Chapter 4: Hustle and Bustle

"Good afternoon, people of Paris! I'm Alya Cesaire, aspiring reporter, bringing to you today's world-changing news."

"As I'm sure you are all aware, four days ago, our city was attacked."

Footage of Stoneheart's first rampage started to play, the golem's warpath getting carved on the city as it raged.

"But not only that, it was saved."

"Smash!" A clip of Deku's arrival at the scene, already cementing himself as an actual, real-life superhero with his feat of strength to rescue one of the officers trying to contain the monster. After that, Nuwa's maddash to carry everybody away from the line of fire.

"I'm here today to cover the debut of Paris' very own heroes."

"First, by who they are."

A new video started, this one having slightly better quality and showing Deku talking to the chief of police.

"Son, pardon me, but what the he!# just happened here?"

The hero sighed, going to run a hand through his hair but stopping, remembering how bloody it was. "I'll say what I know, officer. Stoneheart was a minion of a third party who used their powers to enthrall someone and use them to fight."

"So the kid had nothing to do with it?"

"No." Deku's voice had turned to steel, unwinding in the promise that Stoneheart and his victim had no relation and it was better no one disagree, or else. "The culprit behind it can force people to fight for them. The boy trapped inside Stoneheart had no choice, no way to stop it. He's innocent in all this."

"I will take your word for it." The chief deescalated the possible argument, conceding the point. "But what will we do about the one pulling the strings?"

"We'll find him." Green and black sparks jumped through Deku's form. "And we'll make sure he won't hurt anyone else."

"On that, we agree." The chief offered the hero a handshake. "Let's work together to keep our city safe."

Deku was caught by surprise, staring at the hand with wide eyes. Slowly, he grasped the offered hand. "I expected you would be against working with a vigilante."

"Kid, I'm not stupid." The chief huffed a laugh. "My options are getting half a dozen tanks or trusting the guy who got into a fistfight with a mountain and won."

"It was more like a small hill than a mountain, but sure." Deku gave the man a nod, a smile tugging the corner of his libs.

"Cheeky brat. Now run along, we have to clean this mess and you have to take care of that arm." The chief turned his back to the hero and started to walk to his men, offering a last wave over his shoulder, "See you around, Deku."

"That was Deku's brief talk with the police after successfully defeating Stoneheart the first time. Your intrepid reporter got it from an anonymous source with access to the record."

"You heard the man, whoever let Stoneheart loose in the middle of Paris was manipulating an innocent citizen for it. The victim wished for their name to remain undisclosed, but personally asked to pass their sincere apologies to anyone hurt in the incident."

"But enough of gloom! More than only Deku protects our city!"

A news broadcast, made with professional equipment and finally capturing the heroes' image clearly began. Deku could be seen escorting two people to a distant police barricade in the background, but the camera focused on Nuwa.

The girl's fidgeting made her seem smaller than she already was. Nuwa glanced back at Deku, who shot her a thumbs up and mouthed "You can do it" to her.

Something shifted and the girl straightened. "Before anything, I want to say something to the people of Paris. You are safe. As long as Deku and I are here, we will protect our city."

A reporter out of frame pushed a mic closer to the heroine, "That is a very reassuring thing to say in such troubling times…?"

"Nuwa. You can call me Nuwa."

"Nuwa. But still, Paris could use more than that. We had two attacks that razed the city in just as many days."

"I know. And I know that everyone has the right to be scared of what happened. But remember that both times, we won." Nuwa shot another glance back, seeing Deku talking to the police again. "Deku defeated the Akuma twice. I made sure no one got hurt in both accidents too. Yes, things are still bumpy, but we won't give up." She gave the camera a smile, wide and bright, "We will defeat Hawk Moth and get Paris its peaceful days back!"

"How can anyone remain scared after that? As you can see, we have Deku determined to take down Hawk Moth and Nuwa ready to protect the citizens of our beautiful city."

"Beauty that was restored thanks to Nuwa's power. Every store owner of the affected areas must be happy knowing their livelihood is back just the way it was."

"At every moment that passes, our heroes' public support grows as the arguments made against them fall apart. Paris will stand united against Hawk Moth's menace, that I'm sure."

"And you can be sure that every step of our path back to peace will be covered here, on the Heroes Blog, by me, your intrepid reporter, Alya Cesaire."

"Until next time, Paris!"

Chloe put her phone down, staring at Alya impassively. Her friend had a strained smile under her scrutiny, sweating more at each second. With a huff, Chloe smirked, "Well done."

Alya sagged with relief, "Did you really need to look at me like that?"

"Yes. Had to get the point across." Chloe sent her tech specialist a go-ahead to put the newly crowned Heroes Blog on the air and to get ready for the dumpster fire known as the internet to fall upon it like a pack of rabid wolves. "You want to be the face of this? Get ready to be put on the spot a lot."

"And to dodge bullets on the regular." Sabrina, lying on her bed while staring blankly at the ceiling, added dryly. "Because I'm sure that getting you that footage was illegal."

The trio had assembled a war council meeting at Sabrina's house, as she was home alone again thanks to her father being buried up to his neck in police work. Killing two birds with one stone, the girls utilized their sleepover to talk about their plans.

Paris was at war. Not officially. Not openly. But it was.

Anyone could be Hawk Moth's next victim; that uncertainty and fear only made things easy for the villain. With that in mind, the Heroes Blog was brought forward as a counterattack to Hawk Moth's fearmongering.

