Kaminari didn't get cold very easily.

He remembers when he was younger, his mom used to joke that he was cold-blooded. He was always the kid walking into school and a t-shirt and basketball shorts. He never really thought much of it. Now though, cold wind wafted into the relative peacefulness of the alleyway, and the shadows that lurked between run-down buildings grew longer and darker under the blankets of cloud hiding the sun.

Leaning against the alley wall, Kaminari felt the cold that had seeped into the bricks now press through his jean jacket and deep in between his shoulder blades. It was almost refreshing. Exhaling a small breath, Kaminari watched his breath stand in front of him. He always liked the cold. It kept him sharp and dulled anyone who couldn't take it.

But he could enjoy the cold from the dorms. There was a reason Kaminari rode the forty-minute bus to get here. These were the parts of the city where parents didn't let their kids walk and police tape was as common as the cracks in the sidewalk.

Kaminari stared down at his hand, watching yellow bolts arch out of the fingertips exposed by his fingerless gloves. It was a way to bide his time without drawing too much attention to himself. And as a dark figure strolled into the alleyway, donned in nothing but a t-shirt and varying types of leather, Kaminari knew his waiting had paid off.

At first, Kaminari didn't look up at his guest. Instead, as soon as he heard the sound of boots slapping against the sidewalk and smelled a scent like smoke, he smirked down at his fingers. Closing his hand, Kaminari twisted it into a fist. He let his fingers dig into his palm and the fingerless leather glove, essentially extinguishing the electricity. "So I see you got my little letter."

The man didn't say anything. Instead, he only walked over to Kaminari, leaning against the wall beside him. "Y'know Shigaraki would wring your neck out if anyone caught you out here talking to me, right? It'd be all over the news in an instant." The man dug into his pocket, pulling out a box of cigarettes and fishing one out. Silently, he brought it up to his mouth before lighting it softly. For a moment, his face was awash in blue light before the head died down to a harsh orange.

Kaminari scoffed, shaking his head. "If you could find a way to secretly slide that fucked up face of yours into the nicer part of town with all the heroes and businessmen, then maybe we'd have ourselves the luxury of options, now wouldn't we? Besides, I didn't peg you as one of Shigaraki's dogs."

And there, in the middle of the alleyway, behind all the police tape and siren wails, shrouded by the dark of the alleyway, the man looked up. Scarred purple lips wrapping around the white of his cigarette, Dabi took in a long, hard suck. His chest expanded with smoke like an ashen balloon. Kaminari could practically see the cinders disappearing down his throat. For a single moment, his eyes flickered, and Kaminari could imagine the dark things creeping behind them.

But instead of acting on them, Dabi only blew a ring of smoke, which broke against Kaminari's face.

Immediately, Kaminari's nose hitched up from the fumes. Knitting his brow together, Kaminari waved away the smoke as he coughed into his fist. "God. You're an idiot for pumping that shit into your lungs. You know that, right?" He shot a glare towards the villain.

At that, Dabi opened his eyes. Blowing out a loopy ring, he stared out at the sidewalk just outside the alleyway with an absent look on his face and said, "Please. If anything in this world kills me, it sure as hell isn't gonna be cancer."

Kaminari only rolled his eyes. "Save the reflective bullshit for someone who actually cares. I didn't call you here to muse about your lifestyle, Dabi." Pushing himself off the wall, Kaminari walked in front of Dabi. Unfortunately, he didn't have the advantage of height on his side, but Kaminari knew he commanded authority in other ways.

Dabi pulled his gaze away from the sidewalk, looking Kaminari up and down with a look of near apathy. "Our lifestyle," he said with a puff as he pulled the cigarette from his mouth, letting it dangle in between his fingertips. "Being up at that fancy hero school sure as hell hasn't made you into one."

Kaminari furrowed his brows together, drawing a hand to his chest in mock pain. "You don't think I'm a good person?" For a moment, Kaminari kept his face locked in injury for a beat or two longer than he should have. He clenched his fist in front of his chest; cinched his eyebrows together. He waited until Dabi noticed; until he could see that he thought he really meant it.

Once he had his attention, Kaminari relaxed his face, letting a smile creep across his lips. With a chuckle, he walked over, slapping Dabi in the arm with the back of his hand. "I got you there, didn't I? Looks like Shigaraki picked the right guy for the job."

Once Dabi registered that Kaminari was messing with him, he scoffed, glancing away. "You're fucking crazy, kid," he murmured, taking another puff of his cigarette.

Kaminari stuck his hands in his jean jacket pockets and shrugged. Deceiving people always gave one the upper hand. They knew more than the one being deceived, which left them open to more fluidity than others. "Twice is crazy. I prefer the term morally-independent genius."

