AN:I have a weakness for canon divergence AUs. What can I say? At the moment, I'm expecting there to be 4 or 5 chapters but it juuuust might get away from me as realise there's more I want to add.

I hope you enjoy ^_^

Kirishima had forgotten that his phone had even been in his pocket until it rang. He had been in the process of peeling off his sodden clothes after the most disastrous drugs bust of his career to date when his phone gave a strangled gargle from his pocket. He was so surprised that it even still worked that he almost missed the call and answered without even checking the caller ID.

"Hello?"

"Mom and Dad are out of town tomorrow," his little sister blurted out as a greeting.

"Hello to you too," said Kirishima, holding the phone away from his ear as he unceremoniously yanked his ruined white shirt from his shoulders. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," said his sister, clearing her throat. "Urgent business."

"Ah. Need me to get you dinner?"

"No – yes – but no," she said. There was a pregnant pause. "The thing is… I mean you don't have to – it's just… Well, it's parents' evening tomorrow and they made me return the slip that said someone was coming… and my homeroom teacher is gonna flip and think it's totally my fault and I lied or something if nobody shows up and he's really scary so… Please?"

A wave exhaustion tumbled down Kirishima's shoulders and he sat on the step in his entranceway, damp underwear striking cold against the floor. "You want me to come to your parents' evening."

"Yeah… I understand if you're working too but…"

Kirishima sighed, careful to angle his face away from the phone. Suddenly, he felt too tired to remember his work schedule, and his personal schedule, and far too tired to manage both at the same time. He would be at work during the day but this had happened enough times since he'd started his job that he was sure the guys at work would cover him if he needed a to leave an hour early.

"What time?"

"Mom made me book early appointments but I don't think my teachers will mind if I'm a bit late."

Of course their mother had done that. The early bird caught the worm – and the evening remained clear for other things. Kirishima loved his mother but the number of times that she'd made parents' evening plans for her children and then had to cancel at the last minute was embarrassing. As a student himself, by the time he'd reached high school, he'd stopped making the appointments altogether and had instead just written the times he knew she wanted to see. She hadn't checked and she had only turned up and caught him out once, when he'd smiled sheepishly and claimed he had forgotten.

As soon as he'd graduated high school and supposedly become an adult himself, he'd told himself that his little sister would never have to go through the same embarrassment he had, and where possible, he would attend after the inevitable cancellation of whatever extra-curricular activity his sister was part of in their parents' places.

Which had been fine – great even. Sure he'd had to swap some shifts around to make it happen, but he worked with some generally nice guys who appreciated what Kirishima was trying to do, and it had been worth having to cover other people's shifts or do various other favours to see his sister's face light up when she saw him in the audience of the school play

But that was before Kaori achieved her lifelong dream of getting in UA's Hero course – the course that Kirishima had desperately wanted to attend himself but had chickened out of the application process at the last minute.

The memory of standing outside the UA gates but never stepping through them still haunted him and though he did his best to support his little sister and be as enthusiastic and supportive of her dreams as she deserved, it was clear to them both that this was one scar that would always sting when the weather worsened.

"Eiji?" said Kaori.

So he knew that she wouldn't ask unless it was really important to her.

"Yeah, sorry – I was taking my boots off," he lied. "Just got in. Sure, I'll go. Is 4pm good for you?"

"Thank you so much, Eiji!"

"Do you want to get dinner after?"

"Can we get ramen?"

Kirishima made himself give a little laugh. "Sure, kiddo, whatever you want."

"You're the best!"

If that had been true, he would have been a hero too.

The first time Kirishima met Pro Hero Ground Zero, it was because his family had gone on holiday without him. He had only just joined the police force and although the schools were out, and his parents had some rare time off, he wasn't able to get any. Such was adult life, his mother had said with a sigh of disappointment.

It just so happened that the week of the family holiday coincided with a meet and greet event at Gunhead's agency, which included his sister's favourite hero: Ground Zero.

Kirishima would have been lying if he said that he wasn't a fan of Ground Zero. He liked most heroes, even though Crimson Riot was and would always be his favourite, but there was something about the explosive hero that took Kirishima's breath away. He never disputed his sister's interest in him; Ground Zero had seemingly endless energy and fighting spirit and his televised fights were always manly as anything.

So when his sister had called and begged him to go and get her Ground Zero poster signed for her, going as far as to tell him that she would never ask for anything ever again, he relented immediately – partly because if there was one thing he was good at, it was being an amazing older brother, partly because he was curious. What sort of a person was Ground Zero?

"Next!" roared a harried looking steward.

The woman in front of Kirishima peeled herself away from the desk, looking a little put out that her time with the Pro Hero had been so short.

Kirishima flashed her a smile as he stepped onto the raised platform where the heroes Ground Zero and Uravity sat behind separate desks.

Ground Zero had slumped back in his chair as the woman had left and now leaned forwards again, resting his elbows on the table. His piercing red eyes met Kirishima's with disinterest.