With some luck, everybody and their cat would know Paris had two superheroes on its side. Heroes have already won both battles against Hawk Moth. That should, in theory, help lessen people's worries and lessen the number of potential targets for Akumatization.

"Sabrina, you stole a car once, this isn't your first illegal rodeo." Chloe patted her friend's head, giggling as the redhead groaned.

"I smell a story."

Sabrina shot Alya a flat look, "I have the right to remain silent."

"Back on topic, ladies." Chloe threw herself on Sabrina's desk chair, a frown on her face. They had far too much to do if they were to be of any help. "The blog will need constant maintenance, updates, and advertising to remain mainstream. I have someone to take care of the first, but the rest is up to us three."

"Four, counting Marinette."

Alya huffed at that, annoyed at her best friend, "I still can't believe she's not here for the blog's debut."

Chloe shrugged, not looking too bothered, "Mari said she had a commission to finish for tomorrow. You know that all her spending money comes from her freelance designing, so don't complain."

"I know." Thinking about it like that, Alya did feel shallow for getting angry at Marinette. God knows that girl worked too hard.

Looking out the window, Alya caught herself muttering, "I wonder what she's doing now."

—

Nuwa was flying.

Okay, not flying persee, but the sensation of swinging around Paris with her yo-yo was pretty close to it she's sure.

Just another day Nuwa had to be rescued from her weapon by Deku, then given a crash course on how to use it. Now, she felt like slingshotting herself up buildings was more natural than walking.

"Yahoo!" Her cheers attracted the eyes of the pedestrians walking down the night streets of the City of Light. People pointed and awed at the red and black blur zipping through the air at breakneck speeds.

The rush was so electrifying that Nuwa almost forgot the reason for her escapade. Thankfully, her eyes caught the neon green lines of her partner's costume.

Nuwa swung from a billboard and landed on the right rooftop with a skip and barely a stumble. "Sorry, I'm late!"

"Don't worry, you got here in time." Deku put away his notebook. Where? Nuwa had no idea. With just how prepared Deku was, Nuwa wouldn't find it strange if he had some hidden pocket to stash it. He had glow-in-the-dark lines to help visibility, for goodness sake!

Speaking of, the stylist in her took stock of the contrast of the neon green lines on the black outfit and nodded, "Your suit is really cool. The whole low-key overgeared blends well with the more nondescript style of the jumpsuit."

"Thanks, I guess? The idea was for it to be a stealth suit to conceal my identity while making myself visible to teammates."

Okay, maybe Deku wasn't keen on fashion. Good to know.

"Also, there's no such thing as overgeared. Being equipped with what is necessary is always a must." Deku patted his utility belt fondly, as if it was a precious treasure, "That's something you should remember."

"Don't worry, I'm also prepared." Nuwa put her hands in her pants deep pockets, a giddy smile on her face. "I have pockets now!"

"Good to know." Deku shook his head, amusement clear in his eyes. The merry atmosphere died down quickly after that, the hero becoming serious, "That's enough chit-chat. Come on."

He walked to the center of the rooftop, Nuwa right behind him, and turned to her with a pointed look that made her straighten with a gulp. "Before patrol, we'll have some basic training to get you ready."

"Ready for what, exactly?"

Deku started listing on his fingers, "Combat scenarios. Rescue operations. Teamwork. Info gathering-"

Nuwa waved her arms to cut off Deku, "Okay, okay, I get it." Hero-ing was a lot more involved than she first thought. "I'm behind in all of that." Her slumping earned the heroine a flick to the forehead from Deku.

"No one is born knowing how to do all this." He shot something to his left a glare. "Just take a step at a time and you'll learn too."

Instead of commenting on his weird habit of throwing glares at some invisible thing only he could see, Nuwa nodded, "Right. So, where do we start?"

"Combat training."

Of course.

"Don't look at me like that. While I plan on being the vanguard and main fighter, there's no way of knowing which of us will reach an Akuma first or when danger will pop up." Another glare to the side, Deku's brows twitching in annoyance. "You have to be able to hold your own in a fight too."

"Right. Yeah, makes sense." That doesn't mean Nuwa had to like it.

"Let me see what I'm working with. Try to hit me."

"Uh, yeah, sure." Nuwa shuffled on her feet, unsure of what to do with herself for a moment, then raised her hands in what she thought was a boxing guard.

"Okay, that's enough." Deku's tone was so dry it could get rid of the ocean's humidity.

"I didn't even do anything yet!"

"You did plenty." Deku walked closer and pushed her.

Nuwa almost fell on her rear, saving herself from it at the last possible moment. "Hey, what's that for?!"

"To show you how atrocious your footwork is." There was a tired type of exasperation in Deku's tone that stopped Nuwa's complaints in their tracks. He almost seemed… It was unfair even to call it disappointing, feeling more like Deku expected what he saw, and got annoyed to still be surprised by it. "If you threw a punch like that, you would have kissed the floor, no doubt about it."

"You don't have to throw it on my face." Nuwa had never gotten in a fight before, even in the battles against Stoneheart she only took a support role. Just the thought of hurting someone made her stomach churn.

"I'm not." He ran a hand down his face, trying to put a calm front. Deku was in over his head, trying to teach someone how to be a hero when his experiences on the other side of the scale were disastrous, to say the least, wasn't something he was ready for.

