When Denki heard some others piling in downstairs, he rushed down the steps to the common room, his soreness momentarily ignored in favor of seeing his classmates faster.
"Well, well, well! Look who we have here! A bunch of people who I thought were friends and who would inform me when they were going on a crazy intense undercover mission to infiltrate the Yakuza," Denki greeted, friendly malice in his tone.
Kirishima looked pretty rough. He rubbed the back of his neck and blinked at Denki with tired eyes. "Sorry, man, but I couldn't tell you. You know how these things go."
"I would know how these things went if I was ever invited to them!" Denki argued, but smiled as he joined the group of tired hero students.
"It's actually better that you weren't there," Kirishima offered with a yawn. "There were some villains there from the League of Villains. We had no idea who to fight and when. It was super confusing and actually pretty terrifying."
When Denki didn't respond, Kirishima apologized for bringing the League of Villains up, thinking it was a sensitive topic.
"Dunce face can't respond because of that fucking quirk. He can't talk about the League of Villains, but he don't look scared to me," Bakugou muttered as he stomped through, not bothering to catch up with the other students who had slowly been gathering in the common room to find out what the commotion was all about.
Kirishima's eyes darted over Denki's face, and he nodded, sighing in relief. "Just punch me in the face if you don't want me to keep talking."
Denki laughed and sat down on the floor, ready to hear about the secret undercover mission that was no longer a secret now that it was done. Other classmates joined him.
Kirishima talked about blasting their way in, all of the hallways, and running into Toga and Twice. "It was weird. They were taunting us, you know, verbally, but they made no move to actually attack or even hinder our efforts. When one of the Yakuza members asked them for help, they called him a 'big, strong man who can handle his own shit,' blew him a kiss, and left. And, uh, spoiler alert, he was a big, strong man, but he apparently could not handle his own shit."
Everyone laughed. Kirishima was tired, but he was so grateful to have made it out of there in one piece. For a second there, he wasn't sure if he'd see his classmates' faces ever again.
"It was weird. The leader of the League of Villains popped in out of nowhere, too. I got separated from Fat Gum, and I was losing the fight. It's not like… it's not like training or when there's a lot of back up, you know? I only had myself, and I was failing majorly."
His classmates listened intently with bated breath as Kirishima explained what had happened.
Kirishima was fighting with everything he had. Fighting blind, even, when blood would drip into his eyes. His quirk was getting more difficult to activate every time he let it slip, but he couldn't really hold onto it either.
He tripped backwards after a particularly bad hit. He might have been able to recover if it hadn't been for a large piece of rubble aiding in twisting his ankle and sending him to the floor. He had squeezed his eyes shut, wondering if death hurt as bad as dying did.
"I can take it from here," he heard as the Yakuza villain stumbled closer. When the villain hesitated, Shigaraki insisted, "go get patched up. More heroes are bound to show up any minute. You think they came here without backup? Are you all this dense?"
The Yakuza villain snarled at Shigaraki and spit a glob of blood at his feet, but he did leave. Kirishima wanted to beg him to stay, to send Shigaraki away and continue the fight on their own. He wasn't prepared to fight the Yakuza, he learned quite quickly. So, how was he supposed to fight the League of Villains after being so thoroughly pummeled?
Shigaraki had stared at Kirishima, and Kirishima's life flashed before his eyes. Shigaraki waited until the Yakuza man had limped all of the way out of the room before actually moving in his direction, taking slow, deliberate steps, the smaller pieces of rubble cracking under Shigaraki's red shoes.
Kirishima had never been so afraid to see red in his life. Red was usually his comfort color, his confidence color.
Shigaraki squatted down in front of Kirishima. He was right there, but even if Kirishima was frozen in place in terror, he was too tired and injured to really put up a fight, even if he could catch Shigaraki off guard.
But instead of decaying his face off, Shigaraki touted a teasing "you're welcome" as his hand got closer and closer to Kirishima's face.
"Then he booped my nose, stood up, and walked out the same direction he came in from," Kirishima stated, just as confused about it as when it happened. Retelling the story didn't make it all suddenly make sense.
"I'm sorry…" Yaoyorozu started, then, without having the proper words to eloquently express herself, she settled with "what?"
"He. Booped. My. Nose." Kirishima stated. He laughed then, just as incredulous as his classmates listening to him. "Like this," he said before stalking over to Denki, crouching down, reaching out, and tapping his nose.
Denki smiled widely up at him, laughter threatening to break through the surface.
