A/N: I'm back... sorry if you thought I was dead...
Disclaimer: Don't own.
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Five – risky
The lift is broken.
He can't understand how. Shouldn't a criminal organisation have better building maintenance?
Izuku takes the stairs. It's slow going, as he has to stop every flight or so to wait for Mei to hack each surveillance camera one by one. She's not supposed to do that – she's not supposed to be able to do that. And if anyone finds out, well… the consequences won't be pretty.
But Mei has always been good at being rebellious, and she's been finding ways past the restrictions the Order has set in her laptop since she first got it half a year ago. It took two years of good behavior and obedience to persuade Taya to buy her one. They all knew how dangerous Mei could be with a computer of her own.
Mei is certainly skilled enough to loop camera feeds. That was one of the first things the Order taught her, Izuku thinks. It's useful, especially as they now have more freedom in sneaking around the building than ever before.
It takes a full thirty minutes for him to make his way up to the top floor, Mei's instructions on when and where he can move transmitting into his stolen earpiece. The building's cameras scan past him, unaware of his quiet steps.
The door to the open roof is one of the few in the building that doesn't require a handprint scan or, at the very least, a keycard. It's actually closed with a simple lock. Izuku twists a bobby pin into the keyhole and wiggles it around until the door opens with a soft click. He pushes his way outside carefully, tucking the pin back into one of the many pockets of his baggy uniform.
Kenji is on the roof, just as Emi said. The older boy is leaning on the metal fence that separates him from an early death, staring out at the city pensively.
Minato Ward in Tokyo is beautiful at night. The Order of the Triumvirate's headquarters is a normal-looking office building located on the outskirts of the city, but Izuku can still see far-away Tokyo Tower if he squints, and he can catch glimpses of normal life in the pedestrians that hurry around on the streets down below. The lights of the city are dizzying, blurring before his eyes.
"Kenji," Izuku calls out, voice nearly lost in the gushing wind. "What are you doing up here?"
"What are you doing here?" Kenji shoots back, but he steps away from the fence (and the edge of the roof), and Izuku is relieved.
"Emi says you've been here for two hours," he says. "She's worried."
Kenji has always had a soft spot for the girl, the youngest of his team. He had become especially protective after the incident with their trainer's dogs. Izuku remembers the pale, angry look on Kenji's face as they waited for Emi to be released from the infirmary. His other teammates had been scared into compliance after the event, but not Kenji.
The Rottweiler that bit her eventually suffered the deadly bite of some insect or another and died a few days later. Everyone knew Kenji was the culprit, but he was never punished. Izuku remembers Howler's eyes gleaming with satisfaction, even though he had lost one of his prized hounds. The frigid man had taught Kenji cruelty, and he had taught it well.
Kenji furrows his brows now, an expression far too severe for the face of a twelve-year-old.
"You should come down and get some sleep," Izuku tells him quietly.
Kenji makes an attempt at looking annoyed. "I told her not to tell you."
"Don't be mad at her."
"I'm not," Kenji sighs.
Izuku closes the door and sits down against it. Kenji slumps down next to him.
"I wasn't going to jump, if that's what you were thinking," he says.
"I know," Izuku replies. "Was today your first operation?"
"Third."
'Operation'. Such a clinical-sounding word.
It was the word Akagiri used, so it's what Izuku and the other kids call the little 'jobs' the Order has them do. Sometimes they are nothing special, like when Mei helps out in the labs, or when Izuku is told to solve a logistics problem or analyse a pro hero's Quirk. But oftentimes Hitoshi will be called to an interrogation room and handed a list of questions to ask a prisoner, or Denki will be led out of headquarters and told to overload an unfamiliar building's power system.
Those are the ones everybody dreads. You never know what you'll be made to do.
"I killed a man today," Kenji says.
Izuku tenses. "W-what?"
"I mean, he's not dead yet," Kenji says morosely. "I think he's still unconscious. But he'll die soon."
"What happened?" Izuku probes warily.
"They collected an entire box of giant hornets," Kenji explains. "Howler drove me near this guy's house and rang the doorbell. When he walked out, I told the hornets to sting him."
Izuku thumps the back of his head against the door absently, stunned.
This is the first time any of them has been made to actually kill someone.
