Chapter 3

Ever since he had started to expand his brand to involve more service than the flashy antics of punching his problems away, Izuku had steadily helped clean up the neighborhood his agency was set up in. Typically, the places that had the need of heroes weren't the areas with the big fancy agency buildings and high income living- it was the small, out of the way places no one thought twice about. Not to say that there wasn't crime done in those high traffic areas, but they were mostly closed-door crimes like drug deals and weapon smuggling. Having been one of the downtrodden in his formative years, Izuku was always willing to listen to and find alternative solutions to problems, hence the suggestion box forum he opened up.

However, all of that had not prepared him from the wrath of fury coming off of his girlfriend the moment she stormed into his office. If warning hadn't given him prior warning that she was coming with lunch, he would have assumed her fury had been directed at him; he had been unavailable lately, and he still wasn't sure how true Kaminari's accounts were about women and how they reacted to cancelled plans. He had that it was for a moment until he saw the bag of takeout on her arm and the brief flash of embarrassment in her eyes. Now he watched as Typhoon Alyssa left the office, feeling the sorrow of rain fall as she passed after an explosion of anger he truly hadn't seen coming. Well, he had- somehow he could just tell her emotions were chaotic today, and she had been unusually short with Kobayashi, but he hadn't expected her to yell at Bakugou. He could only catch half of the things she had said in English, but many of them weren't very nice words. Was she having an episode, seeing and yelling at something that wasn't there? He needed to do more research.

Diagnosed with schizophrenia right after she had been forced to relive trauma and tear into her past? No wonder she was a mess. Poor Alyssa. She must be really shaken up by the whole thing… Watching her dealing with the pain and trauma of something he could have prevented, either by telling Alyssa who he really was or by defeating Psyren earlier when they had first tried to rob the hero museum over a month ago, fed into the guilt that occasionally liked to twist in his gut when he felt like he had failed someone. They were in custody now, having been defeated by him two weeks ago in Akihabara, but the damage had already been done. In the past when his friends or people he had been close to had been hurt or threatened, they had been pro-heroes or had Quirks to protect them; it was expected for them to get hurt. Alyssa, on the other hand, was neither of these things. She reminded him of an especially vulnerable part of himself, one he could recall back when he had been a scared little kid with no powers and could only rely on others to save him.

Well, he wasn't that Quirkless kid anymore. He was All Might's Successor, the ninth inheritor of One For All, his living legacy. He still couldn't fight with a hundred percent of his power yet, being forced to retrain his body again after Eri's Rewind Quirk had set him back a few years in muscle mass, not to mention the holders of One For All had all but vanished after his fight with the Symbol of Fear, but he was making good progress. His recent fight with Psyren was proof of that. Ever since his final confrontation with All For One and Tomura Shigaraki, he had made a vow to create a society where everyone would feel safe and be heard. He would be that hero for Alyssa, and others powerless people like her.

Which was why Izuku had made it his mission to crack down on the people who had messed with her in the first place. "I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow," Izuku said, not even taking his eyes away from the door.

Bakugou huffed, uncrossing the black and orange combat boot as he shifted his stance, his hands going into his pockets. "There was a development in the investigation. I figured it would be easier to drop by during my rounds than leaving a message with your secretary."

Izuku nodded. Today he had been running the desk for most of the morning, but the work calendar in his office was typically scheduled two weeks to a month in advance so that everyone had the opportunity to work and patrol out in the field. Originally, Momozono was scheduled to do it, but she had called in a day after he had put in the new schedule that she was going to take some time off of work, and Kobayashi was too busy with high school and running the social media page to be a reliable secretary. He didn't ask her why she had asked off, knowing she had been a volunteer most days, having only recently begun to work part-time for him and that she had to be home for her children when they got home from school. Growing up with a stay-at-home mother, Izuku knew how hard it was and had been willing to flexible for her in order for her to take care of her family, though he couldn't lie and say that he wasn't itching to be out in the field.

He could sit behind a desk and research and plan things to help, look into implementing plans and programs- his youth program initiative had been a passion project for him, only waiting for the Hero Association Board to approve him for funding -but it was hard to see progress if he couldn't witness it. Shoto and Iida were so much better at this than him. The man known as Ingenium had already started his campaign to run as the next Hero Public Safety President, with Shoto following next to him as his vice president. A pro-hero had never run before, the HPSP being made up of non-hero employees, much less one that was in the Top 10 pro-heroes. While Deku would be helping people he could see, they would be the ones that were actually doing something for the many he couldn't. Katsuki Bakugou, another mover and shaker in the industry, was similar to himself in that aspect. Kacchan had always loved to get his hands dirty and wasn't one for things like running a desk or public speaking, things you needed to know how to do to run a committee.

"So uh, what did you come here to discuss?"

"It's about the Kumori Lab break-in case. Tsukauchi sent me with the file. He was too busy to bring it by himself," he held out the folder, like he was disgusted that he had been some errand boy for someone else. It made sense. This time of year, pros were trying to cram in as much hero work as they possibly could to help boost their numbers the weeks before the Hero Association would announce the new rankings on the Hero Billboard Charts JP, which meant the police force was stretched and overloaded with paperwork. Izuku couldn't help but anticipate his own numbers, having been number eighteen for the last year. Working abroad rarely translated well for a national score in your own country if you weren't in it.

"I remember. You and Ocha-" Izuku started before he noticed Bakugou's darkening glare and corrected with, "I mean, Uravity, took down Senaka Shodan and the Dover Boy gang a month ago. But what does that have to do with case I'm working with now?"

