Guest - Yep, Izuku and Momo are basically best friends. Like Izuku and Shinsou, although expect them both to vehemently disagree with that assessment xD

Miqila - She absolutely is, yeah xD

(***)

Jirou actually heard Midoriya approach, she simply didn't consider it to be a problem. Now, when she got a good read of his heartbeat, she realized that it was a very big problem. She opened her mouth, but failed to speak in time.

"Rabbit finally confessed to Edge!" Mina failed the perception check. And didn't realize that Izuku was angry. So she has jumped onto the minefield. "They were super adorable about it and she said yes, so…" Explosion came immediately.

"Are you KIDDING ME?!" Midoriya shouted while giving her an honest-to-god death stare. Mina froze. "You are using Jirou's quirk to spy on him? Did you ever hear the word 'privacy' or is it a foreign concept to you?"

"Uhm, I mean…" Mina tried to find the right words. She failed. Mieko tried to step in.

"C'mon, it's just innocent fun!" Jirou would have liked to say that she agreed with her girlfriend, but… seeing Midoriya genuinely angry (she didn't even know what this was possible) made her realize that what they did was… actually rather questionable. "It was just a love confession and…"

"You didn't know that it was going to be a love confession before you heard it." Midoriya barks back. "They could have that talk about a thousand different things that they wanted to keep private more than that. What if I was in my room and I was talking about some actual classified stuff with the Commissioner through the phone?" Fair point. His room is right next to Rabbit's. "Wouldn't you overhear that as well?"

"Well, we…" Mieko realizes that she doesn't have anything to say that might have improved her situation.

"You are all supposed to be heroes." Midoriya decides to drive the nail home. "You have wonderful, fantastic powers. But you are supposed to use them RESPONSIBLY. Using your quirk to spy on other people for your own enjoyment is what VILLAINS do." He turns his head to give Jirou a very nasty stare. "I'm disappointed in you, Jirou."

Worst of all, she is also disappointed in herself. Honestly, why did she let them talk herself into that? She should be smarter than this. She should be BETTER than this.

"Hey, stop being like t…" Mieko, of course, is trying to defend her. It's nice, really. But not in the current circumstances.

"Mieko." She interrupts her girlfriend. "Stop that. He is right. I should have said no." She is supposed to be a hero. That's a serious vocation. Not unlike becoming a police officer or a firefighter. She ought to have enough moral courage to say no when questionable stuff is involved.

She might have started it simply because her friends (and girlfriend) were into it and she wanted to stay with them, but she is absolutely serious about becoming a hero right now. She helped save A LOT of people thus far. That actually made her enjoy the job more than she initially expected.

And, as of recently, they were actually paid quite well. Per commission, yes, but the local police and emergency services began to realize just how valuable powerful quirk holders were in their job. If you had a quirk that was as much in demand as hers and Eto's, you could actually look forward to a quite decent life.

It was not just good, but also a quite good business. She was serious about it, and what she just did…

It wasn't very heroic.

"I'm going to apologize to Rabbit." Kyoka states and she can see that this managed to dispel most of the anger on his face. "Once they're done with their talk. I don't want to interrupt them."

Immortal nods fervently while looking significantly ashamed of herself. Deadshot's emotionally scarce but seems to be in agreement. Mina and Mieko, the two driving forces behind the whole event, look like they began to regret certain decisions.

"Yaomomo? Todoroki?" The talk isn't over yet, as Midoriya decides to immediately prove. Momo is the more touchy bit, as the two of them are close friends and co-workers. Midoriya probably feels almost betrayed by that.

Shoto actually deflates a bit in his seat.

"In my defense, I tried to talk them out of it." Momo states, clearly unfazed by the confrontation. "When it failed, I decided to stick around in case they accidentally overheard something potentially compromising. Todoroki was just following me."

This has clearly defused the bomb. At least for the next ten seconds, during which everyone but Momo & Shoto duo started to leave the common room. Because then Michan decided to blow everything up by making a joke about how Rabbit's ass is the one in danger in that relationship.

Kyoka loves her, but sometimes she also wants to kick her ass. This is one of those moments.

Midoriya naturally erupts once again and starts yelling at Mieko that she should finally realize that not everyone is alright with her constant sex talks bullshit and her doing this literally few seconds after she violated someone's privacy (and while making them about the person whose privacy she helped violate) is just making her look like an asshole.