"You're such a busybody, you know," Kenji complains quietly. "You're always poking around, sticking your nose into other people's business. I told myself I wasn't gonna tell anyone…"
"I won't tell," Izuku promises.
"You'd better not," Kenji warns. A hornet creeps out from the collar of his shirt. It flies onto Kenji's palm, and he holds it up to Izuku's face. "One sting won't kill you, but it'll be very painful."
Izuku laughs. Kenji won't do that. He's more likely to send mosquitos or ants after him, harmless but annoying things.
"How did you get up here?" Izuku asks, changing the subject.
Kenji finally smiles, a small curve of his lips. "Did you know, there's been a lot of bugs in the building lately," he says.
Izuku giggles. "Really?"
"I told the security guys I found out how to get the insects to leave. But they have to let me out onto the roof once a day."
"Risky," Izuku says. Kenji could have just as easily been dragged to Howler and whipped for his disrespect.
Kenji shrugs. "The guys on night shift are always pretty chill."
"Too tired to get angry," Izuku agrees.
They look up at the night sky in silence.
Izuku misses Musutafu. The stars were clearer from there. Here, in Tokyo, pollution wisps in the air.
"Are you two coming down or not?" Mei asks after a while, voice tinny in Izuku's earpiece.
"Coming, coming," Izuku hurries to placate her.
In the end, Kenji goes down first, and Izuku waits before setting out on another half-hour trek down the stairs. It's not like Kenji can accompany him, after all, and not be seen coming down as Mei tiredly hacks into the building's cameras and loops their feeds. The people manning the CCTV control room would definitely be suspicious.
"Finally," Mei mutters when he slips back into their room – 'dorm' would be a better word for it, he thinks – at two in the morning.
Her eyes are bloodshot from staring at her computer screen for so long, and her fingers are cramped from rapid typing. "Did you have to take so long?"
"S-sorry," Izuku mumbles sheepishly.
Hitoshi sits up abruptly on his bed, making both of them jump and Mei slam her laptop shut.
"Oh my god," he says, fluffy hair ridiculously messy. The ever-present bags under his eyes are darker than usual. "Both of you shut the fuck up and go to sleep."
"You're awake," Izuku splutters.
"I'm always awake," Hitoshi snaps. "Go to sleep."
"And close the lights before I short them out," Denki moans, blanket covering his head. "It'll be on purpose this time."
Mei turns off the lights. Hitoshi mutters a prayer for dumbass friends.
Izuku goes to bed. He sleeps.
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They have uniforms. Those came in the third month, tossed to them by their trainers. They are plain, navy blue jumpsuits. On one sleeve is the symbol of the Order, white triskelion and purple circle and all. There is no insignia on the other sleeve – that space is left blank for their armbands.
Izuku's team was given green armbands – "For Kingpin's hair," Taya told them amusedly – but the other teams have different ones. Kenji and Emi's group has red bands. Sadako's is black. There are purple, white, grey, orange, brown, blue, yellow, and pink, too – each team with a different colour.
Team Midori, they are called. Izuku fiddles with his armband as he stands outside Dr. Tsubasa's office.
The door is opened in a few short moments, and Youichi walks out. He's looking distressingly gaunt, but he's also eating from a large box of biscuits, so Izuku doesn't worry too much.
"Want one?" Youichi offers. He holds out the box.
Izuku picks one out, a small one that's shaped like – a bear? A cat? "Thanks."
Youichi leaves with a backwards wave, munching hungrily on his biscuits. Izuku waits until he's licked the crumbs from his fingers, leaving no evidence that's he's eaten anything, before entering Tsubasa's office. The doctor won't be happy if he finds out Youichi's been sharing his food. Youichi needs to eat more for his Quirk, after all.
Still, Izuku can't help but wish he had snuck out a few extra biscuits from Youichi's box. He and the others had really messed up in training last week, failing in the weekly mission simulation – it was a heist one. Izuku hates those.
His stomach grumbles – punishment is cut food portions until further notice, nothing but energy bars to get them through the days.
Izuku despises energy bars, especially the ones that come in lonely packs of two. The only one who hates them more is Hitoshi, who needs all the food he can get, considering he sleeps so badly at night. (Izuku is convinced it's a side effect of his Quirk. There's no reasonable explanation otherwise.)
