"You guys remember the plan, right?" Izuku asked into his Big Bang Burger soda cup.
Big Bang Burger wasn't the best place to interrogate a victim. The bright colors, the cheery background music, the people constantly coming and going… none of it was conducive to a private talk regarding criminal behavior. That was exactly why Izuku chose it; no one would ever expect the Phantom Thieves conducting business out in the open like this.
But today, they weren't Phantom Thieves.
"Yeah, yeah, we just gotta get the truth out of the girl, right?" Ryuji griped, leaning back in his chair, remains of a burger on the table in front of them. "Should be easy. Doesn't she want people to know about her parents?"
Izuku winced at how loud he was. "I was referring to our plan for not exposing our identities."
Ryuji winced.
Izuku had asked around about how everyone had gotten involved in the Phantom Thieves and was horrified to find that almost every single person had found out by accidently walking into the Metaverse, or because certain people wouldn't stop talking about it in public. Izuku had ripped Ryuji and Ann a new one after Makoto-senpai had told him her story and how Futaba had found out.
How could they have been so careless!? Sure, being a Phantom Thief is fun. It was like being a Hero! But it was still illegal vigilantism. They could get arrested, their lives ruined, if anyone found out. It was a miracle that the few people who did know weren't willing to snitch on them.
(Izuku cried when Akira-senpai had told him that his classmate, his doctor, and his homeroom teacher all knew he was a Phantom Thief.)
Makoto-senpai pushed her fake glasses up her nose. "Yes, we remember. We're only representatives for the Phantom Aficionado blog, and will not imply that we're anything different. Right, Zuga-san?"
Ryuji slumped in his chair, hiding his face in his mask. "Yeah, yeah, I got it. I won't ruin anything after Iz—Pan-kun put all this effort into everything. Besides—" His eyes lit up as he glanced around the restaurant. "Doesn't it feel cool to be out in disguise? Like we're secret agents—Ow!"
Makoto had elbowed him in the side. "What did we just say!?"
Izuku sighed. "Thank you, Jou-senpai."
"Hey, why do you call her senpai, but not me?"
"Because she's earned it."
Ryuji slumped further in his chair. "For real? That's not fair."
"So you want to help me with my homework then?" Izuku asked, fake innocent. He knew Ryuji barely did his own homework.
As such, Ryuji grimaced. "Yeah, I don't think you'd want my help… But I could do other stuff! Oh! Why don't we practice workin' on your quirk together! Maybe we could come up with some cool new ways to use it!"
"That sounds really fun, Zuga-san. I'd appreciate it." His friends had been spending a lot of time with him at the beach. Akira was even helping clean and getting All Might to sign off on his community service! But that let quirk analysis fall to the wayside.
Ryuji wrinkled his nose at the code-name. "Can't say I'll ever get used to a name other than Skull. We didn't use codenames or disguises when we interrogated other victims."
What. "What?"
"Yeah, there was this guy when we first learned about Mada—" Another elbow to the side. "Geeze, okay! When we first learned about Yusuke's shitty old man. His name was Naka-something? He came right up to us after school and told us all the deets about that bastard."
Makoto-senpai looked like she was about to punch something. "He came up to you… after school? Did you at least change out of your uniforms first?"
"No? That would have taken too much time, don't you think?"
Makoto-senpai pinched the bridge of her nose. Izuku took a deep breath. "Jou-senpai, how did they not get caught before now?" he asked desperately.
"I don't know," she said, ignoring Ryuji's protests. "I really don't know."
A/N: Their code names are based on the Japanese words for their metaverse code names. Jou for Queen, Zuga is short for the word for skull, and Pan-kun is based on the kana for Panku.