Mieko opens her mouth for some saucy and angry retort, but Kyoka decides to step and quickly drags her out of the room.

"That son of a…" Mieko tries to say, still furious. "Why did you drag me out, I had it…"

"Michan, just do me a favor, and shut up for a moment, alright?" Kyoka is still salty over the whole spying on friends bit and she's really not in a mood for pleasantries. "He has been lashing out on almost everyone since the Kuroiro rampage began. He is clearly feeling guilty, and you managed to piss him off like ten seconds after we've managed to defuse him right after we all managed to piss him off. I'm really not surprised that he overreacted, and you should cut down on your sex jokes because you're regularly going too far and making everyone uncomfortable."

Kyoka is really curious about why Midoriya reacted this bad to Kuroiro. Yes, they apparently let him and his compatriots out of Tartarus in exchange for something that ATK had. Just… no one ever said what it was.

She might have been curious but she did nothing to satisfy that curiosity. Confidential matters were confidential.

"But… I thought you liked them!" Mieko looks hurt. Now Kyoka feels hurt as well. Shit.

"I do like them, and so does Set." Kyoka replies. She truly does, Mieko being funny to be around is one of her big positives. "But at least several people, like Yaoyorozu, Midoriya, Tokoyami and Rabbit, clearly don't. But you keep making them in front of them. Try to be slightly more sensitive, alright?"

Hopefully this will stick.

(***)

"Well…" Shoto blinks a few times in an obvious daze. "... when Shinsou said that scary Midoriya is scary, I thought that he was joking. It seems that I was wrong." Seeing the person whose quirk allowed them to instantly kill anyone within a few meter radius suddenly go batshit crazy and yell at people was quite… intimidating.

He and Momo stayed behind in the room. Technically speaking Todoroki was waiting for Shinsou (his best friend, hating your fathers brings people together) to get back from Tartarus shift, but practically he wasn't entirely adverse to his current company.

"It's a new thing for me as well." Momo replies. She didn't get any advanced warning (Shinsou… well, they weren't exactly close if you excluded working together), but she did notice that Midoriya wasn't doing quite well nowadays. It worried her a lot. He was her first friend after all! "So, now that we are alone, I have something to ask you about."

"Yes?" Todoroki asks back. On the inside, he is curious. On the outside, not so much.

"Are you perhaps romantically interested in me?" Momo says the words. Todoroki fails to compute the words.

"Eh?" Shoto eventually manages to vocalize his answer. Or, at least, his confusion and total surprise.

"Look, I'm not blind." Momo replies. "And I know what sex and relationships are. I might completely lack experience in both, but I do know the theory quite well. And your behavior towards me makes me suspect that you developed feelings towards me. So I decided to confront you about it."

All the talk about Rabbit's new… developments merely set up the right mood for that talk. At least in Momo's opinion.

"I'm…" Shoto is trying to figure out how to respond to that. Unfortunately, vocally bashing his father isn't the right answer and that's the only thing that came to his mind. "I'm not sure, actually? I never felt any interest in either, so I assumed that I was just asexual. Then I met you, and… honestly I'm confused about it myself."

Momo seems to be thinking about it for a few seconds. Eventually a ruling is made.

"Well, considering what sort of absolute dickhead your father is…" Shoto almost chokes when he hears Momo Yaoyorozu use THAT word. And it's about his father! He is now at least 5% more certain that he actually is in love with her. "... it's probably not surprising that your emotional development has been a bit… stumped. And you probably never had any contact with girls your age, am i right?"

"Yes." Shoto realizes that fact only now, once she formulated the words for him to assess. "Moe Kamiji and my sister were probably the youngest women I ever spent more than a few minutes with."

The servants were typically approaching their thirties. His father preferred an experienced workforce.

Now that he thinks about it, isn't it kind of sad? He is aware that his childhood wasn't normal, but that just adds further arguments to it.

"Hmmm…" Momo is thinking again. He kind of likes seeing her face be so thoughtful. Or so he thinks. "... I didn't exactly have any experience with that either, as stated. And while my childhood wasn't as bad, my contacts with others my age were rather lacking as well. Midoriya's my first genuine friend ever." Some part of Todoroki feels bad about not being her first friend. "Since I'm almost as confused about it as you are, I don't think that trying to form a relationship is wise."