"Except I didn't look like that," Kirishima said, looking at the amused expression on Denki's face. "I was still absolutely terrified, sure he was going to say that he was just messing around before grabbing my face and decaying me away into dust."
"How bad did you look?" Sero asked from his place next to Denki. "Maybe he thought you were on death's door already and didn't feel the need to bother."
"I looked terrible," Kirishima admitted with a laugh, but his gut instincts were telling him that wasn't what had happened at all. Kirishima's mood dropped quickly. "I almost thought he was actually helping me, helping us, until he grabbed Eri and vanished."
Kirishima offered a quick explanation of Eri and what the Yakuza were doing that needed such a big response effort from the heroes. The reactions among the listeners were intense. How could someone do something like that to a child? And then how could someone else take over, taking the child away from salvation that was so close? What was happening to Eri at that very moment? It made everyone feel sick to think about, except Denki who couldn't speak around Force Majeure's quirk to say otherwise.
"Eri is fine," Denki heard from the direction of the entrance to the dormitory.
Everyone turned to see Midoriya there. His hero costume was torn, and he slumped with exhaustion, but otherwise, he seemed to be physically whole.
Midoriya joined the group to talk about how he followed the fight above ground and went directly against Overhaul with the help of Eri's quirk. When Aizawa had turned her quirk off so she wouldn't kill Midoriya with it, she had fallen unconscious. The other Yakuza thugs weren't so disloyal as to leave their boss there without a fight, and so everyone was distracted by rounding up the last few standing villains when Kirishima yelled out for Shigaraki to stop. Everyone turned in the direction where Eri had been lying, only to find Shigaraki carrying her through a warp gate. By the time the nearest hero got to the warp gate, it had already completely closed, vanished without a trace.
The heroes scrambled as soon as the last of the Yakuza was restrained, trying to figure out where the League of Villains might have taken Eri. There was speculation that the two groups were working together, but that didn't seem to be the case when Twice told one of the heroes that Eri was safe and sound with the electrical student at UA.
Bakugou had taken off without hesitation, Aizawa not far behind him.
Everyone turned to look at Denki, wide eyed and stricken.
"Kami? The League was here? They tracked you down here?" Kirishima asked.
No one was surprised at Denki's blank face, unable to even communicate his emotions on the matter.
Midoriya shifted his weight, inhaling only to exhale with a sigh as he considered.
"Kacchan said that Kaminari didn't look scared, and Eraserhead didn't haul him away to be checked over by Recovery Girl. He's still here, he wasn't taken again, and he's unharmed, at least physically. I, for one, believe that Kaminari can take care of himself," Midoriya said.
Denki was surprised, but glad that Midoriya was at least acknowledging him instead of intentionally ignoring him. His feelings of relief vanished when he looked at Midoriya only to see him looking back at him with furrowed eyebrows, hesitation and suspicion clear in his eyes.
Did Midoriya figure out that Denki was friendly with the League of Villains? Is that why he had been avoiding him?
Denki didn't know, but he had a feeling he was about to find out when he finally made his way back to his room only to be greeted by a nervous-looking Midoriya waiting for him.
"Hi," Midoriya greeted, immediately looking sheepish for greeting Denki in his own room. "Can we talk?"
"Yeah, of course," Denki said, pulling off his (Hitoshi's) hoodie and throwing it on the bed before he hopped up beside it, giving Midoriya his full attention. "I actually went to talk to you earlier, but you were off saving the world, I guess." Denki laughed. "Your door was unlocked, though."
"Oh!" Midoriya exclaimed, looking at Denki with renewed anxiety. "Did you—"
"Lock the door? Yes, I did!" Denki interjected. "You really should be more careful with a traitor running around, you know? All of those notebooks full of information would be devastating in the wrong hands."
Midoriya looked at Denki, trying to decipher something without verbally asking. Denki looked back at Midoriya, trying to figure out what Midoriya needed from him.
"I've been avoiding you," Midoriya said. "And you've been asking for help with history. Did you look at any of my notes?"
"Of course not!" Denki answered.
Midoriya slumped with relief.
"Though, I did think about it! It wouldn't have been very heroic of me, though. And with my luck I wouldn't be able to find what I needed. So, I locked your door for you," Denki continued with a shrug. "You really should remember to keep that locked!"
Midoriya gave Denki a blank look. His eyes darted to Denki's own door and then back to Denki.
