Hey all! Thanks for checking out this story! I was inspired to write this after seeing these awesome comics by normalgirllol on Instagram. She kind of originated the Kiko character, which I thought I'd put my own spin on. Be sure to check her out!

Btw, I'm anime-only for MHA, so that's where any and all of my info comes from. So, please don't post any manga spoilers, though I don't know why you would do that on a story like this. Haha.

Anyway, enjoy!

I wouldn't even know what to say, but… Kiko Kirishima frowned at the phone she gripped in her lap. The slight swaying of the train and the rumble of the tracks beneath them had helped to soothe her mind somewhat, but her heart still felt heavy with emerging guilt. She'd been wrestling with herself since late last night to call him, but lack of words and fear kept preventing her from doing so.

"Hey, I know that look. Quit worrying about it, okay?" Her friend Ainu leaned over to look her in the face, flashing a chastising look.

Kiko laid her head back on the seat, looking at the chrome ceiling of the car. "I know the earlier I apologize the better, but - "

"Like I said, just give it time to simmer down a bit. Both of your dads are on duty today, right? They probably couldn't answer their phones, anyway."

"Yeah, I guess..."

Ainu looked at her worriedly for a moment before switching to a reassuring grin. "Listen, everything's gonna be fine. We're gonna go out and have an awesome girl day. You can chill out a bit, then we can grab some food, go back to your place, and fix a dinner for your hardworking hero fathers, following which you give a heartfelt apology and it's happily ever after."

Kiko managed a small, thankful smile at the hopeful statement. Yeah, her friend was right. After all, it's not like this was the first time her and her papa had butted heads on something. Katsuki Bakugo was a stubborn man who raised just as stubborn of a daughter. Still...their bickering was always over small, mundane stuff - who got control of the TV, when she could and could not have people over - normal family stuff like that, despite the three of them not being a typical family. In the end, the winner would smirk while the other gave an angry pout, and the issue wouldn't be spoken of again. Last night though...she actually screamed at him and he screamed back, and it was far from a small issue. She never thought she could get angry at him like that, that her frustrations would go that far. She'd even shoved Dad out of the way as she stormed out of the house. That was the first time she'd ever just left like that. After a long walk to Ainu's house and a venting session, she'd suddenly wanted to shove all the words she'd said back in her mouth. Every single syllable pounded in her brain. Surely Papa knew she didn't mean that, not really.

Even though in the moment, she had meant it. And that reminder didn't help the guilt building up inside her.

It's gonna be fine. You can't run from this forever, anyway. Maybe if they have some Koregusu at the market, I can make that spicy udon that Papa likes. Then I can apologize. They'll understand…

The first half of their day did actually manage to take her mind off her troubles for a while. The two of them spent hours browsing at the shopping mall, trying stuff on for the fun of it and looking at expensive things they had no hope of buying. After eating at a nicer yoshoku place, Ainu - future mangaka in spirit - suggested they go to the Ahch-To Museum of Art.

"They have a limited time exhibit on this one Portugese painter I can't remember the name of," she explained excitedly. "He was a hero for several years but became an artist after he retired, and he used a lot of his experiences saving people as inspiration. Apparently they don't display his work publicly a whole lot cause there's only a few actual pieces. We gotta check it out!"

Kiko definitely wasn't an art aficionado, but it's not like they had anything else to do, so off they went. Surprisingly, there weren't as many people in the museum as she'd expected - only about twenty or so. The special exhibit was like most, tucked into a smaller room off to the side with five canvases hung on the walls. Nothing too out of the ordinary. What was a bit more unique was the thick tempered glass boxes encasing each piece.

They walked up to the first painting on the right. In all honesty, it just looked like a blob of various colors to Kiko, but Ainu seemed to be looking deep into it. She stared at it for a good minute before commenting, "Everyone's mind is chaotic, but I guess a hero's can get even more jumbled than any of us could ever realize." She glanced over at the other girl. "Do your dads ever talk about stuff like that? You know, how their work affects them and stuff."

Her friend's mind flashed back to last night's argument, and the guilty pit in her stomach began to open up. Did their minds sometimes feel like this, even if she could never see it? "Can we change the subject?"

"Right. Sorry," Ainu winced apologetically. Turning her gaze back to the art, she squinted, shifting her head somewhat. "I wish I could look at it without this glass in the way. I think it's distorting the image a little."