Oh. A rejection. Well, it hurts.

"At least for now." She then says, and a light of hope shines upon Todoroki. She seems to have realized that his mood shifted a lot, so she quickly decided to elaborate. "Look, romantic relationships are serious commitments. Lifelong, if things go well. Trying to start one when neither one of us is really sure how to differentiate romantic feelings from friendship sounds like a great way to get badly hurt further down the line, yes?"

Todoroki thinks it over. Imagines a scenario when his feelings are answered, only for Momo to - after a while - decide that she doesn't like him in that way. He decides that it would suck big time.

He is vaguely aware that someone with his degree of emotional damage (courtesy of his asshole of a father, of course) really shouldn't be making lifelong commitments with other people.

He isn't an engineer nor an architect, but he has a vague feeling that trying to build a skyscraper on a shaky foundation will end badly.

"I think you are right." He nods. She's very thoughtful and smart, and that's impressive. Todoroki himself isn't exactly stupid (he had very good grades), just… he knows that he doesn't match up to her. But it's alright. "So what should we do instead?"

"Let's focus on figuring ourselves out first." She says. "Build up some friendships, get more experience in dealing with people, make sure that we are 100% sure that what we feel towards each other is different than what we feel towards our other friends, then consider dating."

It sounds like a good idea. But for as much as Shoto Todoroki is permanently confused about his feelings and other people, he notices something .

"What WE feel towards each other?" He asks. Momo faintly blushes.

"Well, you are good looking, smart and rather… refreshing with your humor, even if knowing where it came from makes me think some rather villainous thoughts about your father." Yes, he is almost certain that he is in love. But also suspicious that he shouldn't fall for people that announced that they share his disdain for Enji Todoroki. It's probably not healthy in the long-term. "So I'm not entirely… adverse to the idea. Just… not sure about myself."

"Well, I think that it's a good idea." Todoroki admits. "Even if it won't work out, at least we'll figure ourselves out a bit, yes?" Momo nods. "Also, it will royally piss off my father, but…"

"... that's just one more reason to do it." Momo cuts in. Then they both grin at each other. Oh yes, this actually might work out in the end.

"I'm actually more worried about Midoriya." Shoto decides to point that out. They are having a serious talk, so it's probably best to cover all fields. "He's… kind of protective of you, yes?" At least that's what he figured out from observing them for some time.

"That's true." Momo admits. "I'm a bit less innocent than he assumes, even if only a bit. Then again, I actually found his attitude admirable, so I decided against correcting his assumptions."

"Really?" Todoroki is actually surprised by it. "I figured out that you wouldn't like it if…"

"I wouldn't like it if he expected something in return." Momo cuts in. "Instead, he just genuinely does his best to make me feel welcome and not overwhelmed by some of our… baser members. When he thinks that I'm not comfortable with Mieko's constant pervy talk, he isn't actually wrong." She sighs before suddenly looking at him. "It's not a problem if I'm not very interested in sex, right?"

"Uhm, no?" Shoto replies. He isn't super sure about himself right now. "I mean, I might have recently discovered that I'm actually interested in it at all, but… I don't think that there is a lot of that interest?" He really isn't sure how to word it properly. He lacks some terms. But Momo seems to have understood the point of it.

"Well then… I'm looking forward to trying to figure ourselves out with you, Shoto." She smiles at him. He really likes that smile.

(***)

Midoriya has some mixed feelings about the meeting. He is more or less aware who he is going to meet - he did inquire Repulse about the famed vigilante duo from Tokyo - but it doesn't make things any better.

Because Stain and Luna are both provisionally classified as B-Rank villains. They are clearly dangerous, experienced killers with a two digit number of more or less confirmed kills. Only the fact that the victims were villains stops the police from changing the meeting into a trap.

That and the fact that they know nothing about their quirks or potential other co-workers. That made gathering intel a logical prerequisite for a fight. Izuku might not have been a soldier or a trained police officer, but certain things when tactics were involved were pretty logical. You could figure them out without formal training.