Tsubasa greets him with a twitchy smile. The doctor is always twitchy around him.
"Hey, Tsubasa," Izuku addresses coolly.
He doesn't call him 'sensei'. Tsubasa allows it, from him.
Alright, so he might be a little bit bitter. He has a right to be. Tsubasa, after all, is the one who got him kidnapped.
"Hello, Kingpin," Tsubasa says. His hands are sweaty. "How are you feeling today?"
"Alright," Izuku lies, sitting down on the chair facing Tsubasa's desk. His stomach growls pointedly.
Tsubasa gestures nervously to the tin can filled with organic lollipops on his desk. "Help yourself."
Izuku unwraps a grape-flavoured one, then spitefully empties the rest of the can, stuffing the lollipops into his pockets so that he can share them with his team later. It's childish pettiness that would usually come from Hitoshi or Denki, but Tsubasa has always brought out the worst in Izuku.
He pops the lolly into his mouth and sits straight-backed. Izuku returns Tsubasa's uncomfortable gaze with the blank stare he usually reserves for the guards that like to push him and the others around.
Tsubasa coughs. "Taya tells me you failed last week's heist simulation."
Izuku sucks on his lollipop. Technically, Team Midori had failed together; but Izuku had made the plan, and the others had followed his lead like always, and it didn't work this time. So, yes, it's his fault that they're on energy bars for the foreseeable future.
He nods. "Yes."
"Well, then that's what we'll work on today." Tsubasa hands him a stack of worksheets and a pen. "You have… hm, twenty minutes for the first ten problems."
Ten problems, ten pages. Twenty minutes. Izuku gets to work.
They're all the same, really. Different security systems of different houses and buildings, different Quirks and skill levels to work with, different things to steal. But they're all the same.
Having a high IQ doesn't make him smarter, Izuku's found out over the years. All he can do is understand things quicker, and grasp things easier. It all depends on whether or not he can force himself to stop and think before rushing into things, and if he can plan fast and cleverly enough for it to make a difference. Tsubasa's job is to train him to do both and more.
Tsubasa is a Quirk doctor – specialist, whatever you want to call it – one of the many in the Order of the Triumvirate's service. For the others, they meet with one of the doctors at least twice a week to train their Quirks. For Izuku, who doesn't have one, he meets with Tsubasa to train his mind.
The sessions are in the evenings, two hours each. They started after the first year, after everyone else pretty much gave up hope on escape or rescue (with a select few turning to subtle acts of disobedience instead).
Usually, Izuku is given worksheets so that he can practice reading and writing at the same time. He knows that Denki and many of the others can't do either very well, not like Hitoshi who learned so that he can do his interrogation operations, or Mei who surfs the internet for hours after curfew.
He's lucky, in some ways, that support work is going to be his specialty – it means the Order spends more time on teaching him the underrated things. Like literacy.
Most languages are easy for Izuku, but understanding the words doesn't mean he can write well. It's why his worksheets are done in scribbles that resemble chicken scratch. It's not like he has the time or inclination to improve his handwriting.
Today is a multilingual day. His first problem is written in Japanese. The second is in Arabic. Izuku hates many things. He hates writing in Arabic.
Still – a chicken, a fox, and a sack of grain. Logistics and strategy and common sense. Izuku blurs through each question as fast as he can.
"This is your problem, Kingpin," Tsubasa sighs after he reads through Izuku's answers. "You rush." He underlines a section with bright red ink. "See, you overlooked the size of the windows. Do you think a muscled man of one-eighty-two centimeters will be able to fit through a 250mmx260mm window?"
"It says he's a gymnast," Izuku reasons half-heartedly.
"But you don't know for sure if he can do it," Tsubasa says. "You don't know his weight or waist size or exact flexibility. And you've given him only eight seconds."
"Nobody makes windows that small," Izuku says.
"You must never rush into things," Tsubasa warns, not unkindly. "It'll get your teammates killed. Do you want that?"
"No," Izuku says, staring at his feet.
"Exactly. It's how you failed that simulation, isn't it? You didn't account for the fact that Proxy's target," a girl from Team Aoi, the ones assigned to defend the objective, "could accidentally break his control by stubbing her toe on that rock. You should have, but you didn't, and that's why you failed."