"They must be pretty rare if they're giving them this much protection." Kiko noted. She went to tap the glass but thought better of it. It wouldn't be fun if she accidentally set off an alarm. Just another thing she'd have to face her fathers about. "There's only these five, right? They've gotta be worth a lot."

"Oh, how right you are, Miss." The girls jumped, turning to the man who seemingly appeared out of nowhere right behind them. He had to be at least a foot taller than them, not heavy-built, but not a twig either. He was dressed in business casual - a nice jacket and pants over a white button up. His appearance was that of any other occasional museum patron...minus the rather large gun he held in his hands.

"There are some people who would pay a heavy price for paintings like these," the man continued, smirking gleefully down at the two teenagers staring at him in shock.

That's a gun. A REAL gun. Kiko's whole body felt like stone.

"Though, I admit, some of them aren't too much of a friendly sort."

We have to get out of here. We have to run.

"Now, we don't wanna cause too much commotion and you got some cute little faces I don't wanna have to rough up, so how about we ju-"

FREEZE. Her quirk activated practically without her even thinking about it. The man grunted a bit as his sentence was cut short, his mouth formed in a weird shape after being stopped mid-word. His eyes shook in their sockets out of confusion and fear, but he made no attempt to swipe at the two of them. He couldn't as long as Kiko kept looking at him.

Because they shared a remarkable resemblance, people who knew that Ground Zero was her father automatically assumed that, out of her two dads, he was the one she was related to biologically. However, in reality, she wasn't blood-related to either her papa or her dad. She was full-blown adopted, and because of this, her quirk had nothing to do with hardening or explosions. The doctors had named it "Stop and Stare." Basically, she could freeze a person in place by merely looking at them, though she had to keep her eyes on the person in order for it to keep working. Even a glance away would break the effect, and another unfortunate downside was that she couldn't use it on the same person more than once a day. Additionally, she could only use it on five people in a 24-hour period. She'd caused hell for her parents when she was little because of it, always freezing them when she had gotten into trouble, but she didn't use it much anymore. She'd thought about how trapped she would feel under her own quirk, how scary it would be to suddenly have no control of her own body. She never wanted to make someone feel that way unless it was absolutely necessary, especially after learning about who she got her ability from…

"Ainu, come on. Let's go," Kiko said sternly, slowly backing up while keeping her eyes fixed on the man's face. "Help lead me to the door."

Her wide-eyed friend seemed too frightened to be able to say anything, but she quickly moved behind Kiko, firmly grabbing her shoulders as they moved slowly towards the main part of the museum. Meanwhile, Kiko's brain was racing. The three of them were the only people in the exhibit, and she couldn't seem to hear anyone outside the small room either. They weren't that far from the museum's entrance, but if they wanted to book it out of there, she would have to take her eyes off the gunman as soon as they turned the corner. No doubt he wasn't just gonna let them go. What do I do? What would Dad or Papa do?

"Ainu, run outside and call for help. I'll catch up."

"But Kiko - "

"He'll unfreeze as soon as I stop looking at him. He'll just catch us both if we go at

once. Just get out of here. I'll figure it out."

After a moment of tense silence, her friend finally gave her shoulders a strong squeeze. She took a shaky breath. "Don't let him catch you, okay?"

And with that, Kiko sensed the other girl retreating as quick footsteps echoed in the main hall. The next fifteen seconds passed by like an eternity. No one had come by yet - either another patron or an art thief - so it was just her and her new criminal friend. She took a deep breath, getting her body in the position to sprint while still holding her stare. If I'm not fast enough, he'll just shoot me. What's his quirk? Could he use it to catch me? There's no way I can fight him. What the HELL are you doing, Kiko? You're not like Kotone or Toshi or Yuki - you're not a hero-course student. Dad and Papa only taught you basic self-defense. You can't…

She couldn't think anymore. Instead, she whipped around and bolted towards the exit as fast as she could. The gun-toting thief immediately shouted, and Kiko could hear his footsteps following her, though she had a solid lead ahead of him. Surprisingly, her body almost felt light as she ran on the marble floor. Holy crap, that had actually worked. For whatever reason, the guy wasn't shooting or using his quirk, and she knew the exit was just around the corner. Hope filled her heavy chest. Everything was going to be okay. Everything was going to be…

The girl's heart stopped as she came upon the exit, skidding to a quick stop. Two more men, one also dressed in a suit and one dressed like a security guard, blocked the doors outside. In between them, in what looked like a giant blue plastic bubble, was Ainu, who banged alarmingly on the sides of her spherical cage at the sight of her friend.