He wanted to help, he really did, but for that, Deku had to figure out how. "Look, I'm not saying this for you to feel bad, I'm just pointing out something you're doing wrong and that you can get hurt if you don't fix it."

Nuwa sighed, nodding her agreement to his words, "It's fine. I only don't feel comfortable at the thought of hurting someone."

"Good. That means your morals are in the right place. The day you find yourself wanting to feel a person's chest caving in under your knuckles is the day you know there's something wrong with you." Deku huffed a chuckle, "Speaking from personal experience."

She didn't find it funny. "Are you okay?"

"C'mon, I'll show you a proper stance and we can go from there." Deku didn't even try to be subtle about changing the subject.

Before Nuwa could try to push it, Deku hooked his foot on hers to pull her legs apart while pushing her shoulder down.

"Lower your center of gravity, bend your knees a bit, steady your stance." He pointed to every single part he critiqued while adjusting her body into something even Nuwa, in her uninformed opinion, felt was a martial arts stance.

Stepping back, Deku contemplated his work. Nuwa's stance was still wobbly, but even while trying to maintain it very hard, to the point sweat ran down her brown, she clearly was much steadier than her first try.

"Better." Deku pushed her again, and Nuwa only took a half step back. "Much better."

The girl blinked, looked down at herself, then blinked some more, "What? I- how?"

Her surprise from keeping her feet earned Nuwa a short laugh from Deku. He tapped her forehead, "Your idea of what's the most important part of a fight is wrong. The goal isn't to take the other person down, it's to be still standing by the end of it."

That was the first lesson his sensei tried to teach him. One that only truly sunk in when Deku suffered his first devastating loss.

If you want to save someone, you have to be able to walk with your own two legs. In the field, when lives were on the line, you stood up on your own or were deadweight. No ifs or buts about it.

Deku refused to be deadweight again. Refused to lose like that again. "I'm not teaching you how to hurt others. I'm teaching you how to defend yourself."

"Please don't try that sales speech with me," Nuwa grumbled, crossing her arms and ruining her stance. "People say there's a difference, but what changes if you're hurting someone in the end?"

"The mindset behind it, firstly." Deku adopted his Shoot Style, the fighting style he developed in his last life to focus on his legs after his arms became too badly damaged. "When you're trying to defend yourself you don't think 'I want this person to feel pain' or anything of that line." He started to throw kicks, moving from one movement to the next and showing Nuwa the full range of his technique. "The only thing going through your head is 'I need to make the danger stop!'" Deku spun in a tornado kick, his reinforced boots slashing through the air.

With a deceptively soft landing, Deku finished his demonstration and turned to the awed Nuwa. "That's the greatest difference. Helping for a reward doesn't feel as genuine as helping for the sake of helping. The same applies to fighting for the sake of fighting and fighting for someone's sake. Yours, or anyone else's."

With Deku's bright green eyes focused on her, Nuwa gave his words more thought than she would initially have done otherwise. He deserved the consideration.

Applying his logic made it feel more altruistic. More purposeful. The goal wasn't the fight, the goal was protecting and fighting was just the means… The process.

Nuwa could get behind that. Even if still reluctantly.

She really didn't like to hurt people, okay?

"Fine. I'll try my best, but in the future, I'll still leave the punchy part of it to you."

A soft snort escaped Deku, then a chuckle. Seeing Nuwa's flat stare, he raised his hands in surrender, "Sorry. It's just… Did you really say 'punchy'?"

"Oh, hush!" Nuwa turned her back to him, mostly to hide her warm cheeks and red face.

"Sorry!" He hadn't stopped laughing. "C'mon, let's go back to it. We still have to patrol."

—

"Wai- AH!" Nuwa's cry was cut short by her back violently colliding with the floor, resulting in the air inside her lungs being forcefully expelled. "Ouch."

Thank goodness for Miraculous magic and how her suit protected her from harm. Nuwa didn't think she would be able to get back up otherwise.

"I think that's enough combat training for tonight." Deku, the punk who had the gall to not even be winded, grabbed her hand and helped Nuwa to her feet. He gave her a once-over to make sure the only thing bruised was her pride and nodded to himself, "Let's start the next part."

"There's more?!" To say she whined would be generous. Nuwa wasn't the fittest person around but she was healthy, Deku though was a psychopath who could spend one hour teaching her martial arts, demonstrate moves and stances, and spar with no break and keep going.

He turned his head to the side, looking amusedly at something (really, why does he do that?). Deku sighed and shook his head, "Fine. How about this," Deku pulled her along to the edge of the rooftop, "Stoneheart pressed us for time so I only had the chance to give you some general tips, now that there's nothing urgent I can show you how to do some proper tridimensional traversal, what do you say?"

First, she would say that was much better than getting pummeled for an hour straight. But most importantly, "Hey, I can swing around just fine!" Nuwa had some pride in her skills, in part for grasping them so quickly but mostly from how much she enjoyed yo-yo-ing around Paris.

"I know, you did great!" Deku…actually seemed excited about it. "You grasped the basics quickly and were able to maintain your coordination the whole time!" He caught himself, seeming as surprised as Nuwa that he was being so enthusiastic. "Sorry. I think I got a little carried away."

Seeing that Deku was putting his walls back up, Nuwa tried to push. Maybe she could help him to express himself, maybe she could help with whatever weighed on his chest and made his anger seep by the cracks of the tough shell he put on. "It's fine! I never had people complimenting my coordination, of all things, but I bet you did better on your first time doing that."