Izuku takes out the lollipop stick from his mouth and tosses it at the trash can in the corner of the room. It misses.
"I know," he says. "I won't do it again."
"Work on that," Tsubasa says, and hands him a different pack of worksheets. It's math this time. "Your intelligence is no good if you don't stop to use it."
He's right. Tsubasa is usually right.
In all the years they've known each other, Tsubasa has never lied to him – not about the chances he has of manifesting a Quirk, not about how little he's worth to the Order, not even about how his mom is doing back at their lonely little house.
She's doing fine, Tsubasa says, gently but firmly. Always firm. She's been getting out more lately, he tells Izuku.
Izuku hates him.
So much.
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He leaves Tsubasa's office, leaving the door open behind him. It shouldn't give him this much satisfaction, hearing Tsubasa mutter about his knees as the old man gets up to close it, but it does.
Izuku's allowed to be petty, isn't he?
The hallways are far from empty at this time, and Izuku avoids making eye contact with the people he passes. Those with uniforms and guns are security, patrolling the halls in pairs. Those without are the dangerous ones: trainers and villains and others that the Order of the Triumvirate employs, who are allowed far more in how much they can order him around.
Akayo was taken to the labs a year back by one of the scientists. Her left wing was half-dissected, Izuku remembers, before her trainer found out and shot the man through the heart.
The dorms are all located in one corridor. There are no more guards in front of their doors, but handprint scanners have been installed ever since they first started learning lockpicking.
His session with Tsubasa ended at nine, and if he doesn't enter his dorm before quarter past, he's locked out for the rest of the night. That's how it is. Izuku presses the palm of his hand to the scanner next to their door. It flashes green and the door clicks open.
Denki is doing sit-ups on the floor, turning purple as he counts, "Ninety-six, n-ninety-eight…"
"You skipped ninety-seven," Izuku points out, smiling.
Denki groans. "Give me a break, man…"
Hitoshi is in the shower. Mei is nowhere to be found, probably working late in the labs again.
Izuku sits down on his bed. He watches Denki struggle for some time, letting the familiar feel of their dormitory calm his scattered mind.
It soon becomes clear to him that Denki isn't stopping anytime soon, grimly chanting the numbers while he pushes himself through the exercise. "What bet did you lose this time?" Izuku asks.
"You know me so well," Denki says. His entire body is trembling.
"What was it?" Izuku repeats curiously.
"Hitoshi –" Denki grunts, looking three seconds away from collapsing. "Hitoshi said I couldn't eat five hot dogs in sixty seconds."
"Y-you actually tried?" Izuku begins to laugh, lying down and rubbing a hand over his eyes.
"It was close, okay?" Denki whines, still determinedly doing his sit-ups. "Ten more seconds and I would've finished."
"How many do you have to do? Two hundred?" Izuku sits up abruptly. "Wait. Hot dogs?"
He can't see Denki's face as the other boy pushes through his punishment, but he is definitely sporting a shifty grin as he replies, "Hot dogs, yeah. What about it?"
"I can't – I can't believe you," Izuku says, not sure whether to fume or laugh. "You got hot dogs and y-you didn't share?"
"You were with Tsubasa," Denki says unrepentantly. "Besides –"
"We saved some for you," Hitoshi finishes. He stands in the doorway of their shared bathroom, drying his hair with a towel. He looks like a wet cat.
Izuku says as much. "You look like a wet cat."
"Shut up," Hitoshi says, irritated. "Do you want food or not?"
"We should wait until after curfew," Izuku says. Because that's when the looping system he and Mei have set into the camera feeds will start up. "We don't want security coming down on us."
"The guys on night shift don't care about things like this," Hitoshi says dismissively. He would know. He takes late shifts in the CCTV control room a lot, as punishment when Taya is angry at him or when he's particularly bored. He knows all of the night shift people.
Hitoshi drops a hot dog into his hands. It's in a paper bag with a familiar design – 7-Eleven.
Izuku examines it incredulously. "How did you even get this?"
Hitoshi looks smug. "A guard was pissing me off, so I decided to make him go for a trip down to the nearest convenience store."
