It's one of those nights. The kind that makes it difficult to fall asleep. Shadows creep like creatures that could also be hiding under the bed or in the closet. Floorboards creak as though they're being stepped on, noises occupying what should be an empty ambience. The paranoia of a boogeyman keeps Melissa Shield wide awake. She tosses and she turns in bed, not daring to close her eyes now that they've adjusted to the dark enough for her to see. Well, as much as she can see without her glasses on.
When Shield hears a thump louder than the other odd noises that her house makes, she reaches for those glasses to better enhance her vision. If she can't go asleep now, then she definitely won't be able to close her eyes unless self assured that the sound doesn't belong to an actual person or monster. She throws her bed sheets off and climbs out of bed to investigate. Shield is as quiet as a mouse herself, taking light steps outside her bedroom.
There, silhouetted by the moonlight gleaning through a widow, stands a figure shaped like a person. Shield's heart skips a beat, her mouth opening to scream in alarm. Nobody ever actually expects to find someone or something as the source of nightly commotion. Yet this time, she's found the nightwalker responsible for it all. Or, so she thinks. Until the figure steps deeper into the room so the moonlight reveals their features.
"Hi..", Izuku Midoriya awkwardly waves with a wince when he sees her reaction.
Though startled doesn't even begin to describe the way Shield is feeling, she does take notice of his disheveled appearance. His torn articles of clothing damp and clinging to him like his hair, he looks like a drowned rat. "You look like shit.", she tries not to sound too concerned but urgently ushers him to her couch either way, "Sit down. Are you alright?"
Still rather bashful, Midoriya rubs the back of his neck and takes a seat. "Yeah.. We really gotta stop meeting like this.", his attempt at smoothing out the situation in the form of a joke is just as inelegant as his posture.
But Shield plays along anyways, "What kind of neighborhoods are you going to for this to happen twice?", hoping that it's some sort of comfort zone that'll allow him to cope with explaining his injuries or presence.
"It's a long story.", her hope falls short of itself when he pushes her away, "I don't need you to patch me up this time."
She gives him a once over and fails to keep the skepticism out of her voice, "I'd beg to differ." Then the smell hits her. She shakes her head to try and clear her sinuses, "Are you here for a shower? You smell like shit too."
Ignoring the remark, Midoriya digs into his pocket. He then pulls out a USB to present, "I'm here for this."
"A thumbdrive?", Shield tilts her head curiously before taking the small device from him to see up close.
Midoriya nods while requesting, "Can you take a look at what's on it for me?"
Still processing the random suddenness of his arrival in her home and what he's asking of her in his current state, all Shield can manage is, "Uh.. Sure." She stands up to go and grab her laptop while asking, "This couldn't wait until morning? You had to break into my house?"
Midoriya sinks into her couch as though the questions are heavy loaded and they're weighing him down. "It couldn't wait.", his voice takes a tone that tells her he's serious.
But she still can't imagine a justification for his theatrical dramatics. "Uhuh. And why me?", she tries digging a little deeper for a better explanation while digging for her computer still.
Midoriya closes his eyes as he takes the moment he needs to answer that question. He himself doesn't know whether it's due to rationalization or his emotions being compromised. He could say because her house was the closest again. Or that he wanted an excuse to see her. He just can't explain his reasons for avoiding Kurogiri and his own home. So he settles on, "Because.. You're the only one who I can trust right now."
Shield falters when she hears that. Her face starts to heat up, but she quickly stifles the feeling by swallowing it down. "Okay then.", she sets her laptop up and turns it on while prying for more, "If you trust me so much, then why not tell me how you really got so battered up?"
Midoriya exhales through his nose, just short of being a mild form of amusement. When he gives his response, Shield is pretty sure that he does find it all humorous in some way, "Same reason I smell like I wrestled an alligator in the sewers. Because I did."
"Fine. Keep your secrets.", she rolls her eyes while plugging the USB he gave her into her laptop's side socket. In a matter of seconds, she's given a prompt. "It looks like this thumbdrive has its fair share of secrets too. It's encrypted. What's the password?", Shield sighs as she glances over her shoulder with the expectation of an actual answer to this question at the very least.
But Midoriya sits up, looking back at her. Her expression matches his when he asks, "It's lock protected?"
"Wait, is this not yours?", it's her turn to look and sound confused. If this entire ordeal weren't already strange enough, he's just gone and made it weirder.
He waves off the question in favor of asking his own, "Are you able to get in or not?"
"I'm.. not sure.", Shield frowns as she returns her attention to the prompt on her screen. When she clicks and reads all that it's giving her, she's even more baffled, "There's a riddle for the password hint."
Midoriya moves from her couch to looking over her shoulder so he can read it for himself, "What perspective can still be seen the same when in reverse or looked at from others?"
Shield ever so slightly tilts her head as she mulls the riddle over and guesses, "At an angle?"
"No. It's more complicated than that.", but Midoriya shoots the attempt at an answer down and tries working around the riddle, "Can't you just bypass this?"
Shield shakes her head and crosses her arms, admitting momentary defeat, "Not without a supercomputer and a lot more time."