The harsh bark of laughter that he let out wasn't what Nuwa wanted to hear. Deku huffed and marched on, "On my first go-round I slipped from a pipe and fell some good three stories facefirst. Believe me, I'm not the bar you should be aspiring for." He lit up with his power and hopped on the edge of the roof. "Enough of that. Let's start patrolling and I'll show you the proper technique along the way."

"Wait, I-" Too little, too late. Deku leaped off.

Looking at the green and black blur, almost vanishing against the night sky, Nuwa balled her fists in anger. Dang it, she wouldn't give up just because Deku kept trying to run from her!

Deku drifted down slowly thanks to his meager control of Float. He glanced back to see if Nuwa was following him, only to see a red and black blur coming straight at him. "Wha-" Dropping Float and using Blackwhip to pull ahead, he landed on a billboard lamp.

On the other side of the advertisement, Nuwa almost crashed on the face of some model if not for Deku using Blackwhip to grab and then deposit her safely on top of the metal structure.

"What are you doing?!"

"Trying to talk to you!"

"What?"

Nuwa pointed at Deku angrily, her face getting red, "Yeah. Every single time you make one of your self-depreciative comments, you turn your back and run away!"

"I'm not running away."

"Yes, you are!" Nuwa started to walk closer to his perch, trying her best not to fall off and make a fool of herself. She was angry, no time for being a mess. "After the first time with Stoneheart, and just now… What's wrong?" She promptly lost steam seeing him looking down, hands crumpling the metal of the horizontal lamppost in his grip.

"Nothing is wrong. I'm fine. I-" Whatever Deku was about to say would forever remain a mystery. His head snapped aside, ears straining for something.

A motor's roar broke the night's tentative peace.

"Shit!" After spitting a curse in English, Deku bolted. "Nuwa, take the next crossing and circle around in the Louvre's direction!"

"What, why?!"

"Just do it!"

Deku strained his hold of One For All, bursts of 27% making his bones ache. Danger Sense kept a steady pressure on the back of his head that only grew along the sound of police sirens and engines straining.

Nothing like a car chase to change the subject, huh?

Snapping his mouthguard into place, Deku pushed the part covering his ear. The inbuilt communicator buzzed to life.

"-ar chase! The perpetrators are armed. Two confirmed and one suspected to also be. Proceed with caution!"

Now guns. Ah, at least Deku wouldn't need to worry about one of them turning into a dinosaur or something. The absence of quirks made things much more simple, but simple doesn't mean easy.

Finally reaching the parade of vehicles speeding through Paris' streets, Deku took stock of the situation. The criminals were in a sports car that was steadily getting further and further away from the police cars chasing it. There were no shots fired, so no risk of a stray bullet hitting an innocent bystander.

Deku would make sure it remained like that. He shot a strand of Blackwhip to latch on a building and swung close to the ground. The moment the criminals realized someone with superpowers and a record of putting craters on the city was now after them was clear by the way the car almost lost control.

"They are scared," En commented from his place by Deku's side, the Vestige's wispy form unseen by everybody else.

"Good."

Deku hit the ground running, One For All warming his veins as his feet pounded against the asphalt. Even with only short bursts of 25%, Deku managed to gain ground on the runaway car.

A crossing up ahead would have been a problem, but Nuwa thankfully followed his instructions and reached it before them.

Now they just needed to- "Ah shit, I forgot to tell her!"

Nuwa had seen the car speeding her way and decided to tie her yo-yo across the street to hopefully catch the car. A car that was at the very least at one-thirty kilometers per hour. A car that would fold like a tin can if it was brought to zero too quickly.

"Better hurry!"

"Grit your teeth."

Fourth and Second's words of encouragement(?) were Deku's cue to spike his power to a bone-creaking thirty percent. The hero lunged at the car like a panther at a runaway deer, his boots and gauntlets denting the car's roof and startling the criminals inside.

"Transmission: Low!" The car, everyone inside, and Deku came to an abrupt and complete stop. Unlike normally, physics hadn't taken its pound of flash for such an act by destroying the car and probably killing everyone inside while flinging Deku halfway to England.

The hero shook off the uncomfortable vibration that Gearshift caused, Second's quirk being as moody as its owner, and used Blackwhip to tear open the car doors and pull the three criminals inside out of it.

Quirk overuse started to settle. While not as severe as it could have been, Deku still felt his skin raw and his bones aching. He had to finish this fast and stop for a moment to catch his breath.

"Hey! Why do that, I had it handled!" Paying no mind to Nuwa's complaints, Deku leaped to the left side of the car, where he had thrown out both the driver and the person in the backseat, said person having a submachine gun lying beside them.

Armament, nondescript clothes, and ski masks? That pointed to organization and preparation above the common thug. Deku wished he had gotten the full report on who those were and what they did.

Either way, he stomped on the gun, destroying it and cracking the street. That done, the driver was next, getting grabbed and thrown over their partner. From the feminine shriek, said partner was a woman.

With a flick of Blackwhip, the masks came off, confirming his guess, but to his surprise, the driver was also a woman. He could have sworn he heard a masculine grunt-

Deku jerked his head to the side at the stab of warning from Danger Sense, hearing the bullet he just dodged whistling against the air by his ear. "Bad move." He sent a tendril of Blackwhipe from his back, snatching the weapon from the third criminal and reeling it back to his awaiting hand. Deku barely registered the Glock before crumbling it in his grip like wet paper.

