steps- how somehow, she wears steel-toed boots and yet walks so quietly and smoothly on the polished edconcrete flooring- then it's because he's curious about her background and where she picked up such an odd habit.
She leads him to a standard jobsite trailer. There's a swarm of reporters around it, the same as the parking lot, but she wades through them and waves them away without a word or shift of expression. She pushes up the stairs, pulling a thick ring of keys out of her pocket and tabbing through them.
"Lots of keys." Izuku jokes, a nervous laughter bubbling out of his throat.
God why was he so awkward?
She blinks, hesitating for a moment as her fingers idle on a key. She looks up to him as she slots it into the door. "Lots of containers." She frowns lightly, then pulls the door open. "Guess it just comes with the territory."
She lets him in, but shuts the reporters out with a harsh bang of the door. It leaves them in the dark for a precious few seconds, where only the faint morning light coming through the door window allows Izuku and Uraraka to see around the room.
She doesn't fumble though, and Izuku supposes habit is to blame as she steps around him and flicks on the light. The lights flicker and buzz on a moment later, and Ms. Uraraka leads him past a plastic table, a dozen different sketches of the building in a variety of ways cast about the table.
"Structural designs?" Izuku asks, giving the drawings a passing glance.
"Electrical, structural, plumbing, interior design, everything." Ms. Uraraka says, "but the records you're looking for are probably kept here." She stops at the other end of the short room and unlocks a door that leads into a small private office.
"Should be in here somewhere." She says, stepping up to the filing cabinets.
She takes her time, crouched over the filing cabinet as she tabs through the files. She shuts the bottom drawer, going to the next one up. Izuku instead surveys the room while he waits.
The floor is swept. The desk taking up the majority of the room is tidy, nothing left out on the surface but a spare monitor that must plug into a laptop tucked into some drawer. A wireless mouse idles on the right side of the desk, but there are no extra little baubles to let him know the office is anything more than a temporary space. Filing cabinets surround the perimeter of the room, and with just the singular desk Izuku has to assume it's an office occupied solely by Ms. Uraraka.
"Ah, here we are." She straightens up, producing a stack of files and setting it on the desk.
Izuku steps around the desk, careful to give her space, but that gesture is ruined when she slides in a little, moving the files closer to him.
"Here we go. Yeah, I poured that slab six months ago." She taps the date on the page. "Subcontractor information should be here as well."
"That's a big help. Do you mind if I take the file?" Izuku flips it closed, picking it up tentatively.
She hums in agreement, leaning against the side of the desk. "I don't mind, but I may like to have it back next time I use that subcontractor."
"I'll bring it back as soon as I can. I may just make a copy."
"There's a copier here."
"I think it would be kind of rude to take your ink and paper." Izuku laughs. "Thank you for taking the time to help me out."
"Oh, don't worry about it." She gives him an idle smile, like there's something else on her mind as she reaches out across the desk and pulls a sticky note and a pen up. She jots down her name and a jumble of numbers before slapping it onto his shoulder. "There you go, Mr. Hero, just in case you need anything else from me."
"O-oh." Izuku gently peels the note off his chest and attaches it to the file. He gives her an awkward smile, and if the close proximity bothers Ms. Uraraka she doesn't show it as she closes up the file and shoves it to one side of the desk.
He isn't sure if he's invaded her space or she's accidentally invaded him. Her hip is nearly flush against his thigh, and she doesn't seem to mind it as she braces herself against the desk.
"Need anything else, Mr. Hero?" She cocks an eyebrow at him, hooking her thumbs on the straps of her overalls.
Izuku is not distracted by the realization that her fingers have small pink pads on them. He's not.
He's not utterly confused and yet interested by the realization this woman has a dozen little silver scars on the back of her hands or thumb.
"Mr. Hero?" Ms. Uraraka sing songs, seemingly impatient for his response.
Izuku takes a step back, giving her a tight smile. "Uh n-n-no I uh-I'll um… I-I'll let you know if I need anything. Thanks."
"Let me know if you need anything else to speed this along. I'm on a timeline with this site." She adds, waving him to the door as she produces a laptop from the bottom desk drawer and drops it onto the desk.