A smaller blue sphere appeared in the hand of the security guard. He wound his arm back, presumably to throw it as a capture weapon, but Kiko quickly used her quirk to freeze him. It was then that she realized that she didn't know where she was going with her plan. She couldn't just leave Ainu and run out by herself. Plus, there was that other guy to worry about. What should she - ?

She wasn't given too much time to think, as the third man from earlier roughly grabbed her from behind and under her arms. The teenager immediately kicked into his knees, causing his grip to loosen. She managed a hard elbow to the nose too, further freeing herself, but by this point, the second man had come over to assist in her restraint. As they brought her to the ground, she glared at the man from the exhibit. He jumped back briefly, but after nothing happened, he flashed her a disgusting smirk. "What? Can't use your quirk on me twice? Too bad. Guess you're not as smart as you thought, you brat."

Crap.

Though the two of them tried to struggle, they were eventually dragged to the curator's office on the second floor of the museum, where they had already gathered all of the other patrons and minimal staff. As soon as the exhibit man dumped Kiko and Ainu into the room, he addressed their hostages, "Some more company for you. Remember: no funny business and we can all be on our merry ways like none of this ever happened."

To Kiko's surprise, he actually left the door of the office open as he left, strolling away casually as if he hadn't just threatened over a dozen people. These guys may have been thieves, but were they also idiots? She surveyed the group of people around her, which mostly consisted of middle-aged to older people, though there were two younger kids who were clinging to their parents. Thankfully, it didn't look like anyone was hurt, but the fear in all of their eyes was clear as day.

"Are you girls alright?" an elderly man sitting across from them asked in concern.

"Yeah. One of them trapped me in a gross sweaty plastic ball, but other than that - peachy," Ainu told him exasperatingly. She held onto her arms rigidly, her whole body shaking somewhat.

"Don't worry everybody," one of the museum's ushers assured, speaking in an admirably calm voice. She looked to be in her early thirties, with a cute bob cut and wearing rose earrings. "I'm sure the heroes and police will be here any minute now. We'll all be safe in no time."

One of the actual security guards in the corner grunted a bit, frowning skeptically at the ground. His entire utility belt was gone, probably taken along with all of their phones and wallets. "Yamazaki, were you able to switch the silent alarm in the office?"

The other guard sitting next to him, a much younger man probably in his 20s, glanced at his partner shamedly. "No, sir. They were on me and got me away from the desk before I even knew what was going on."

"And Miss Muto, what about the kiosk?"

The usher lady's expression didn't look as comforting now. Her eyebrows furrowed in a grim understanding. "One of them lured me from behind the counter before capturing me. I was nowhere near mine."

The older guard slightly nodded. "And it seems they've been careful to not trip any of our alarms for the artwork either."

There was a stale silence for a few moments, the entire group beginning to understand the situation.

"So…" the mother of the two kids glanced at him timidly. "You're saying that...no one knows we're in trouble?"

"That appears to be the case. Yes."

"Okay, so we just have to sit it out and wait until they leave," someone suggested.
"But we can't just let them get away!" Ainu whisper-yelled. "They're after those rare paintings, right? Those are important pieces of history, we can't just let them sell them to some shady criminal or something. If those paintings are stolen, then the chances of them ever getting found again are slim to none."

"If we try something, then they'll get violent," the kids' father now spoke up. "I don't know about you, but I'd say all of our lives are worth more than some old pieces of canvas."

"I agree," the wife of the elderly man interjected. "It's a shame about the art, but it's much better than anyone getting hurt."

Ainu deflated, their points bringing down her fighting spirit, but after a few seconds she seemed to perk up a bit, as if something had just crossed her mind. "But...they haven't used their guns at all. The two of us ran and Kiko even used her quirk on one of them, but they didn't shoot us."

Kiko looked at her friend in shock, the revelation smacking her brain a bit. She was right. Yeah, the guy had used his weapon to scare and intimidate them, but not once did he fire a round or use whatever his quirk was. Heck, even when she'd been running away, he didn't fire any warning shots. "And that bubble guy, he used his quirk to catch you. They didn't make an attempt to hurt us at all."