"Oh yeah?" Dabi glanced at Kaminari, flicking ash off the end of his cigarette. "And what does this genius have that's so important to tell me about? I could run back to headquarters right now and rat your ass out for talking with me during your mission." Dabi waved his cigarette at Kaminari like he was picking out a target.

At that, Kaminari smirked. Reaching down, he licked his thumb before bringing it up to the corner of his mouth and wiping away a crumb from breakfast. "You could, you could," he said, strolling up to Dabi with all the confidence in Japan. The smirk never left his face. Tapping his electric yellow converse on the ground, he glanced out at the cars whizzing past, taking care to keep his back to the street. "But you won't, will you?"

Kaminari glanced back at Dabi. He saw nothing change in the man's apathetic gaze, but that seemed to edge him on even more. "The thing is, I know you Dabi. I've met guys like you. You don't care about loyalty or any of that shit. You care about your own ass."

"You're saying that like it's original to me," Dabi scoffed.

"If it was, then where would all the sinners be?" Kaminari chuckled before going on. "But the thing is, you're not bound to All For One or Shigaraki or anyone like that. You're bound to yourself. Which makes you a little more...versatile."

Dabi scoffed. The end of his cigarette glowed in the dim winter alleyway.

Kaminari continued, looking Dabi up and down. "Besides, you're smart. Maybe not as smart as me, but—"

"Wow, thanks. And here I was thinking I was on par than a sixteen-year-old," Dabi interrupted impassively.

"—but you've got more brains in your head than half of the villains in that place."

Kaminari sighed, leaning back against the wall. He talked to Dabi like he was an old friend, even if they both knew he was lying. "Look, I never said I was abandoning the little villain club we have going on here. It's good to keep connections."

However, as he spoke, Kaminari gave a knowing smirk. "But, y'know. It's always good to have a backup plan."

At that, Dabi glanced over. A brief moment passed where a fleeting look of interest flickered over his eyes. "A backup plan?"

"Yeah, you know. In case the whole 'anarchy under the regime of a madman' gig doesn't quite work out."

Kaminari caught Dabi's gaze drifting towards him. The smirk on Kaminari's face grew a little wider.

"I mean, ever since All For One was imprisoned, serving under Shigaraki has been like serving a giant man-child." Kaminari shrugged as he said this, as though he was simply laying out the facts. "He's impulsive. Emotional. If he ever does accomplish something other than spreading chaos purely for chaos, then it's going to be by way of a complete and total fluke."

"So yes, Dabi. To answer your question, 'a backup plan.' And what I have in mind requires a bit more than myself in the midst."

Dabi flexed his eyebrows. In that one, single moment, in the shadows of the alleyway behind the shade of crime, Kaminari knew that he got to him. Somewhere in his honeyed words and minced prose, Kaminari had delivered a bug that crawled into Dabi's skin, working its way into the folds of his brain and changing the tides in his favor, even if it was a little bit.

Dabi breathed out a string of smoke, before glancing at Kaminari out of the corner of his eye.

"I'm listening."

It was too cold for a walk.

There was no point in questioning it. Any sane person would have stayed inside at this time of year. All Izuku had to do was step outside and he could feel his eyebrows beginning to frost over and the tip of his nose begin to go numb. It was almost enough to be considered a natural phenomenon. Over the course of three days, the weather had gone from fair and sunny to a total winter wasteland.

He couldn't really complain about the cold, though. It was him who suggested a walk to the ramen bar. And Todoroki, being immune to the cold as he was, barely even took a moment to consider it.

Besides, if asked to pick between -5° C temperatures or staying in the dorms, Izuku would bundle up and brave the outdoors any day. At least, today anyway. However, as he trudged over the remnants of salt on a cold, iceless sidewalk, Izuku had to admit that he didn't see much of a difference.

"Midoriya, the light."

Startled, Izuku looked up, blinking his eyes through the haze of snow flurries. Todoroki stood in the middle of the street, halfway across the crosswalk as the numbers on the light slowly ticked down. Hands in his windbreaker and bicolored hair billowing softly, Todoroki stared at Izuku expectantly.

"Oh! Sorry," Izuku exclaimed, quickly rushing across the street to Todoroki. He hadn't even seen the light change.

Todoroki didn't say anything. He only stood in the middle of the street, waiting until Izuku caught up to start walking. Izuku was used to that. Todoroki didn't talk much, and when he did, it was usually only when he really had something to say. He valued actions over words, and Izuku appreciated that. Hanging out with Todoroki always felt like a nice change from the daily stress factors of life, which is why he tended to do it often. During these walks, Izuku was usually the one who kept up a conversation.

Except for when he didn't feel like talking. Then they walked in silence.