The biggest one was the fact that engaging an unknown metahuman in combat was extremely dangerous. What if, say, Stain's quirk let him paralyze who looked into his eyes? Izuku might have a powerful and versatile quirk, but in such a scenario it would all be for naught.

Frenzy's fight would be much more disastrous if she wasn't half-conscious the whole time and could actually think of a plan to hit Defiant. Precisely because Izuku had no idea what her meta-ability was about. Same with Innsmouth, just to a lesser degree.

So instead of starting a fight, the police side decided to be as civil about it as possible. Something that Izuku agreed upon.

In the end the meeting party was composed of detective Tsukauchi (who was de facto Commissioner Aizawa's official representative when quirks were involved), Defiant and Hawks.

Hawks pretty much involved himself. He pointed out that those guys clearly mean business, and for as much as Defiant is a smart and resourceful kid (it was… actually nice to hear that), having someone with proper combat training and well-trained reflexes in that meeting might be beneficial if things go hairy.

The meeting place was going to be… a bit strange. Then again, Izuku wasn't a stranger to that.

(***)

It was pretty much a pub. Moderately popular, during an hour when there was some activity but not a lot. A police officer showed up there two hours earlier and explained that the police need to have an unofficial meeting with someone that doesn't want to have a meeting in a non-public place.

Izuku had no idea what the police officer offered the owner in exchange, but the owner agreed to cooperate. Ignore weird-looking people, keep that part of the pub more or less empty, scare potential troublemakers away from it.

The police arrived a bit before the time of the meeting. Defiant was wearing his hero uniform. Hawks was wearing his standard Quirk Suppression Unit outfit and an identity-concealing balaclava. Tsukauchi looked like he always did.

Everyone but Izuku was armed. Izuku didn't need any weapons to be dangerous.

The vigilantes arrived maybe a minute late. Big and bulky man with a lot of scars, wearing a trenchcoat. A rather athletic-looking human wearing a hoodie (Network wasn't the only organization using that for identity concealment). Then, another man, giving similar danger vibes to the QSU people Izuku met. He was wearing some form of black jumpsuit with a combat vest over it… and, of course, balaclava.

They were probably armed too, but Izuku failed to spot anything.

"I'm going to be the main negotiator from our side." The scarred man says. His eyes seemed to have darted between the three men on the other side of the table, with Defiant occupying their attention for the longest. "I go by Knuckleduster. Those two are Luna and Stain."

Another wildcard. Someone that they didn't even know about beforehand. Things are progressing splendidly.

"I'm Tsukauchi Naomasa of the Musutafu Police." Tsukauchi replies. He isn't exactly hiding who he is. "To my left is Defiant, a superhero working for the local police department. To my right, Hawks, from the Special Operations Unit."

"Oh?" Stain decided to wake up. "Former SAT officer? Looks like we're treated seriously."

That was… surprising. Not just to Izuku. How did he know?

"Do we know each other?" Hawks replies. He sounds… oddly calm and serious. Very different from his usual self.

"You aren't the only former SAT officer in the room." Stain replies. Hawks is staring at him for a few seconds. Probably trying to connect the dots.

"Akaguro." He says coldly. Stain chuckles a bit. "I should have expected that it was you. Still the same crazy ass killer as always."

"Hey, I'm just cleaning the streets from the bad guys." Stain fires back. "It's not like I could expect the police to do a thing about them, either way."

"If you are going to have a fight, do it elsewhere, please." Knuckleduster decides to intervene. "We're here to talk business. And I'd prefer to keep it brief." Perfectly sensible. Izuku agrees with that. He just doesn't agree with something else.

"Is she going to take the hoodie off?" He decides to cut in. He gained enough experience in dealing with scary people that he doesn't falter when the eyes suddenly focus on him.

"Why the fuck would I have to do that?" Luna shots back.

"Because I'm not blind." Defiant replies calmly. "I've seen a lot of people wearing hoodies. Yours' filled wrongly. So I assume that your head is somehow shaped differently than it should be with normal people. And with all the meta-abilities out there, I can't help but be nervous."

They are supposed to gather intel. Finding out their quirks sounds like a reasonable start.

Luna snorts indignantly. Before Knuckleduster or Stain have the time to tell her to not do that, she removes her hoodie.

Oh. Well, that's quite familiar. Unless she has a co-quirk, she isn't dangerous. At least not to Defiant.

