Notes: Aged-up fic! I imagine them around 23 years old here maybe.

Hatsume was very OOC in the first draft but I hope I've fixed her up well enough now.

Please enjoy!

Fourth Finger

Throughout his years as a student at UA, and in his time as a pro hero after graduation, Izuku had made innumerable contacts and acquaintances in many various fields. This made it incredibly easy for Rody, by association, to find someone to turn to whenever he needed to ask a favor.

But it was incredibly difficult to have said favor completed in secret. It went without saying that Izuku, Japan's Number One hero for four years running, was easily recognizable by anyone, and ever since establishing his home airport in Japan, Rody had become somewhat of a local celebrity as well. Rare was the day that he could run errands in their city without later checking social media to find photographs of himself peppered among the #DekuWatch hashtag.

Fortunately, he knew exactly who he wanted to approach for his current task, and he didn't necessarily need to find her locally. Unfortunately, that meant that there were fewer opportunities for their paths to cross, since most of her time not spent at her Tokyo workshop was spent out and about attending industry expos.

After two months of stalking her socials, though, Rody finally spotted her posting about being at her smaller Kyoto workshop right when he happened to be flying into Kansai International. Perfect.

Rody had been to Kyoto a couple of times before, but it was mostly to see the historical sites with Izuku; this was his first time venturing into the more commercial area of the city. It was his first time meeting this person, too. The entire plan consisted of a bunch of firsts for him, really, and Pino's frenzied, anxious chirping while flitting around his head was plenty proof of how he was really feeling. Not wanting the little bird to disrupt the ensuing discussion, Rody grabbed Pino and stuffed him in his jacket pocket as he turned the final corner towards the workshop.

Rody could hear sounds coming from inside—good, that meant that she was probably still there. He hadn't known of any way to get her contact information without tipping Izuku off, and with him unable to lie his way out of anything with his boyfriend, he'd opted instead to just show up unannounced. There was a sign posted on her door, but while Rody could read some Japanese by this point—he figured he was at about a third-grade level—whatever was written on there was either too difficult or (very possibly) too eccentric for him to parse.

Shrugging, he ignored the sign and threw the door open.

There was no one immediately in view as he walked inside, only scrap metal, circuit boards, and other materials haphazardly stacked against the walls, and a workbench that must function as a front counter. Sounds of hammers and power tools leaked from a curtained door behind the workbench, soon accompanied by a female voice shouting out in Japanese. "Not taking any customers right now! Read the sign, please!"

Times like these were when the foreigner card really came in handy. "Sumimasorry!" Rody called back, laying on his accent as thick as possible. "Can't read nihongo!"

The sounds of tinkering stopped, and after a moment a young woman came gliding backwards through the curtain, messy pink ponytail fluttering wildly, before stopping on a dime behind the workbench. From his vantage point, Rody couldn't tell exactly how she was gliding, but he figured it had to be some sort of hoverboard or other similar gadget, judging by the tales he had heard of Mei Hatsume.

Hatsume frowned, scrunching her nose and squinting up at him through thick, dark goggles. "Heyyy, I know you," she said in English, shifting the goggles onto her forehead to directly pierce him with her bright yellow gaze. "You're Midoriya's main squeeze, aren'tcha?"

"I'm his only squeeze, thank you," Rody answered with a haughty grin.

"Yes, yes, you're both just so tooth-rottingly happy in every photo Midoriya posts." Despite her tone suggesting clear disinterest in more relationship talk, she quickly zipped around the workbench to hover directly in front of Rody—he could see now that she was wearing some sort of levitation boots that had her oscillating between one and three inches off the floor. Her eyes gleamed with interest as she raked her gaze up and down his body, then back up again, humming appreciatively. Rody was just starting to feel uncomfortable enough to consider putting some distance between them when she reached out to brazenly pat down his torso with gloved hands, and his reflexes made the decision for him.

"Excuse you?!" he yelped, jumping back as Pino flew out of his pocket with an indignant squawk.

"Hmm, not bad," Hatsume mused with a grin that teetered just on this side of manic, her piercing eyes focused somewhere that was decidedly not her visitor's discomfort. "Not exactly hero build, but—"

"I'm a pilot!"