"We should really remember to keep our doors locked," Denki corrected with a laugh.
Midoriya smiled. Denki had a way of putting people at ease. But apparently, so did Full Throttle, so that didn't really help much.
"I don't want to insult you," Midoriya started, "but I have to know instead of going back and forth between my thoughts all day. Are you the traitor, Denki?"
"What? Me?" Denki asked, surprised. "No." His heartrate increased, and his speech became a little more frantic against his will. "Why did you think so? Are other people saying that about me?"
"No," Midoriya answered, though he was still looking at Denki with slight suspicion.
Denki couldn't blame him. Would the actual traitor be like, 'ah! You got me! Nice detective work!'? Denki highly doubted it.
"And I haven't talked to anyone about this, either. I don't want to start rumors or anything," Midoriya said.
Plus, Midoriya believed that he could take Denki in a fight, Denki realized. Why else would he confront Denki alone? What if Denki had been the traitor and decided to fight? To be fair, Midoriya was a powerhouse, and he probably could take Denki in a fight.
"What makes me suspicious?" Denki asked, worried about the answer, but knowing that he had to know.
"Well, you were taken by the League of Villains," Midoriya said. "That alone should be enough to clear you, especially considering Force Majeure used her quirk on you. But then Toga came to visit you. And now Shigaraki is dropping in to give Eri directly to you. Like I said, I kept going back and forth in my mind, and I just had to know."
Denki opened his mouth to respond, only for his words to be blocked by Force Majeure's quirk.
"Aaaaand I triggered Force Majeure's quirk, didn't I?" Midoriya asked, rubbing at his forehead. "I don't know how to go about this in a way that you can talk about it."
"Wait here," Denki commanded.
Without waiting for Midoriya to confirm, Denki bolted out of the door, running full speed toward the Class 2-B dorms.
Midoriya sat on Denki's desk chair, shifting his weight, shifting his eyes, wondering if he should run away and never come back. What if what he said was enough to trigger an investigation into himself? Where had Denki gone anyway? It wasn't like he could talk to anyone about anything to do with the League of Villains.
Midoriya jumped when the door opened again, but Denki wasn't alone. Midoriya wasn't sure how to play this. What if Denki, Hitoshi, and Neito were all traitors and they saw Midoriya as a threat for questioning their loyalty? He might have just painted a huge target on his back.
"You think Denki is a traitor?" Hitoshi asked after they all entered the room and shut the door firmly behind them, sparing a glance at the hoodie that was definitely his that was lying on Denki's bed. He pushed down the smile; he could think about that later.
Midoriya shrugged and averted his gaze.
Hitoshi and Neito looked at each other, then looked at Denki for good measure.
"Denki wants us to tell you everything," Neito offered. "So, we're going to tell you everything."
"Just like that?" Midoriya asked, disbelieving.
"Ask and you shall receive," Hitoshi muttered with a one-sided shrug as he heaved himself backwards onto Denki's bed, lying right on top of the hoodie that was definitely his. "What do you want to know?"
"When Denki was taken hostage," Midoriya started. "That was for real, right?"
"Yes," Neito said with a sharp nod. "Scared the fuck out of us."
"Then what happened that Toga came to visit Kaminari? And today with Shigaraki?"
"You know how we kept ourselves calm by telling everyone that Denks would be fine because he can make friends with anyone?" Hitoshi started.
"That actually happened?!" Midoriya asked, wide-eyed gaze lingering on Denki before going back to Hitoshi for confirmation.
"Wait," Neito demanded. "How did you know that it was Toga? No one else knew."
"I saw her running through the common room, crying."
"That doesn't explain how you knew it was her instead of thinking it was just Denki," Neito pressured.
Midoriya shifted his weight, and the trio waited patiently for Midoriya to answer.
"You know how at the beginning of our first year, a bunch of us went to the mall together?" Midoriya asked. When he received nods, he continued, "the mall was evacuated because a member of the League of Villains was spotted. It wasn't just that simple, though. Shigaraki found me and pulled me away from my friends. He asked me for advice, and I gave it. Anything to not die, you know? But the weird thing was that he actually took my advice and benefited from it."
"We've heard really good things about him," Hitoshi offered.
"Yeah," Midoriya agreed. "He's… weird. Not what I think about when I think of a villain, you know? But when Kaminari was taken from the training camp, I thought I had gotten it all wrong. But then he was completely fine when we got him back. Physically, at least. But then he was completely back to normal. I could tell he wasn't faking it, too."
