Life never took quite the turns he expected. "Train your fire, Shouto. Go to UA, Shouto..." It seemed he was destined to be dragged along in his father's wake, never quite knowing how to fight free from the trawling net, or if he wanted to free himself at all. He dreaded UA quietly for years and then he finally arrived, prepared to resent each and every moment... and met Midoriya and got ideas. He ripped free from his father's constricting trap and found himself in a boundless ocean of opportunities. He could be anything he wanted. If his father couldn't stop him from dying his hair or piercing his ears or even from going to class with a bag on his head, how much control of Shouto's life could Endeavour possibly extend? Shouto had found a new path, a new destination in life... and then the War came.

For a while it didn't matter where he wanted to go, what he wanted to do, because there was only one option: get his back against the wall and fight with everything he had to save the tattered remains of his family and the dwindling forces of UA and the greater Chain in general. The War grew and festered in his mind until it consumed the whole ocean of possibility he had once dived through.

And then the War was over as suddenly as it had begun and the ocean of possibilities reappeared ready for the taking, except now Shouto floundered. He didn't have a destination in mind, not anymore. The hero industry as a whole was so fundamentally restructured as a result of the War that the job Shouto had trained for didn't really exist anymore and the things that replaced that job... well, they weren't for him.

Plenty of his classmates had felt the same way, but not all of them. Many had since fallen out of touch. Shouto had been waiting eagerly for class A and B's ten year reunion, crossing days of the calendar for months and finally, finally, it was here.

"So, Shouto," Yaoyorozu sidled up to him with a lopsided grin on her scarred and tattooed face, "I saw this video on the Tokyo Zoo's website..."

"The one of me being pushed over and mobbed by dozens upon dozens of soggy, squeaking penguins while the other keeper dies laughing?"

"That's the one." A sly grin curled up to her warm eyes. "How often does that happen?"

"There's a sign in front of their habitat," Shouto began, "Which reads 'We have not knocked over and jumped on our keeper in X days.' I don't believe that 'X' has ever reached a number higher than fourteen."

Yaoyorozu cackled. In that dapper black dress, with long gloves, high boots and hair twirled into a bun, she looked less like a special forces commander and more like a model for a sports car company. He couldn't remember the last time she seemed so tame. Usually she oozed danger into the air like a cracked reactor bleeding radiation. Shouto had a few friends with similar auras. Something like half of class A still worked in an old-heroics-adjacent industry, meaning they were military personnel, police officers, security guards, or private investigators. Others had fallen into industries ranging from construction to film. And then there was Shouto, who went to work every day pretending to dread the bizarre antics of the hundreds of animals he attended. There was still an empty place in his chest, a wound from the war that had never really healed. For whatever reason, large quantities of mischievous penguins would make the ache go away for a while.

"Oh, wow," Yaoyorozu sipped her wine with an unseemly slurp to hide the rest of her reaction.

"What? Oh. Oh my..."

Midoriya Izuku had dropped off the radar at the end of the War. Todoroki occasionally exchanged emails with the old spy, but he'd not seen or talked to him in years. Even Bakugou didn't seem to know what his old friend was up to.

"Wow. It should be illegal to have shoulders that wide, kero," Tsu hummed, appearing at Todoroki's left and deftly handing him a glass of bubbly liquid.

"I didn't expect him to be that tall," Yaoyorozu muttered. Midoriya's hair had only grown longer and thicker over the past decade, the strands straightening under their own weight until they cascaded down his back in a wavy, emerald waterfall. His chiseled-from-marble features were even sharper than Shouto remembered.

"Yeah," Bakugou appeared like a ghost stepping through a wall. As a private eye, it paid to be quiet. "Hey, Shouto. Saw you got mobbed by penguins again."

Tsu snorted. Shouto ignored her, watching Midoriya greet Ojiro with a crushing hug. "So... I'm not gay," what the hell was Shouto saying?

"And I'm not straight," Yaoyorozu put in.

"But do you know if he's got a significant other, Bakugou?" Yaoyorozu nodded along as Shouto spoke, seconding every word.

"No idea," Katsuki shook his head. "I'd... well, he could clearly have one. Or multiple if he wanted, and I suppose there was some hint that he might be having a fling with another Isomorph conductor but I wasn't quite sure."

"He's an Isomorph conductor?" Yaoyorozu hissed under her breath. In her line of work, she likely ran into Isomorph agents with some frequency, and likely not always on friendly terms.

"Yeah, not exactly a secret but don't go spreading it to everybody, 'kay?"

"Of course not, kero," Tsu replied.

Midoriya spotted Bakugou and strode purposefully across the room, eating up the marble tiles with his long legs. "Kacchan!" he greeted, grabbing the blonde and lifting him into the air because he was just that built.

"Hey," Bakugou shook an accusatory finger and Midoriya set him down with a giggle.

"I've always wanted to do that. Hey, Shouto, Yaoyorozu, Tsu. How are things with the penguins, Shouto?"

"Seriously? Has everyone seen that?"

"It's trending," Midoriya told him wryly. "The internet thinks you're adorable."

"Do you think I'm adorable?" Shouto asked before his brain caught up with his mouth. A mortified blush flooded his cheeks moments later and he attempted valiantly to drown himself in his wine glass.

Midoriya burst out laughing. "I suppose so." He hummed to himself, carefully considering his next words. "Everybody seems well," he decided at last. "It was hard to tell. I'm bad at keeping in touch for... obvious reasons."

"There were... some people who weren't doing so well until recently," Yaoyorozu said delicately, "but everyone is better now. We take care of each other."

"Good," Midoriya smiled sadly. "For some people the war never really ended. I didn't want that for any of you."

"Did it end for you?" Yaoyorozu raised an eyebrow.

"Oh yes," the Isomorph agent laughed again. Such a pretty voice... "I never had that problem."

"Seems like you went and found a new war to fight."

Midoriya raised an eyebrow. "Pot meet kettle, but that's not the point, is it? We're all looking for something fulfilling to do with our lives, aren't we, lieutenant colonel?" Yaoyorozu glared at him for the use of her title, or more likely because Midoriya shouldn't know her title at all. Bakugou, Tsu, and Shouto exchanged awkward glances, not quite sure whether they should try to sneak out of this conversation. "You defend your country, I smash human traffickers into pancakes, Shouto braves the penguins."

"Enough with the penguins," Shouto muttered to himself. "I take care of the polar bears and the caribou and so many other animals, but nobody will ever let me live down the penguins." Tsu gave him a sympathetic pat.

Yaoyorozu folded her arms and let her eyes narrow, the pose of a lethally powerful woman begrudgingly conceding a point.

"Why don't we stop arguing about people's careers and do what we're really meant to at these kinds of parties," Bakugou broke in at last.

"And that is, kero?"

"Gossip," Bakugou rolled his eyes heavenward as if this were painfully obvious.

"About, kero?"

"Well, people's love lives is a popular topic. You'll never guess who I saw sneaking out of Neito's house last Monday..."

A true private eye indeed.