"A pilot? I see, I seeee..." She regarded him from top to bottom one last time before planting her hands on her hips and cocking an eyebrow up at him. "So whatcha here for? Don't mind making an exception for my best client, but Midoriya usually calls or texts when he needs something. Why'd he send his boytoy as a physical messenger?" Suddenly her eyes brightened up, frenzied interest returning. "Or is this something too sensitive for even the most heavily-encrypted messaging systems? Something confidential?!"

Well, Rody was nothing if not an opportunist. "Yes, confidential!" he readily agreed, latching on tight to the phrase. "Super top secret, absolutely no one is to know. Especially not Izuku himself."

"Not Midoriya?" Hatsume's brows pulled together beneath her goggles. "So this is something for you, after all?"

"Ahh..." Pino was quickly turning bashful, so Rody stuffed him away again, trying not to let any semblance of his confident front melt away. "No, no, this is for him. Technically."

Hatsume raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "I'm listening."

Rody took a deep breath before letting it out in a rush. "I need you to make a ring."

"A ring! I've got all sorts of ring-shaped babies!" She zipped back around the workbench towards the curtained door. "What's the specifics? I've got rings for strength training, levitation rings, muscle support rings—"

"Ah, no, I don't mean..." He held up his hands in a vain attempt to stop her. Thankfully, she stopped halfway through the door, looking back at him, and as he felt his face heating up, he pointed to his own left hand. "I'm talking about, you know... the kinda ring that goes here. Yu- yubiwa. An engagement ring."

Given the woman's excitability, Rody had entirely expected some sort of hyperactive reaction to this clarification. Instead, Hatsume just stared at him, blinking slowly. Once. Twice. Thrice. "Sir, you've walked into a support item technician's workshop, not a jeweler's."

"I'm aware."

"Like, I mean, I'm super happy for you two but—"

"Wait wait wait," Rody said, cutting her off again. "No, but just think about it. If I get him a ring from any old jewelers', what's gonna happen to it the next time he Detroit Smashes a villain?"

Hatsume was quiet another moment longer, but this time when she blinked, Rody could see renewed interest lighting up her eyes. "I see... I see... Yes, it can't be just any old engagement ring, can it?"

"Exactly," Rody said, sending finger-guns in her direction and letting a sense of victory flood him when she immediately returned the gesture. "So you'll do it?"

"I'll think about it," Hatsume said, tucking her finger-guns away to instead pull out a cell phone. "It's quite a different project than any of my previous babies, but with the data I've got on Midoriya's power output I should be able to whip something together."

"I'd appreciate it if it something like this wasn't just 'whipped together.'"

Hatsume only addressed that particular concern with a devious grin. "I've got an exposition to prepare for, but let's trade contact deets and I'll be in touch after. In the meantime..." She glided around the workbench again, advancing on him with frightening speed. "Usually my babies are for heroes, but maybe I've got something for a pilot, too. Ooh, ooh! Could I modify your plane for you?"

Rody held up his hands again, this time to put some space between them as he was quickly losing breathing room. "I don't think the airline would appreciate that much," he said with a laugh.

"I know! How'd you like to fly without a plane entirely?!"

"Really... just the ring is all I'm looking for...!"

Hatsume had sworn up and down that she took client confidentiality very seriously, and Rody took her at her word. She wasn't highly sought-after for her hero gear for no reason, after all.

But later that week, when he returned home for his scheduled days off, Izuku approached him with a confused expression. "Hey, so... when did you meet Hatsume?" he asked, holding up his phone open to a text conversation.

Again, whatever Hatsume had written was too manic for Rody to make out—mostly, he caught the kanji for "boyfriend" and "body" and an absolutely insane number of exclamation points, but mercifully no mention of a ring.

Still, getting anything done in complete secret was, as always, an exercise in futility.

Notes: I have to credit shion69 on twitter for the married!rodydeku headcanon about Deku accidentally Smashing his ring lmao. So I figured maybe there would be a way to prevent that from happening in the first place!

I really wanted to get Melissa involved in this too but I just couldn't figure out how to make it happen naturally. Sigh...