"O-of course." He waves a little, unsure of how to break the conversation. "W-well I uh, better get going then!"
"Don't be afraid to call late, I work overtime." She flips the computer open, hooking it in.
The fact that she doesn't follow him to the door is a bit refreshing. She waves at him from over the laptop screen, eyes flicking from the screen to him as he pulls open the door.
There's a jarring buzz in the back of his head as he steps out the door, and he whips his head around to look- surprised by the tingling of Danger Sense. Only to find Ms. Uraraka still at her desk, tapping away at her keyboard and nothing else evident in the office.
He frowns, scanning the room again. Uraraka looks up, a little surprised.
"Forget something?" She asks, one hand settling on the keyboard as the other moves to her mouse.
"No… just… thought I felt something." He says instead, pushing open the door again and stepping out.
The wave of reporters waiting outside the trailer immediately pushed the thought out of his mind. He's got questions to ignore and people to politely push through as he moves away from the trailer and back to join Shoto and Lemillion at the initial site.
He gets away from the reporters with a few "No comments at this time, we've just started the investigation but we'll keep you up to date as things progress," and more than a few, "Pardon me, do you mind…?". But he has no such luck of avoiding questions when he gets back to Shoto.
"Did you get another girl's number?"
Izuku just glares at him. "I got another contact in case we need more information."
Shoto opens his mouth, something on the tip of his tongue, and then shuts it and passes the sticky note back to Lemillion.
"Wow! She wrote her zeroes as hearts! Neat!" Mirio gives Izuku a look, and whatever façade of calm Izuku manages to cobble together evaporates as another wave of embarrassment hits him.
"She's just being helpful!"
"Helpfully trying to get you a date."
"Shoto!"
The half-and-half Hero shrugs. "I'm blunt. I'm simply stating what I see." He passes Izuku the note back and huffs. "Come on. Let's get started on this case. I have a feeling it's going to be one hell of a headache."
"She wasn't flirting with me." Izuku protests, following the other two Heroes out the door.
"Or maybe she was," Shoto assures, but he doesn't press the issue, and instead cracks his knuckles. Frost gathers on his fingers as he steps out, the dirt under him icing over. "Let's run an early patrol. Lemillion can coordinate with the police on the investigation."
"Meet you at the office when you get back!" Lemillion chirps back, taking a brief running start before dropping through the ground.
Izuku huffs, wanting to argue further, but he wasn't even sure if it was worth it. Ms. Uraraka was just being nice, trying to be helpful and friendly to him since he was trying to help out her jobsite.
There was no ulterior motive behind that.
Izuku launches himself once more across the skyline- allowing just a little bit more of One for All out. The wind whips around him, tugging at the edges of his hair and the corners of his costume. He lands with a tight combat roll on top of a bakery. He comes up running, then jumps once more, covering the whole city block in this jump and leaving both Shoto and Lemillion (probably) behind as he heads back to his usual patrol route.
The normal progression of his day is easier to think about than the murder this morning. It is far easier to map out in his head what streets would see the most traffic today, and where he needed to be at what time, or what the most efficient route to an in-progress-incident, than it is to consider what kind of mind chopped a body into pieces and dumped it on a construction site.
But his mind still spirals back to it.
A mummified skull in the concrete footer of an elevator shaft.
A contractor trying to support her own small business and making sure he had all the drawings he needed, making sure that there isn't anything he missed or needed.
A professional killer leaving bodies hidden about his city.
The strange and sudden alarm from Danger Sense.
The sun sets before Izuku even realizes he hasn't stopped for lunch.
His stomach growls and groans its protest, but he settles for stopping on a skyscraper's corner and eating an almond and peanut butter protein bar. He mulls over each bite, still lost in his thoughts as he listens to the drone of the air conditioner next to him.
"Did you die?" Shoto's voice cracks over the comm.
Izuku perks up, blinking rapidly before taking another bite of his protein bar. Just Shoto checking in. He swallows, licking his teeth before tapping his comms to unmute himself.
"Sorry, did you say something?"