Asserting that the situation was a lost cause, the man tried to turn around and run. Before he could get three steps away, Nuwa's yo-yo lassoed his legs. The criminal fell like a sack of bricks, almost smashing his head on the floor if not by a hasty catch.

That served little, as Deku grabbed the man's head and pushed it harshly against the cooling asphalt, earning a groan of discomfort from the criminal. Which turned into a pained grunt when the hero ripped the mask off his head.

"Dammit! We had it!"

"The only thing you have is a long stay in jail waiting for you." Deku pulled a zip tie from his belt pouches and tied the man's arms behind his back. "Why are you pulling this when there's a maniac capable of controlling people and turning them into monsters running around? Are you an idiot or you're just feeling like committing a particularly stupid form of suicide?"

The man strained his neck to glare at Deku with his bloodshot grey eyes, "Why should we care about that shit? 'You think the world stopped just because some lucky asshole with superpowers decided to go after you? Get real!"

"Oh, I'm being very real." Deku sighed, knowing it was a waste of time but trying to reason with the man either way. "I already made it clear that emotional stress is an open door to Hawk Moth's control. You seem very distressed, and I bet your buddies are too." He grabbed the man and dragged him to where he had tied his literal partners in crime.

Both women were scared and silent, maybe because of the hole Deku put in the car he had propped them against when threatening them to what would happen if they tried to run while he was busy.

What could he say? Deku was nothing if not fast and efficient.

Throwing the guy beside them, Deku finished his point, "What would you have done if Hawkmoth had turned one of you into an Akuma and ordered it to shoot down the deadweight? Would you have gone for the kill first?" He crouched to look the three criminals in the eyes, seeing the answer in them, "No, you wouldn't. So if you care enough not to stain the seats with your buddies' brains, then use yours and don't pull this kind of stunt." Deku glanced at the police officers quickly getting out of their vehicles and approaching the tied criminals, "Not like you'll have the chance anyway."

Having nothing left to say, Deku nodded to one of the officers and leaped away, not in the mood to talk anymore.

Tough luck.

"Hey." Came Nuwa's soft voice the moment Deku's feet touched down on a building further ahead from the crossing where everything just transpired.

He sighed. Of course. What had he expected? His record in both his lives was proof enough that it was one thing after the other when Deku was involved. That didn't mean he hadn't anything to say, "I'm sorry."

From the way Nuwa's eyes widened, she wasn't expecting the apology. "What are you sorry for? I think everything went well…more or less." Her attempt at optimism fell flat in the end.

"I expected you to figure out everything on your own without giving a word of guidance, whatever would have happened would be on me then."

"What are you talking about?"

Deku waved her closer and sat at the edge of the roof they were in. Nuwa took the invite for what it was and sat beside him.

"What you did was hook your yo-yo across the street to use the string to try catching the car, right?"

"Yes."

"In the best-case scenario, it would have snapped and they would have kept going. As whatever magic our Miraculous uses to create our suits and equipment can withstand a hundred percent of my q- power, I would say that wouldn't happen. That brings us to the worst-case scenarios." Deku started to count on his fingers, Nuwa's eyes widening at each point, "Whatever you hooked broke and maybe hit someone. The runaway car was stopped abruptly and caved in, which meant at least two fatalities at that speed. Or in the case we're specialty lucky, the car would get horizontally bisected, and the three idiots inside along with it."

Nuwa turned green at the mental image. "Oh god, I almost killed three people."

"You almost got three casualties because of me." Deku poked Nuwa's forehead, breaking her from whatever disastrous line of thought she started. "I am the one who should know better. I should have told you what to do in this case."

"Stop that!" Nuwa pushed his hand away and glared at Deku, "I'm not a baby. I can take care of myself."

"I'm not saying that you can't. I'm saying you don't have experience with this yet. I have, I should have helped more."

"You could talk to me more, yes." Her dry tone made it clear she wasn't only speaking about the recent incident. "But not everything is your fault, okay? And either way, you stopped the car before…you know." Nuwa shivered, her face paling again at the thought of what her mistake could have caused.

Seeing that she was still hung up about it, Deku decided to concede the point and move on from the topic, "Fine. Let's call it a learning experience from both our parts."

"Yeah, let's settle on that." Nuwa let out a sigh, still feeling queasy. Trying to think of something else, she tilted her head aside, eyes narrowing at something she just realized, "Hey, how did you stop the car? The whole point wasn't that physics would have destroyed it, but you got it to stop just like that." She snapped her fingers to get the point across.

"Tell her."

Deku's eyes snapped aside. 'First, what the actual fuck?!'

The Vestige heard his mental complaint and rolled his eyes, "Look, you two are stuck together until this whole magic shebang is over, right? So better tell her what you can do now, then regret it later when things go south because you weren't honest."

"He has a point." Fifth pointed at the street where the police were closing the street, a sharp glare on his face, "You just saw how not saying shit properly gets your ass bitten. Tell the girl what she needs to know before we have a replay of this."

Goddammit. "It's called Gearshift." Deku turned back to Nuwa, seeing her curious eyes meeting his. At least she didn't comment on his pause to talk to the ghosts haunting him. "It's one of my powers. It can control acceleration while disregarding inertia."

That was a lot more than Nuwa expected, and having Deku finally talking to her properly and sharing a bit about himself felt great. Still, she could admit she didn't get it, "What?"