But Izuku didn't mind the silence. He never did good talking when his thoughts were half-occupied, and as of now, it felt like

"You're distracted." Todoroki's voice suddenly sliced through a five-minute lull.

"Hm?" Izuku glanced up at Todoroki through the snow flurries blurring his vision. "What do you mean—" Just then, Izuku suddenly stopped, frozen in his tracks by something in his path.

"Your foot is in the middle of a snowdrift."

Izuku felt waves of heat rush into his cheeks. "Oh—yeah, I guess it is." Giving a small, nervous laugh, Izuku yanked his foot out of the pile of snow, shaking off clinging bits before he continued walking. Todoroki only stared at him a moment longer, before focusing again on the sidewalk.

They continued walking in the serene quiet until the bright red sign of the ramen bar gleamed neon through the snow. Stepping inside, it was a slap of warmth in the face of the icy nothingness outside the doors.

Izuku allowed himself to give a small contented sigh. This was nice. Nothing in the shop had changed. Izuku wasn't necessarily a creature of habit, but when things went wrong, he liked to keep an eye out for little rocks of comfort. He liked to think of Todoroki as one of them, and in this case, ramen bar could count too.

The bar hadn't been here long; it was only built a few months ago. Izuku only ever came here when Todoroki was with him, but right now, that had to count for something. Chaos was a concept Izuku didn't like to deal with, and now, Todoroki and the ramen bar and everything associated with it was as far away from chaos and evil as possible.

And so, as Izuku sat down with Todoroki in a small booth in the corner of the ramen bar, he took special care to glance over his shoulder and make sure there were no fans. He didn't mind hero fans—in fact, he still considered himself one of the biggest ones—but right now, he didn't feel like dealing with all the attention that came with being at U.A. He just wanted a single moment alone with him and his friend, where no one and nothing could touch him.

It was a shame that that was a lot harder to achieve than it seemed.

"Midoriya, I think you're gonna tear the menu."

Izuku looked up from the menu he hadn't been reading. His eyes had focused on something a bit farther beyond the concept of what kind of noodles to get. He didn't even realize how hard he had been grasping the list of food until he looked down and saw that his knuckles were the same shade as the napkins.

"Oh—sorry," Izuku said, quickly loosening his grip. "It would kind of suck if we were thrown out for tearing up their menus, right?" He gave a small chuckle at his attempt at a joke, but it sounded forced, even to him.

Luckily for him, Todoroki didn't seem to notice. "I don't think they would throw us out. They would probably just get us a new menu," he said, his own menu untouched in the corner of the table. He always got the same thing whenever they went out—cold soba.

Izuku sighed. Suddenly, he threw his menu down on the table, leaning his head forward and placing his face in his hands.

He could practically feel the surprise in Todoroki's voice. "Midoriya, are you alright?" He asked, leaning forward.

"Yeah...yeah, I'm fine." Izuku surprised himself at how deflated his own voice sounded.

"I'm sorry, Todoroki, it's just...doesn't this feel a little weird to you?"

Todoroki's brows furrowed together, his face shifting from concern to uncertainty. "...the ramen bar?"

"Well, yeah...no...I don't know, all this is weird." Izuku sighed and shifted himself so that his arms were folded on the table, his chin resting in the center. When he said this, he lifted his hand and waved it a bit.

"All...what?" The confusion on Todoroki's face was clear.

"All this. All the walks and the ramen bar and the soba and...and just..." Izuku's voice trailed off as he slowly ran out of ways to spin his thoughts into coherent words, but his head remained just as chaotic and messy as it had ever since the Incident.

He couldn't just "sit down." He didn't know why he thought that he could. Ever since the Incident, his brain had been a cacophony of colliding theories and nonlinear events and he said-she said that he couldn't shut off if he tried. Nothing made sense,

It made him anxious. The thoughts were there to greet him every time he so much as sat down, and they forced him in paced circles around his room every time he had a moment to himself. It was almost as exhausting as training; like he had a second responsibility he couldn't escape sitting on top of his chest. It squeezed the air from his lungs and smothered his mind every time he entered his classroom.

He didn't see how he could just sit in a ramen bar and eat noodles and talk and laugh like everything was alright when it wasn't. There wasn't an elephant in the room—there was an elephant in his mind. And that was so, so much worse.

Todoroki was silent. Izuku could tell that he didn't completely get what he was saying, and Izuku didn't expect him to. Todoroki wasn't exactly a therapist. But then again, Izuku wasn't sure he wanted that right now.

Resting his head on the table, Midoriya gazed out over the tops of his arms through half-lidded eyes. The snow flurries slowly turned into flakes right before his eyes, blanketing the ground the way it always did when it snowed just the way it was supposed to. He was hoping that maybe he would be able to get some peace here. Guess he was wrong.