"I've been trying to reach you for an hour. What happened?" Shoto huffs on the other end of the line. "You're lucky you put a biometric tracking in your suit or else you'd have a task force looking for you by now."
Izuku chuckles, feeling embarrassment creeping up his cheeks and burning his ears. "Sorry, just thinking."
"I noticed. Get back to the agency. The forensic team found something interesting."
Izuku chomps down on the rest of his lunch, shoving the wrapper into one of his cargo pockets. He swan-dives off the roof, spreading his arms wide and listening to the wind roar. For just a moment he closes his eyes.
For just a moment he can pretend it's just him and the whistling of the wind. He can pretend that he isn't called to a higher standard. He can pretend that All-Might's legacy and Kacchan's dreams don't rest on someone else's houlders. He can imagine that his existence doesn't have the additional tag of 'Survivor of the Class the Never Was' attached to it.
He can pretend he's a Hero that hasn't failed before he ever started.
Danger Sense rattles around in his head, like a foghorn piercing through his mind as it notifies him of the oncoming concrete.
He twists, feeling more than seeing an anchor point for Blackwhip. He sends it out, and his plummet to the concrete turns into an even smooth swing across the skyline. There's a moment he opens his eyes in between, his heels just centimeters from the top of the cars speeding below him on the street. And then his downward velocity converts into angular acceleration and his feet pull away and he rises up once more.
Blackwhip snaps back to his hand, and he throws out another lash, swinging down the street on a rhythm all his own. It reminds him of watching Sero… Cellophane… He should see how his new agency is doing.
He swings around a corner, curling Blackwhip up in his hands as he lands in front of Sir Nighteye's agency. The automatic doors are almost too slow for him, and he has to slip sideways between them as he charges into the lobby, swipes his badge, and runs up the stairs.
It's four flights of stairs before he has to swipe his badge again to let himself into the floor the senior sidekick and Sir Nighteye share. Then across the room – past a whiteboard with tally marks no one will tell him about – and into the conference room to find Shoto and Lemillion waiting on him.
Lemillion laughs upon his arrival, "I told you he could get here in seven minutes! Pay up!"
Izuku frowns but decides it's not worth questioning when Shoto rolls his eyes and pulls out his wallet, passing a set of bills to the older Hero. He circles the table to join them around the phone, hitting the blinking light and taking whomever is on the other end off hold.
"Aegis, Shoto and Lemillion here." Izuku grumbles, glancing back at Lemillion as he stuffs his wallet back into a pocket.
They were always betting over something. Casually and without ever telling him what each bet was explicitly about. Izuku half wondered if they were just exchanging the same set of bills back and forth the whole time.
It wouldn't specifically surprise him.
"Forensic investigator Lance here." The speaker is English, but Izuku can only tell due to a slight accent and how he doesn't slip on the 'l's in his name.
"What do you have?" Mirio asks.
"Well- since you so kindly made me wait and I'm just so overjoyed at the prospect of overtime-oh wait I'm salary-"
"Cause of Death please." Shoto intones.
There's a heavy sigh on the other end. "Staining on the bones and tissue damage make it appear to be from a cut on the carotid. From the tissue damage and bleeding, it looks like the body was disassembled post-mortem. So you're not necessarily looking for a maniac that likes ripping people limb from limb, just someone meticulous."
"Was there any trace evidence?"
"Would I still have a job if I didn't check for that first?"
There's a lengthy pause in which the Heroes exchange a look, wondering how they ended up with the snarkiest forensic in the department.
"That's rhetorical, but the answer is no." Lance finally huffs. "I didn't lift any trace elements off the head. It's been scrubbed clean. I have some traces of rubber- but it matches standard heavy duty construction gloves. Not the gloves, but rather the coating they put on them."
"Does that give us a lead?" Shoto presses, "Perhaps we could gather or track down the pair of gloves?"
"We're dealing with a professional that separated the pieces and buried them in concrete. Not to mention the only reason we found this," Izuku assumes the ME means the skull, "is because the space inside decayed enough to provide Lemillion an area comparable to his eye to phase into. We have no chance of finding the other parts. The skull was wrapped in shrink wrap to minimize air or decaying impacts on the concrete. We can't look for cracks or structural weaknesses in the concrete. I think they were smart enough to dispose of their gloves properly." The ME on the other end huffed.