"You know how to slow down a moving object you need to apply a force to the opposite direction it is moving?"

"Yes?" Physics wasn't her strongest subject, okay?

"Gearshift just says 'no' to all that and sets the speed of anything I apply it on to whatever I choose to. That's how I stopped the car without it becoming a block of scrap a third of its original size." He pulled a notebook from…somewhere (real talk, where did he keep those?) and sketched a simple drawing of the car they just stopped. "Transmission: Low is how I use it to forcefully stop objects. No matter how fast it was going, the kinetic energy it contained is just gone after using it." He wrote the car's speed, crossed it, and then put a big zero over the car.

"Oh! Now I get it. If there's no energy moving it to one side, it stops, but without having to apply the same amount of energy to the other side!" And smashing whatever got caught between the two forces.

Nope, not thinking about that.

"Exactly!" And just like that, Deku brightened some. Actually, he brightened a lot more than usual. "It's incredibly useful for stopping non-living bodies, especially if it's something that can't self-propel."

"Wait, so why didn't you use it on those metal beams Stoneheart threw at you?"

"Uh… I can't use it very well, at least not while my body isn't acclimatized to it." Deku's subsequent dry snort was accompanied by some of his dark humor, "If I used it to speed up myself, my lungs would shrivel and die trying to oxygenate my blood."

Nuwa had to hug herself to stop the shiver that went down her whole body, "Please don't. Wait, that's why you hurt your arm with that black thing, and why you broke your finger against that cloud of butterflies from Hawk Moth, right? Because your body isn't used to your powers?"

"Got it in one." To say Deku looked angry wouldn't be right, but that he looked disappointed with himself? That alone wouldn't make it justice. "Blackwhip causes damage after prolonged use. Smokescreen leaves my skin extremely irritated. Fa Jin breaks my bones just as well as if I go over my limit with the base Stockpile. And don't even get me started with Float." He harshly rubbed his face with his gauntlets, something that was for sure very uncomfortable and possibly painful. "I have so much to do, I need to master all those powers, but they are all too much for the time I had. If Hawk Moth had done us the favor of waiting two more years."

Deku dropped back, laying half-sprawled on the rooftop while his legs dangled from its edge. "But when have power-hungry megalomaniacs waited for a convenient time to show up?"

After having all that information dropped on her lap, Nuwa had to take a moment and process it. That was a lot. Like, a whole lot. But while getting saddled with it was overwhelming, it gave Nuwa a new understanding of her partner.

She also leaned back and laid down, staring up at the night sky and the few stars that broke through Paris' light pollution. "You're frustrated because you think you could have solved everything if you could use all your powers."

"I know I could." He punched down, his gauntlet-clad fist banging loudly against the tiles. Sighing, Deku brought his hands to press against his eyes, "But useless Deku still isn't enough."

"You're not 'useless' Deku, you're 'you can do it' Deku. You said it yourself." She didn't face him, but Nuwa could feel the glowing green eyes staring at her. "No one blames you for not being ready, I sure am not."

A softer snort escaped him, "Blaming me or ready?"

"Yes."

The startled laugh she got would forever count as a personal victory for Nuwa. She loved raising her friends' spirits, doubly so when they desperately needed it.

Deku pushed himself up and offered Nuwa a hand to help her do the same. "Maybe people don't blame me, but that doesn't change the fact I need to get better."

"Both of us do." She shot the crossing another glance, hiding a grimace to the best of her ability. "So let's just…take a step at a time?" That came out too weak for her taste, "We'll get there, right? So instead of blaming ourselves, let's accept it is a process and that we need time." There, much better.

"We don't have time."

"Of course we do!" She gestured to the skyline lit up by a sea of lights, "Paris is still standing, isn't it?"

"That could change in a blink." Deku would know, what with how many cities he saw crumbling before his eyes.

"Maybe, maybe not. There's no way we can know." Nuwa was always an optimist at heart. Everything could go wrong at any time, just the same way everything could go right. Being a superhero was a stress she didn't need, but even then, maybe things would work out.

She could only hope.

"What do you say we put a pin to this conversation and resume patrol?" They had only started it, but Deku felt both mentally and emotionally exhausted.

Nuwa pitched her face at the proposition, thinking Deku wanted to run away from the conversation again. Seeing his tired face, she realized that what he shared was everything he could say in one go. "Okay. But only if you promise to talk to me later."

"I'll try-"

"Promise!"

There was no way Nuwa would budge, so Deku only sighed and accepted the loss, "Promise." He activated Full Cowling again, feeling the soft buzz of power over his skin, "Let's go, slower this time around."

"What, tired already?"

"Yes. Overuse leaves me feeling like a stuffed lithium battery that was thrown in a toilet and flushed."

Nuwa almost whiffed her throw, her yo-yo going wide but still latching onto something. She turned to him with an extremely confused face, "What?"

"Yeah." He leaped, only using 12% to not push his body harder than needed. The spike of power to get the car would for sure leave Deku sore the next day, at the very least. "Come on!"

At a reasonably leisure pace, Deku and Nuwa circled Paris in search of people to help or something that could clue them to their enemy's location. There wasn't much of anything to show on both fronts by the end of it, but having a tranquil rest of the night did both of them good.

—

"Not bad for a first patrol."

If Ninth hadn't been toweling his hair, he would have shot Seventh a glare, "That was a disaster."