"Denki found out that he was old friends with Shigaraki and another member of the League," Neito said. "He was giving Shigaraki CPR when we pulled him away, and he didn't know if he had succeeded or not."
Midoriya drew in a breath through his teeth. "That must have been difficult for you," he said to Denki. "I don't know if I would have been able to look past them using Force Majeure's quirk on me, even if they were old friends."
"Denki was willing," Neito offered. "And it didn't hurt him like everyone thought it was going to."
"How do you know all of this?" Midoriya asked then.
"We found a draft on Denki's TikTok that showed him being friendly with a bunch of League members. We figure that must have put us on the inside of her quirk, finding out without the help of anyone else," Neito said.
"We're still trying to figure it out for sure, though. We're not certain why he's able to talk to us about it," Hitoshi added.
"Do you know who the traitor is?" Midoriya asked.
"No. And it seems like you don't know either," Neito answered. "Are you involved with the League?" Neito asked in return, knowing that Denki must have sensed something about Midoriya to ask them to give him all of the answers like this.
"Yeah," Midoriya answered immediately, rubbing the back of his neck with a laugh that lacked all humor. "It turns out that All For One is actually my father."
All three heads whipped in his direction, and Midoriya had everyone's undivided attention.
"What does he want? Does it have something to do with One For All?" Hitoshi asked.
"Oh, wow," Midoriya said, surprised. "They really told you just about everything, didn't they?"
"Denki made a list of people who were untouchable to the League. They agreed for everyone except you, so Denki made them explain why," Hitoshi informed. "He was—we were just relieved that it wasn't something more nefarious."
"More nefarious?" Midoriya repeated. "What could be worse than having him as a father?"
"Having the League against you instead of on your side," Hitoshi answered easily.
Midoriya nodded at this and continued nodding as he thought. He stopped suddenly and asked, "the recent villains that have been turning themselves in to our classmates?"
"Yes," Neito answered.
"Shigaraki actually helping Kiri?"
"Yes."
"Why?" was all Midoriya could ask.
"Denki here is going to be the first hero endorsed by the League of Villains, or any villainous group, really," Neito said, throwing his arm around the blonde in question.
Midoriya had rushed to his own room and came back just as fast, sprawling his notebooks all over Denki's floor. He showed them the pages upon pages he had of the various League members and their quirk analyses that he gathered from spending time with them.
"Though, they don't seem to like me as much as they like you, Kaminari," Midoriya teased with a smile.
"With all this intel, I can see why they wouldn't," Neito said, eyes scanning the pages. "You're dangerous in your own right, quirk or not."
"Thanks for saying that."
"You don't have to thank me for stating the truth."
Neito turned on his boyfriends as soon as they all bid Midoriya goodbye.
"I told you I didn't take your hoodie!" Neito grumbled playfully as he gestured to the stolen hoodie on Denki's bed.
Hitoshi shrugged, barely holding in his laughter.
"And you!" Neito said, eyes wide with mania, turning on his heel to face Denki. "You'll steal Toshi's hoodies but not mine?! What's up with that?!"
With a smile, Denki strolled over to his closet and opened the door, gesturing inside like a magician presenting the result of his illusion.
There were three more hoodies that belonged to Hitoshi hanging up, right beside two hoodies, a long-sleeved shirt, and a fleece jacket that belonged to Neito. Belonged in past tense because Denki commandeered his treasures fair and square.
Neito examined Denki's stash, nodding in thoughtful appreciation. "Not bad. But you have a while to go before you catch up to me."
Denki gasped, scandalized. "Are you the reason I can't find my Pikachu onesie?!"
Neito just laughed, but that was answer enough.
"No honor among thieves," Hitoshi grumbled, shaking his head in disappointment.
"Says the one who took my whole fucking blanket!" Neito argued, voice raising an octave.
"Oh!" Denki shrieked with realization. "Is that why I only have one pillow now?!"
"You didn't realize earlier?"
"I thought that UA was trying to save money and decreased our pillow ration," Denki explained, nodding with a lopsided smile on his face.
Hitoshi shrugged. "Makes sense to me. Maybe they have a blanket ration, too."
"Oh, you—"
Neito lunged toward Hitoshi, and Hitoshi dodged laughing. Neito chased Hitoshi all the way back to the Class 2-B dorms, where no one was surprised to see them up to their normal antics.
Denki was just glad that Hitoshi didn't have the chance to steal his hoodie back.