"I don't see how we can just sit around right now," Izuku mumbled.

Izuku kept his eyes staring out the window. A curious hand of cold pressed against the glass, beckoning Izuku forward. He kept his eyes trained on the frost-laced streets while the waitress came and took their orders, Todoroki ordering for both of them. Once she was gone, Izuku felt a bundle of warmth suddenly press against one of his hands.

Glancing over, Izuku saw Todoroki staring out the window with him, holding his hand in his. It wasn't much. It was just a small gesture; nothing too extreme. However, warmth spread all over Izuku's body like an oil spill the second it happened.

"Hey...Todoroki." Izuku kept his head on the table, but glanced over at his friend.

"Hm?" Todoroki didn't look down to meet Izuku's eyes, but addressed him when he spoke.

"Why do you think villains do what they do?"

At that, Todoroki glanced down at Izuku. "Explain," he said, curious eyes following his friend.

Izuku bit his lip, trying to come up with a way to bring to words what he thought. "Why do they do it, as in...why do they hurt other people? I mean...they don't do it because they're scared, or they're protecting themselves. They just do it. Why do you think they do that?"

Todoroki was silent. He was silent for so long, Izuku had to glance up to make sure he had heard him. However, when he saw Todoroki's eyes focusing straight ahead out the window, deep in thought, Izuku knew better than to interject.

"I guess they're selfish," Todoroki finally said after what seemed like a small eternity.

Izuku felt his eyebrows furrow together. "Selfish? What do you mean?"

"Selfish like they decide what they want, and think of other people like things in the way of getting it, or even tools to get it. It seems cruel to people who don't think like that, but it doesn't mean anything to those who see other people as less than."

Todoroki paused for a moment, as though thinking, then continued. "Selfish. Self-centered. Focused. Lacking empathy. Anything might work, but the one thing they have in common is they typically don't factor people as people into the equation of getting what they want."

To that, Izuku was silent. He found himself dumbstruck; not entirely sure what to say to that. What Todoroki said wasn't exactly poetry or earth-shattering, but it was something Izuku had never thought of before.

As soon as he could remember even feigning an interest in the world of heroics, Izuku had always seen villains as "the other guys." They were insane. Immoral. A different species altogether. They hurt innocent people, and always got punched by the good guys. That was how you knew a villain was evil.

A villain was never a person. They were an icon; a target for the heroes and the public to direct their aggression at. Even now, after fighting real villains that said that they stood for something—or at least, tried to stand for something—Izuku still had trouble seeing them as little more than the bad guys.

He had never been able to relate to villains. Even when their ideas and philosophies and everything that made them do what they do were spread out on the table, Izuku could never get his mindset to link up with theirs. He never understood just what it was that made a villain tick. no matter how hard he tried. He supposed that's why it was always so easy for him to draw a line between good and evil.

Izuku preferred it more when that line stayed clear.

It used to be cut and dry: if you did bad things, you were bad, and if you did good things, you were good. There was no exception for doing the right thing. But now, Izuku was left to wonder.

He had seen Kaminari in action. He had seen him fight villains and help classmates and make people laugh. That was something he was especially good at. He and Kaminari were never best friends or anything, but Izuku always liked Kaminari. He admired his optimism and his will to do good things. It was what made him a hero. He didn't see how someone like that could do things that Izuku thought that he might have done.

Izuku saw the patterns. He saw discrepancies and strangeness in the continuity of Sero's injury that made the whole thing seem like a glitch in the matrix. Something wasn't right here. The only problem was that he didn't know what that thing was.

Not until yesterday, anyway.

Kacchan's outburst hadn't come out of nowhere. He just didn't work like that, and Izuku felt like he knew that better than anyone. He saw the rage on Kacchan's face when he stormed out of Kaminari's room. Not just rage, but frustration.

There, standing in that hallway, interrupting something deep and private and real, Midoriya got a glimpse into something he wasn't supposed to see. He had been handed the blueprint for a bomb and instructed to make the choice of building it or not.

He wasn't sure about his choice before. Now, he thought he knew.

There was a piece of paper by Bakugou's door.

He didn't see when it had been slid under. To be honest, he had spent most of his Saturday sleeping or hitting his punching bag. He didn't feel like going out into the dorms and hanging out with everyone; so instead, he slept and he punched things.

So far, it seemed to be working.

When he saw the slip of paper, he had to admit: curiosity prickled under his skin. It didn't look like anything official; in fact, it looked like something written on a notecard. Reaching down, Bakugou slid it off of his floor and read.

I believe you,
Meet me in my room at midnight
–Deku