"You shouldn't have done that," Izuku says disapprovingly. If the guy had, god forbid, tripped over a goddamn pebble…
"Hungry," Hitoshi mumbles as an explanation, climbing up the flimsy ladder of their bunk bed to his own mattress, the one above Izuku's. "I made him think he fell asleep, after," he adds defensively.
Izuku is guiltily grateful that Hitoshi had taken such a risk, despite the hell that would have rained down on them all if the guard had gained awareness during his errand, or if Taya had found out. Hunger is something that all of them loathe. They all miss the times when they couldn't make out each individual rib bone on their chests.
His stomach rumbles. The first bite feels like paradise, cheese inside sausage inside dry, warm bread. Crust crumbs stick to his chin; it's a wonderfully annoying feeling.
Izuku sighs contentedly. Lollipops and biscuits and tasteless energy bars are no match for actual food. And the tomato sauce – the goddamn tomato sauce.
One day, Izuku vows, he'll run away and become a tomato farmer. Then he'll have unlimited tomato sauce for the rest of his life and all will be well.
By the time he finishes savouring his late-night snack, Denki is done with his sit-ups and is curled up in bed, fast asleep. Izuku gets up to pull a thin blanket over the snoring boy.
He wrinkles his nose. "Denki's sweaty."
Hitoshi, who's the pickiest of them all when it comes to hygiene, looks disgusted. "He'd better shower in the morning."
"You should make him do it," Izuku suggests.
"I will," Hitoshi grumbles.
Denki always looks troubled when sleeping. Maybe it is because he can't smile his usual smile while asleep, or maybe it is because all the worries he pushes away in the daytime comes to haunt him at night. Izuku doesn't know.
It is nearly ten-thirty. Izuku settles down, arranging himself into a suitably asleep-looking position. At ten-thirty, the camera feeds will start looping, and it's best if he looks passed out at that time.
At ten-thirty-two, Izuku sits up again, feeling Hitoshi doing the same as the frame of their bunk bed creaks noisily. Denki snores on.
He unwraps another lollipop. Orange-flavoured, this time. He leans his head against the wall, closing his eyes as he sucks on bittersweetness.
The walls of their dorm are not the same as they were three years ago, when they were first pushed into this cell. Now, there is a scorch mark in one spot from the time Mei threw an untested smoke bomb, and Denki's posters, rewards collected from operations well-done, are splashes of colour against empty white. Hitoshi got them a coat rack, pinned to their bathroom door. Izuku himself has contributed a calendar, hung next to his bed.
That one he got from breaking a man's arm – someone whose breath had smelled like weed, someone who'd no doubt done something to piss off the higher-ups in some way. Taya had stood by and watched and smiled.
It almost feels like home. But it is a prison, and Izuku can't let himself forget that.
-x-x-x-
-x-x-x-
Taya pulls him aside after afternoon team training and gives him the orders. "This man," she says, showing him a picture. It's blurry, taken as the target was running, leaping from one rooftop to another. "We need him."
He doesn't even have to do much. Just stand there and scream, wait for the unsuspecting pro-hero to jump in, straight into a trap.
It is his eleventh operation. It still makes him feel sick.
It is past nightfall when Izuku gets off the van, Taya following. They are in a seedy town, two hours of driving from headquarters, a place where the air itself smells of cigarette smoke and cheap liquor. This alone tells him all he needs to know about the hero they will be capturing tonight.
Normally, pro-heroes stick to well-populated, respectable regions, where any fights that happen will receive good media coverage. Publicity is how they get their paychecks, after all. A hero who frequents a town like this, where nobody cares about anyone, is one of the good ones. This is a hero who cares.
It makes Izuku feel even more like shit. He knows the corners of his lips are downturned and hopes Taya doesn't notice.
Taya hands him one of her guns. It's a smaller one, easily hidden inside the pocket of the hoodie he was given for this assignment.
"If my first tranquilizer doesn't make him drop, you shoot him until he does," she instructs. "We're not taking any chances here. We want him alive, but dead is okay too."
If Taya misses, or if the hero somehow has immunity to the brand of tranquilizer she likes to use, then it is best if the man dies before he can open his mouth to alert any other heroes near the area. Fights with pro heroes tend to get out of hand, and they always bring media attention. Attention which is the last thing the Order of the Triumvirate needs. Best to end things quickly – capture or kill, either one acceptable.