"Was it?" Fifth started to count on his finger, "You showed red-girl the ropes, at least enough so she doesn't break her hand trying to throw a punch. You stopped some bozos with guns. Oh, and let's not forget that you finally stopped steaming on your angst and talked to someone for a change!"

Ninth threw the towel on a basket in the corner of his room. He wouldn't dignify that with a response.

"Let's save the fighting for later. Now, it's time for some cheese!" Plagg, with his eldritch cat god priorities, raided the mini fridge that Ninth had stocked full of his favorite foods. Namely, cheese.

"Speaking of." Ninth left his room and marched to the kitchen. The Agreste mansion was harrowing empty at the best of times but in the middle of the night? The moonlit corridors with their tall windows and long shadows were a prime location to shoot a horror movie.

Even then, Ninth felt comfortable slipping into the dark and moving soundlessly through the long halls. No one to see him, no eyes seeing a face he felt wasn't his, no expectations in eyes watching his every movement.

Sometimes, disappearing for a moment or two to simply exist did him good.

The kitchens were empty like the rest of the mansion, staff paid extra to be punctual and exit the premises of the Agreste property on time. Ninth gazed at the space, big enough to supply a restaurant, with quiet loathing.

They didn't need it. Even back… Even back in his last life, when his old school turned into a boarding one thanks to all the incidents and public unrest, Ninth's class's building had a kitchen half the size to attend to twenty people.

It was crumpled, at the best of times, but Ninth would take that at the enormous waste before him. It served three people, some days. Most of the time, none.

Ninth squashed the clamp in his chest, the sting in his eyes, and the memories of an old and cramped apartment that was more of a home than anywhere else would ever be.

He saved that home. That was enough.

Without turning on the lights, Ninth went in and started pulling pots and pans. The light of the stoves was honestly more than he needed, with the way his eyes still had a residual glow from all the quirk overuse. He pushed away the annoyance with himself for needing to go so far for what was objectively small fry, normal criminals with normal guns, that he could and should have taken care of without a hitch.

Ninth was rusty, and that angered him to no end.

With a plate of rice, fried eggs, and medium-cooked beef in hands, Ninth left the dark kitchens behind and once more stalked in the dark in the direction of the mansion's heart.

"That's sweet of you."

He ignored Seventh's comment and pushed the only door which light escaped from in the mansion open.

The person inside it got startled, the supremely subtle tremble of his hand the only indication of it. The tall man, obviously more than two meters from just a glance, put down his sewing needle. Turning from the mannequin outfitted with the precursor of a dark purple dress that was a shade away from black, green eyes darker than Ninth's met his bright ones.

"Adrien, what are you doing up at this hour?" The man adjusted his glasses to hide how he subtly checked the wall clock, seeing that indeed it was past midnight. He sighed and ran a hand over his professionally styled blonde hair, "You have school tomorrow."

Ninth lowered his eyes from the man's face to his impeccable white tux (or whatever variation of fancy formal clothes it was) so he could hide his flat stare. Neither of them had liked the idea of Ninth wasting his time in public school, so having the man feigning being concerned about it wasn't amusing, "When was the last time you ate something, Father?"

Gabriel Agreste, world-renowned fashion designer, patriarch of the family Agreste, head of the brand Gabriel, coughed into his fist while avoiding Ninth's eyes, "You didn't need to bother, Adrien. Your education is more important-"

"I asked you a question." Ninth cut Gabriel's attempt to change the topic without remorse. "When was the last time you ate something, Father?" He repeated in a flat tone while maintaining a half-lidded stare.

The following silence in Gabriel's private office was so thick someone could cut it with a knife.

Gabriel sighed, "I distinctly remember having an apple for breakfast."

Of course. Ninth put the food he prepared for Gabriel on his desk, "You can't skip your meals like that. Your work won't go anywhere, so take better care of yourself." At the height of his hypocrisy, Ninth told someone to look after themselves with a straight face.

"I… I will try." Gabriel's eyes once more slipped aside, but now he wasn't avoiding Ninth's stare but instead glancing at the portrait on the wall.

Ninth kept his gaze away from it. He couldn't, he had no right, to look at it. "Get some sleep, you look like you need it."

"Yes." Gabriel's distant eyes closed in an effort to center himself. "You too should head to bed, Adrien."

"I'm going, goodnight." Ninth waved over his shoulder and slipped away from the office.

"Goodnight," Gabriel muttered to the empty room. His grief-filled green irises went to the plate left for him, then back to the portrait.

The picture of the love of his life, the love he lost, looked back at him. He pressed the gates of his heart shut, keeping the flood behind them buried. Gabriel could not let himself feel, not even the gratitude at his son's consideration, or he would break.

Doing what he could to refrain from crumbling into a million pieces, Gabriel once more put on a mask of indifference, of control, and went back to his work.

Everything would be alright. He would make everything alright.

For his family.

The smell of fresh food tickled his nose. With another glance at the plate, at the small gesture of care from his son, the man changed his mind. It would be a waste to let the food grow cold, and lack of sleep would only impact his focus.

Gabriel consciously ignored his aching heart saying he would stop only for his son to sleep without worrying.

—

"Hadn't you said you would go to bed, my boy?" Eighth asked his successor with a soft but childing tone.

"I'll just finish this set." The boy grunted under the weight of his improvised training equipment, a metal crate filled with cement sacks. Without specialized machinery to push enhancement quirks, Ninth made do with what he had, in this specific case he had 400 kilograms of cement.