"So, what do we actually have?"
"Other than a decapitated head, some slightly worse for wear plastic, and a lack of overtime in my paycheck?" There's another pause that no one feels comfortable broaching. "Nothing."
"What about identity?" Shoto suggests after a beat.
"I pulled a bone and tissue sample from the head, sent it off to the lab a while ago. I should hear back by the end of the week or so, if not before."
Lemillion purses his lips but forces them into a smile after a moment. "Well, there's no need to be glum. We have the foundation for a case, and we've only just begun. Let's do some digging, see if we can't find some more parts, and see where that leads us!"
"Good luck with that. That building is on a timeline, and there's already lawyers at the station door about the delays our initial investigation is causing. I don't think they'll let you peel back the concrete." Lance puts in from the phone.
"I'll discuss it with the forewoman." Izuku grumbles, cracking his neck and wondering if that means he should stay up the rest of the night or go to bed and set an early alarm.
There's a rumble of agreement around the room, before the ME hangs up and leaves Mirio, Shoto, and him stewing in the conference room with the new information. It's not much to go off of, and it's doubtful they'll get the permission to dig up the building. And if what the ME said was true about the packaging on the skull, then there was little chance they'd find the other bones by smell or coincidence.
"Mystery murder." Izuku grumbles, propping his elbows on the table and resting his head in his hands.
"It's not going to be solved in one night." Lemillion said gently. "Get some sleep, come back to it in the morning."
"The family deserves closure, and the body deserves the respect of being buried together." Izuku counters, dredging one hand through his hair.
"The ME doesn't even have an identity yet. Let's revisit it in the morning after a good night's rest!" Lemillion elbows Izuku, patting him roughly on the back.
"I have a full report to write up about this morning." Izuku protests, already moving towards their office.
"Thank your partner for doing it six hours ago." Shoto deadpans as he blocks the door. "Sir Nighteye already looked it over, he's assigning us to the police as resources on the case since it looks serious."
"So we're helping them?"
Shoto shrugs, and Izuku dodges around Lemillion to follow after him. They take the elevator together down to the lobby, where Mirio picks them up again. It's a small wonder no one in the building has had a heart attack given the intangible Hero just…fazes through the floors instead of using stairs or elevators.
"We're going to bed, and then helping them." Shoto states, giving Izuku a look.
Izuku winces but decides he probably shouldn't argue with his own partner. Shoto had enough on his plate.
"Fine." Izuku mutters. He shakes out his fingers, which were clenched so tightly into fists that some days he wonders if they've frozen like that.
The company therapist- a kind woman named Snow- says sometimes it's healthy to show anger. She says that some days if you want to scream at the sky and tear the clouds down from the heavens it's because you're trying to come to terms with the injustices laid upon your shoulders.
Izuku isn't sure if he agrees with that.
His anger isn't focused on the heavens or the clouds.
His anger is focused on himself. On not being good enough, on not being fast enough. It's focused on the weakness that lingers in his muscles from one day to the next, it's centered on how he's always two steps too slow to be everywhere at once. There is no God that is to blame for his failures, only himself. He should have been stronger, he should have been faster, he should have been better.
"Get some rest." Shoto reminds him as they part outside the office.
Izuku gives him another smile and a thumbs up. "Headed straight home."
"You better be. Or I'll freeze you to your futon." Shoto warns.
Izuku has no doubt that he would.
So, he walks home, his hands in his pockets and his eyes lost in the inky sky above his head.
There are underground Heroes working in the night, and some just working the night shift, but it doesn't change the fact that Izuku feels like he's wasting time when he's going home to sleep, and some poor soul may be walking down the road to their unknowing death.
"If victory is long in coming, your swords will dull, and your ardor dampened." Izuku grumbles out the advice, reminding himself that it was better to rest now than it was for him to collapse in the field.
He needs the rest, and he needs to be at the top of his game all the time. If that means he needs to sleep, then that is the price he has to pay to keep pace with the whirling world around him.
Maybe tonight he'll be free from the nightmares.