"And? Shocked speechless because it's your first time seeing a rabbit woman?" Luna says. There is a fine line between confident and irritating, and she sped right past it.

"It's not my first time." Defiant cuts back. He realizes immediately that it was a mistake. Naturally she zeroes down on him.

"Did you meet Rini?" She says and… yeah. Of course they are related. Probably mother and daughter. He has no idea how old Luna is, but… well, she is certainly rather mature. Thirty-five, maybe?

That was… actually quite odd. It certainly pushed the estimated date of the start of the phenomenon of quirks a bit further. She was clearly a complex mutant, of the same subspecies as Edge. This type of quirks was a good way of grading the start of the quirks a as a whole, as they kicked in right after birth and were rather visibl…

Wait.

Edge had those prolonged feet of hers. Not by much, but enough to make normal boots not fit her. Luna, judging from what he saw of her when she was approaching, had normal-sized feet. Complex mutants, for as far as they understood them, shouldn't have this much of a variance. At least unless it was some sort of birth defect.

It's like a human being born with arms that were twice as long. It didn't make any sense.

What if Luna's complex mutation didn't 'kick in' until a bit later? Simple mutants seemed to develop their unique body parts later. Mei got her eyes when she was sixteen years old, after a period of intense ocular pain and some bleeding.

"I'll answer that question…" He says, while apologizing to Rini in his mind. "... if you tell me when exactly did your rabbit features begin to show." He decides to ignore the clear confusion on Tsukauchi's face. Hawks is unreadable behind his balaclava.

"... I was fourteen years old." She replies, eyeing him with rather intimidating intensity. "So twenty-three years ago."

It probably explained why her complex mutation failed to fully manifest. It was way too late. It seemed to happen among first generation mutants like Tsuyu, the changes appearing slightly later, probably to avoid miscarriage of fetus of significantly different built.

Twenty-three years ago was further than they expected. The oldest quirk manifestation they knew about was Tsuyu. Her mutation began to 'kick' in when she was somewhere around four years old (or so they gleaned from her faint memories). So, according to their estimation of their age, it was fourteen to fifteen years ago. That alone (together with Toga, although Toga's mutation came-in a bit later and might have been partially 'misfired' as well) was… a stretch. But this?

It was… odd. Why did nobody notice? He could understand it if it happened recently, the times were tumultuous and so on, but… so far ago? With quirks as noticeable as complex mutations?

Something wasn't adding up. Was someone actually hiding them the whole time? Tsuyu was living completely disconnected from society as a whole. Toga got her quirk later and was hiding from society as well. Luna felt like someone who valued privacy as well. What happened to the complex mutants that were actually accepted by their families? That for some reason didn't try to hide who they were from the world?

Was Izuku reading too far into this? Governmental conspiracies of this scale weren't something even remotely realistic. The World War alone had to shake everything up. Besides, if there was a conspiracy on this scale for so long in Japan, Izuku was pretty certain that Mirai Sasaki would know about it.

He actually trusted that man. In limited capacity, but still. His actions ever since the meeting with Izuku clearly pointed out his genuine surprise at the discovery and desperate attempts to catch-up to the new world after years of not doing anything. Not to mention accidentally uncovering the whole scheme surrounding the Commissioner General's death…

… wait. The Commissioner General wasn't a part of this completely hypothetical conspiracy, right? But how could one hide something as random as quirk manifestations for so long so perfectly? It was…

Honestly, it all tripped over the concept of entropy. Nothing was perfect in this world. The greatest plan might fail because of some faulty wiring or whatnot. The greatest conspiracy might collapse because a single member got his conscience back and published some evidence.

In Izuku's opinion, you needed at least two people to form a conspiracy… and it was bound to collapse sooner or later if you involved the third person into it. At least when something really serious (like meta-abilities) was involved.

He should give it all some additional thoughts. When he'll have the time for that. Maybe mention this to Principal Sasaki to see his reaction. Tsuyu isn't the only person whom Izuku was getting increasingly good at reading.

For now, it's time to answer Luna's question.

(***)

Mystery thickens, ehhh? And all while Midoriya's sanity seems to be growing thin. Those two things happening simultaneously sounds rather ominous, ehh?