He squatted while keeping a firm hold of the crate, Full Cowlling at 5% making the exercise mild, but the one hundred repetitions made it worthwhile.

"My boy, you already did enough for today." The golden Vestige of the greatest hero his old world would ever see kneeled beside Ninth, features pulled in a slight frown, "Get a rest, my boy."

"I will when I finish." Ninth pretended the reason for his curt answer was thanks to the weight. Both Eighth and he knew better.

"Kitten, know that I'm coming from a place of care and wisdom when I say: Chill." Plagg perched himself on Eighth's head, not caring how such a thing should be impossible with the man being an immaterial ghost. The Kwami stared deep into the boy's eyes, "You did enough."

That. That right there was Ninth's boiling point. "Why does everybody keep saying that?!" He dropped the crate, the last thread of his self-control was the only reason Ninth caught it before it crashed on the floor and woke every soul in Paris. "First Nuwa, and now you two, why do you keep saying that?! I'm not doing enough, I'm not enough. There's a psychopath out there that has a class six power causing havoc and I can barely use enough of One For All to stop one of his minions!"

Now that the floodgates were open, everything came spilling out, again. It was so hard to keep everything inside, and time and time again fate made sure Ninth slipped and let his grievances crawl their way out of his mouth like the vermin he constantly and incessantly felt rotting his insides.

"I barely stopped Shigaraki last time. I barely stopped Hawk Moth last time. I have to stop All For One this time before he can throw the world into a dark age, and people keep saying everything is fine! News flash, it isn't! Nothing is! The world is gonna crash and burn if I don't do anything so stop saying I did enough when everything is going downhill-" Ninth's tirade was stopped by Eighth pulling him into a hug.

The boy's voice died, and while Plagg knew letting souls interact with the material plane was against the rules, his kitten needed that (and it wasn't like Plagg cared about the rules).

Shaky hands grasped the golden form involving him, "All Might-"

The hero shushed him, "It's okay, my boy. It's okay."

Plagg flew down and landed on his kitten's hair, gently patting the boy's head, "You have a lot on your shoulders, Kitten." The Kwami knew he was already attached, but him dammit, Plagg had a soft spot for rays of sunshine that desperately needed a hug and a break. Not necessarily in that order. "We put a lot on your shoulders, but we only did it because we know that you're enough. You are now and you will be later."

"He's right." All Might pushed the boy away so he could face him, "When I entrusted One For All to you, I knew then that you had what it took. You proved me right, each and every time, and now is no different."

"I didn't- I failed."

"You saved our old world, my boy. You won that bloody war once and for all." Eighth squeezed the boy's shoulders, "You did it. You did what I couldn't."

"And you'll do it again this time too, Kitten." Plagg did not doubt it for a second.

Even without having his plan into motion, even without having gone against the old pacts as he did, Plagg had absolute faith in his new chosen. Like Arthur Pendragon, like Cu Chulainn, like Orpheus, like Yoshitsune, and all other mortals that wielded his Miraculous and carved their name in history forevermore, Deku had in him a fire that would never fade.

The kid would fight, would struggle, would crawl his way through hell if he needed to. The boy had a need deep in him to make his vision of the world become reality, had a resolve strong enough to see it through, and was crazy enough to not stop even when he really should.

Plagg just hoped that the same fire wouldn't burn him, at least not more than it already did.

His kittens all deserved better than that.

Ninth fought against the burning in his eyes and the knot in his throat, "H-how can you be so sure?" He sounded so pathetic with his voice breaking and weak.

"Because we have faith in you, my boy." All Might opened one of his signature smiles, wide and bright and promising everything would be alright, "Because…"

"You are here."

DONE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

This one fought me a little, not gonna lie, but I'm mostly happy with it.

As we saw, the girls grouped up and made their own move against Hawk Moth, and what a move it was. Against a guy whose powers work on people's negative feelings, giving everyone hope is such a strong play that it can be considered a direct attack. I know from the little canon lore I'm aware that the blog's name is Ladyblog because haha pun, but this doesn't fit here and my naming sense took a vacation to hell (holy crap it's 40°C here!) so I slapped Heroes Blog on it and called it a day.

Nuwa is getting the 'Deku Special Aim To Survive French Dream Plan!' (trademark pending). To those not aware, Deku has formal training on how to be a hero and everything that it involves, so it's just stupid to not have him showing Nuwa the ropes.

For the sidequest thingy with the car chase, it should have been 1k words top, but as always, things got out of hand. The end result of Deku being convinced (read peer-pressured) into opening up with Nuwa was achieved so I can't complain (much).

We also had Ninth talking to his dads! As those who read my other works know, adopting is a completely valid course of action, and Ninth gets adopted by all the father figures he deserves.

On the topic of Gabriel, I know people don't like canon him, but I didn't watch canon! So, I'm doing my own thing. Expect maximum emotional damage.

All Might is based, period.

Plagg is based, period.

This note also got out of hand and way too long, so here's the usual stuff.

Check P4tr0n for Bola8 if you want to throw a coin to your writer, like these wonderful people who helped me in the dark times when my computer imploded:

Guipa_, SilverZero90, CBN, and kennine. A heartfelt thanks to you all!

Also, discord! We have cookies, art, and cool people! Go check it out!

discord . gg / stAGY4V