Midoriya hums as he weighs his options. He does have a supercomputer, but potentially not a whole lot of time. He also wants to avoid running into Kurogiri for as long as he can prolong. He starts to ponder the riddle. He thinks that if the gamemaster is Intelli, she must know about his identity. Perhaps, even if the enigma of an enemy isn't her, they may still know he and Batman are one and the same. Which means someone of their stature would tauntingly tease him.
Thinking from the perspective of a bat, Midoriya twists the laptop so that it faces upside down. "Hey, what are you–", he ignores Shield's protests as he looks for any chance that his hunch is correct. Shield stops short, seeing the same clue that he finds. The code that had been running along the surface was flipped using letters instead of ones and zeroes, however, that would only be decipherable from this pov.
Midoriya returns the laptop to its ordinary position and types into the answer key, "Upside down.."
However, when he hits the enter button, access is still denied. Shield's face scrunches in disappointment as she says, "Looks like that wasn't it."
Midoriya's eyes return to the letters that flutter along the screen. He watches them carefully, noting that they're the same ones and not the entirety of the american alphabet. Fortunately for him, he knows the English language well enough to put two and two together. He types in 'umop apisdn' and hits the enter button a second time. The password gets accepted.
When he sees Shield eyeing him inquisitively, he explains to her how he figured out the solution to the puzzle. "You can spell the words upside down and in reverse with other letters of the alphabet. Different perspectives, but still the same.", the elaboration has Shield scoffing in disbelief.
"Quite the password.", she huffs to herself. The small pout is over not solving it herself, Midoriya imagines. "Let's see what was so important to keep hidden.", but she does do the liberty of handling everything else. Her fingers fly across the keyboard and she opens a command board with all sorts of orders written into it. "That's weird.", she's more perturbed by that than the riddle.
"What is it?", Midoriya glances between the code and her as he tries to see what she sees.
"This algorithm looks familiar.. It's not the one U.A itself used, it's more like a breaker than a secured network, but still belongs to that same one.", her explanation isn't as easy for him to comprehend as his was to hers earlier though.
"A virus?", he takes a guess at what she could mean.
But guesses wrong, "Not exactly." Shield opens a separate window to use her internet browser, "This is when the dark web comes in handy." Midoriya raises a brow at that, but refrains from making any sort of comment. Then Shield says something that has him craning to look at the screen again, "Oh my.."
"This is the same network that was used to hack into U.A long ago. When Gentle Criminal and La Brava interrupted an annual festival.", his eyes widen as he reads the results that she's gotten from her deep search.
"What would somebody want with this?", Shield looks back at him in the hopes that he'll have an answer that isn't foreboding.
But the least foreboding of reasons Midoriya can muster is, "Unless it belonged to them originally.." And that actually makes sense to him when he considers the possibility. Manami Aiba, La Brava, had been the partner of Gentle Criminal. The two were known for their shameless advertisements of the Imperial Tea brand while committing illegal activities on the internet. The tea cup he had found at one of the riddler's hideaways coupled with the riddler's high pitched voice leaning towards feminine or younger make sense with the reuse of her own code. Intelli is no longer his only suspect.
Watching Midoriya mutter to himself as he overthinks the need for what's on the USB leaves Shield wondering more than ever, "What have you gotten yourself involved in?"
Her question snaps him out of his musings. Realizing the potential danger she could get into if she learns more, he shuts her down, "Nothing you need to be involved in." Midoriya unplugs the flashdrive and starts to head for the window that he snuck in through, "Sorry that I came here. I didn't know what was on the device."
Shield stands up to follow and stop him, "No, you-" But pauses when her doorbell rings. She and Midoriya freeze like deer in headlights, turning their attention to the door.
Midoriya's posture straightens and Shield realizes just how much he must have slouched for her not to notice his muscles or height until now. "Expecting somebody?", even his voice has a much more hardened and focused tone.
Nervously, Shield fidgets with her glasses and admits, "Not this soon.."
"Meaning?", Midoriya shoots her a look.
"I kinda texted Hatsume a little while after you got here.", she shrugs and turns away from him to hide her shame.
"Why.. ?", he's too confused to notice her heading for the door until it's too late, "Wait-"
Fortunately, it does happen to just be Hatsume and not some psycho with a gun or Killer Croc having followed Midoriya's scent. "Hey, muscles!", the inventor extraordinaire greets her boss while raising up a big metallic briefcase, "I brought your new suit!"
At the mention of a suit, Midoriya blinks questionably. "She told me what your secret project was for her and.. Yeah. I know.", Shield avoids eye contact as she tries to explain herself. She does have the courtesy of letting Hatsume in and closing the door so none of her neighbors overhear though.
Midoriya brings a hand to his forehead, just short of a facepalm. "You.. both knew?", he realizes that his secret is out.
"You didn't think I knew what all those babies were for?", Hatsume's dreadlocks sway when she tilts her head incredulously.
Midoriya takes the briefcase from her to open it and see if he's being misled. When he finds a chestplate with a bat printed on the front, he fully accepts that this is actually happening. "I didn't think you cared.", he sighs heavily now that he has to deal with the two knowing about his alter ego.
"What kind of irresponsible mother would I be if that were the case?!", and Hatsume's comments like that aren't helping.
"Oh God..", he really does allow himself to facepalm this time.
His hand remains on his face when Shield chimes back in, "So.. How about telling me that long story now, Batman?"