"That's good isn't it?" another patron offered hopefully. "Maybe they're the kind of thieves that don't like harming people."

"Or they just don't want to make too much noise before their job's even started."

Everyone turned their attention back to the older security guard. He looked around at all of them in return, his expression serious without being condescending. Speaking plainly, he elaborated, "If they really are after those Solorio paintings, then they must have the means to get through the security. For each piece, it would take five minutes to remove just the box, and that's for someone who has the proper tools and training. That glass has been specially tempered to halt practically any permeation-like quirk, so they'd have to do it the old fashioned way. It also doesn't take into account the alarms that will go off as soon as the canvas is removed from the wall. They knew they would need time and a lot of it."

"So, why not just break in at night when no one's here?" Kiko asked, finding herself intrigued by the man's explanation in addition to wanting to find a solution.

"Why else? Because that's exactly when everyone would expect a robbery to happen. Not to mention that they would have to deal with the building's motion sensors on top of everything else. No...they chose a Sunday afternoon, the time when the museum is the least busy and has the minimum amount of people working. Less people they have to worry about restraining. Many of the businesses around here are closed, so there's no worrying about someone running outside and finding immediate help. Still, any rogue gunshots or unusual noises could still raise suspicion, so they made sure to capture all of us silently. Then they moved us all to the second floor so it would be hard for us to get away if we ran."

Once again, Kiko looked out the door. She could vaguely hear someone walking probably at the end of the floor but couldn't see anybody. "Then why did they just leave us here practically unguarded?"

"Oh, I'm sure they have lookouts posted at each end of the floor. Not only do they have weapons but we're unaware of what they're quirks are, and that's enough to keep most people obedient. They probably have most of their manpower down working with the art, though the more people involved with an operation, the more complicated things get. They can't have more than ten members with them, I'm sure."

As a daughter of two heroes, Kiko found herself impressed. The way this man spoke with such surety and forethought - it reminded her of whenever Papa would tell her about some of his cooler missions, the ones where he had to outwit the villains in addition to being physically stronger. "That's amazing, sir. Are you a former hero or something?"

He looked momentarily surprised by the question but nodded somewhat. "I was on the force for almost three decades. Would like to say I got a pretty good head on me, but a bad back took me out of commission."

"Okay," a middle-aged woman near the back of the room interrupted. She'd been silently and nervously observing the conversation. "This is all well and good, but does it mean we should do nothing or try and fight back?"

"She's right, sir," the younger guard now spoke up, turning to his superior. There was a determined tone in his voice. "If there's only about ten of them like you said, then surely there's something we can do."

"There may only be ten, yes, but the fact that we are just barely being watched means that they're confident they could hold us back should the need arise."

"So, we stay and wait," the mother concluded.

"I'm not done." The older guard's expression now looked incredibly grim. Kiko could see his eyes moving as if putting pieces together in his head. "There's something all too familiar about this. The time of day, the kind of pieces being stolen, the strategy with the hostages - these are serial robbers, and if they're who I think they are…"

He trailed off for a minute, and the way everyone in the room practically leaned in wanting to hear more would have been pretty funny in any other situation. The old man pursed his lips, not particularly eager to share what was on his mind, but after a few seconds, he chose to speak. "Last year, there was an expensive robbery at the National Gallery in London, and the year before that, there was another job at the Nelson-Adkins in the States. Both instances were not so dissimilar to ours. A Sunday afternoon, not many people in the building, a limited-time exhibit, and…" He swallowed hard. "...no masks."

Ainu furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "No masks?"

"We know what their faces look like."

Kiko suddenly felt like she was being pricked with a billion tiny icicles. Suddenly, the true weight of the situation was hitting her in the face. "We could identify them to the police…"

The security guard nodded once more, refusing to meet any of their eyes. "They made sure that didn't happen in their last two jobs. Once they have their prize and they're ready to scoot, it doesn't matter how much noise they make. The cops and heroes will be too late no matter what."

The air in the room felt as if it was bearing down on them twice as hard. No one uttered a word for what seemed like an eternity. The man concluded his observation with a grim declaration, "If this were any other circumstance, I would agree with you. Even though it's my job, no art is worth anyone's life, but...if we don't do something soon, all of us are going to die."

Oooo.

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