Nervously, Kirishima gave him an understanding smile. Poor guy must have been tired of all of this by now. Not that it showed on his face.

"Hi!"

Ground Zero acknowledged him with a gruff nod, holding out a gloved hand for his sister's poster. "Name?" he grunted, taking the lid off a sharpie.

"Oh," said Kirishima, placing the poster on the table. "It's Kirishima, but this is for my sister so-"

Ground Zero cut him off, "Whatever, what name do you want on this shit?"

Kirishima had almost convinced himself, in spite of the hero's conduct in the UA sports festivals, in spite of the way he behaved in every fight that had ever been televised, in spite of his responses to every reporter who had bothered him, that Ground Zero's persona was just the way he was when he needed to fight.

Ground Zero, he realised now, was kind of an ass. Treating fans like this, even though he must have been exhausted, wasn't manly at all.

"Kirishima Kaori," he said.

Ground Zero nodded and began to sign the poster in surprisingly fluid handwriting. At that moment, a fight broke out in the crowd, barely two meters from the signing area.

Kirishima turned around in alarm, just in time to catch the moment that a fight between two teenaged boys expanded to include the friends of both boys, the ground rumbling from quirk use beneath them.

"For fuck's sake," muttered Ground Zero.

Kirishima saw him half rising out of the corner of his eye and wasted no time in stepping towards the action himself. Off duty, he might be, but he was a police officer.

Ground Zero grabbed his wrist. His hands felt alarmingly warm.

"Where do you think you're going, Shitty Hair?"

Kirishima blinked. "To break up a fight?"

"Are you fucking stupid?"

Uravity leaned over her desk. "He means that it's safer if you stay up here and leave it to the police and security."

Kirishima tried to detach himself but Ground Zero tightened his grip. "I appreciate your concern, ma'am," he said to Uravity, watching her mouth form a little 'o'. "But I think I'll be fine."

He hardened the arm in Ground Zero's grip and both heroes raised their eyebrows slightly.

Ground Zero cleared his throat. "Leave it to the professionals, dumbass," he growled.

I am a professional, he wanted to say, but Ground Zero had him pinned with serious red eyes, familiar red eyes, a strangely relaxing scent was washing over him from the direction of the crowd and it came out entirely wrong.

"I met you once before," he blurted out. "At the UA entrance exam."

"That so?" said Ground Zero. He loosened his grip but didn't let go, eyes leaving Eijirou's and scanning the crowd, where the security guards were pulling the boys off each other, with surprisingly little resistance. It was though a haze had passed over them and they now blinked compliantly, almost limp in the grasp of the guards.

Eijirou wanted to yank his arm away, the tips of his ears turning red in embarrassment. Why would he say that? Was he really that exhausted?

"You were yelling at some poor kid with a huge backpack. I remember you calling him a loser."

Kill him now. Why had he said that? What was happening? He hadn't thought about that exam in weeks, yet here it all was, washing over him in a wave of disgust and shame. Suddenly, he was a middle schooler again and staring up at UA's formidable gates, filled with equal measures of fear and excitement.

Then furious red eyes aimed at a kid with bright red shoes and a trembling voice.

'I-I didn't mean-'

'Then fuck off, you loser extra. No fucking way could you ever be hero – just look at you, you useless piece of shit. What the fuck are you gonna do? Throw your fucking nerd backpack at the enemy? Stay the fuck out of my way. It's embarrassing.'

Beside him, Uravity snorted. "Classic Zero."

"Don't fucking call me that," snapped Ground Zero. He released Kirishima's arm to brandish a fist in his colleague's direction but Kirishima still felt his grip on his bare arm, rooting him in place.

"Why? It's your hero name."

"It's fucking half. Fuck off," he growled.

"Don't you like it when someone does it to you?" she teased.

"I said fuck off, Round Face."

Uravity just laughed.

Ground Zero turned back to Kirishima then, obviously a little flustered, yet somehow seeming more at ease. Kirishima felt his breath catch in his throat.

"You get taken out by one of those fucking big robots? Or that wind-maniac asshole?"

"Actually, I, uh…"

"Ground Zero, you need to wrap this up in the next hour – you have an assignment."

Fuck yes," hissed Ground Zero.

I didn't go, thought Kirishima, but the conversation was already over. Ground Zero signed his sister's poster with a wolfish grin and renewed vigor.

"See you around, shitty hair," said Ground Zero.

And just like he had all those years ago, Kirishima turned his back on the hero and walked away in a daze, with nothing more in his head than the feeling that he had somehow failed before he'd even tried, that he wasn't good enough to compete and it was an embarrassment.

Later on, he gave the poster to his sister and fended off her questions about her favourite hero with as much false enthusiasm as he could muster.

And then she applied to UA and they didn't talk about it again.

AN: Thanks for reading!

As always, any comments are greatly appreciated and bring life to my crumbling bones. XD