There is makeup heavy on his face, and his curly hair has been dyed a nondescript dark brown. Taya leans down to fix the plastic on his nose, a covering which magically makes it look both bigger and longer.
"We'd use Chameleon's Quirk like usual, but this guy…" She grimaces. "Any disguise made by Quirks won't work. The moment he lays his eyes on you, it'll fall apart."
"What's his Quirk?" Izuku asks, kneeling down to tie his shoelaces. He is wearing worn sneakers today, not the usual uniform boots. He wants to ask where they got them, but then thinks better of it. Taya will probably hit him, annoyed as she looks right now.
"Erasure." Taya checks her own gun one last time, slotting in a pack of tranquilizers. "He's always been a pain to deal with. Akagiri thinks we should take care of him now, before he gains more experience. I agree."
Their driver calls out, "He's coming. Two kilometers southwest."
Taya ruffles his hair in an attempt at encouragement. "Come on. Let's get going."
She leads him to an alleyway. They have to drag a man out of the way, a drunk who was sleeping by the dumpster. Taya shoves him out onto the street. Izuku avoids the man's unfocused eyes as he throws up and staggers away.
The driver's voice crackles into his earpiece. "Seven hundred meters south. Coming slow."
"This is an easy job. Don't fail," Taya murmurs, and leaves. She makes her way up to a rooftop across the street, long, sleek gun slung on her back. Izuku is left alone.
He tips his head back and looks at the stars. There is a streak of yellow-white flying through the night sky. A shooting star.
How did the rhyme go again? It was an English one, he remembers. Shooting star, shooting star…
He should make a wish, he thinks.
The order comes before he can. "Now," Taya says, sounding tense through his earpiece.
Izuku shouts as loudly as he can. It bursts out of his mouth, startling pigeons into taking flight. He cries for help, for a miracle, for a hero to come save him. It is all the things he wishes he had screamed out loud the day Kumo took him from the park, fingers digging into his arm as the man dragged him along. Maybe if he had…
Regret. It's something he's very familiar with.
"Help me!" Izuku shouts, voice cracking.
A whisper in the wind, and a figure drops down in front of him. Long hair, long scarf – Izuku recognizes the target.
"Please," Izuku says, as helplessly as if he really was in danger. His hand is in his pocket, tight around the handle of his gun.
"Kid," the pro hero soothes. "It's okay. Tell me what's wrong –"
That's as far as the man gets before Taya's dart strikes him in the neck. Bad luck, Izuku thinks, that using the scarf leaves the neck open to attack. And that the suit wasn't zipped up fully.
The hero's eyes are wide and surprised, staring straight into Izuku's. Then they slip close and the man falls gracelessly to the ground.
Izuku approaches carefully, relinquishing the unconscious man of his scarf first and foremost. It's made of a durable, lightweight material – he's sure Mei would love to get her hands on it. Maybe after the Order's scientists have had their turn prodding at it.
He's picking through the man's vest when Taya arrives, gun once again slung casually across her back. Her skirt is dirty from kneeling on the rooftop. Izuku hands her the scarf, then the gun and knives he found hidden in the pro hero's pockets and strapped to his thighs.
"Practical," Taya hums appreciatively, examining Eraserhead's choice of weapons. "Smart man. Not one to fool around." She seems much more relaxed now that their target has been apprehended.
Their driver honks the car impatiently, and they set to work dragging the pro hero back to the van. He's surprisingly light, for a man of his profession. The dark bags under the man's eyes remind Izuku of Hitoshi, and he feels sick to the stomach once again.
He wonders what the Order will do with this one. Experimentation? Interrogation?
He hopes Taya won't tell him.
They are an hour into the drive back to headquarters when Taya stops the car. They're in front of a bookstore, one that is almost closing.
"Good job today, Kingpin," Taya congratulates him. She hands him two hundred thousand yen. "You have fifteen minutes to shop."
Izuku gets some novels, and more food from the convenience store across the road because they're running low on hot dogs. He thinks back to sharp, surprised eyes, to the pro hero tied up and unconscious in the back of the van, and it's not worth it. Not even a little.
-x-x-x-
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A/N: And we're done here! Finally.
I know it's been some time since I've updated… haha… I'll start replying to reviews again, too. Thank you for reading, guys.