"That's what I'm here about. You said you wanted anything related to the museum robbery weeks ago, right? Well, a case I did has a tie to it." Izuku's eyebrows shot to his hairline. "One of the people we busted had connections to the museum's support items that got sold on the black market. Once Shodan got sent back to Fantomuzon Prison, he squealed on one of the sellers in order to get a plea deal. They're even willing to testify in court. The only problem is that we still have no idea what they did with the lab equipment. All we have a bunch of trashed warehouses and a couple paper trails from the bookies that lead somewhere in Shinjuku. What we do know is that stuff that your girlfriend was shot up with had traces of the kind of Quirk enhancer drug they were manufacturing."

"Trigger? Ideo-Trigger? Boost?"

"That's what the labs think, but they're not sure. The stuff at the lab said it was inconclusive by the time it was out of her system. They think it's because she doesn't have a Quirk factor. What they recognized was the kind of syringe they used that the cops found in the alley."

"I noticed that too. Most people who take Trigger use autoinjector pens. This villain, however, used a syringe. Which means that they either couldn't afford the autoinjectors or the drug they were using had to be administered slowly, though of course it could be possible that they had an easy access to a supply of hypodermic needles, whereas autoinjector pens would be harder to come by and could be prone to maintenance issues and might be easier to trace than buy syringes, although people with diabetes and allergies find them easier to self-administer than-"

"Knock it off, nerd! Your muttering is giving me a headache!"

"Oh! Sorry, Kacchan."

"Anyways, they recovered the lost artifacts stolen from the hero museum- at least, the ones that you and your girlfriend didn't destroy." Izuku felt a flush of shame at that. As a fan and friend of All Might, it had broken Izuku's heart for him to have to be forced to destroy something that had used to belong to the late Number One, even if it had been a support weapon he had only used for a short time. But if faced with choosing between saving a person or saving the artifact, he would choose the person every single time.

"There's something else." Something more? What else could there be? His face must have telegraphed his thoughts because Bakugou's expression shifting into something a bit more serious than his default, what Alyssa would say, 'resting bitch face.' "You're going to want to come to the station for this. Something tells me you'll want to see this in person."

"Why?"

"That villain you fought a couple of weeks ago, Psyren? They finally managed to unmask her."

Her? So it was a woman. Izuku had his suspicions, but he couldn't be sure. The body suit the villain had been wearing had been androgynous in color and appearance, with a voice filter having two different pitched frequencies anytime they spoke, not giving any hint to what kind of person lay inside. Not to mention, the suit had been painstakingly difficult to peel off of the villain. No one could remove it, not even Deku. Trust him, he had tried. It was almost like the suit was alive and had been unwilling to be forcibly removed from its host. But the fact that Kacchan here was telling him this meant they finally got enough of it off of her that they could uncover their identity.

"Who is it?" Eagerness turned to worry as Bakugou's face remained neutral. Then the world around him fell apart.

…

Izuku felt a cold chill since he had walked into the precinct. He had been told, of course, but he wasn't willing to believe it. Even standing here in front of the two-way mirror into the holding cell, Izuku could not believe it.

Sitting in a holding cell wearing a dark blue plated body-armor was Kotone Momozono, his intern, his coworker, his friend. This didn't make any sense. Momozono had been one of the nicest people in his office. She was training to become a hero, a middle-aged woman in a world of young, competitive heroes. She had been clumsy and struggled to brew tea because of her inability to control her Quirk, Tuning Fork (also her codename). In fact, it had been one of the reasons Izuku had taken her on. She was a person who had a dream that people didn't believe in, with a Quirk that she struggled to control. She was a person who deserved a chance to do good.

So why had it turned out like this? Where had he gone wrong? He could just not wrap his head around this. Psyren had stolen priceless artifacts. Momozono had brought them mochi. Psyren had killed innocent people. Momozono had helped. Psyren had tried to kidnap and drug a small child and put Alyssa in the hospital. Momozono had visited him in the hospital and helped him work through a case, though now he was rewriting his memories with the startling realization that it had been after they had fought as hero and villain. He wanted to understand where he had gone wrong with her. He needed to understand. For his sake, if not for the world's. He had made a promise, after all.

"Why didn't anyone tell me she was here?"

"We didn't know who she was. They only just now were able to get the helmet off of her, and that was just to make sure she could eat. That suit has been on her the entire time, but she hasn't needed to eat or drink or even go take a piss. She just sits there like some robot waiting for orders. She would have had have nothing if not for the crack in her helmet to give people water. The specs haven't seen anything like it. It's like it's some sort of biomechanical suit."

That explained why he hadn't been able to contact her since she had left. "Has she said anything, asked for a lawyer?"

"Police haven't been able to get anything coherent out of her. She just keeps talking to herself, saying things like 'the seeds are in place' or whatever crazy bullshit she's been spewing the past few days."

"Does she have any communication devices or additional Quirks for communication?" Ever since All For One, people were more thorough with examinations when it came to genetic markers like scanning for multiple Quirks. In a superhuman society where you can dream it, you could do it, warfare had evolved with it.

"Not sure. Biometrics didn't detect any additional Quirks, and we can't figure out what this thing is that was on her. The support engineers have been going nuts over it. Twitch has been working non-stop since he got his hands on it."

Only after mentioning him did Izuku notice the seventeen-year-old engineer fiddling and fidgeting in the corner with some of the other scientists. The boy was an unusual case, a kid that majored on the support course track at his high school but was also studying for the pro-hero license exams, since his Quirk Technopath allowed him to work with and reassemble technology once he had disassembled it. Bakugou had discovered him two years ago with one of his grenade gauntlets after it had been shattered in a fight. During the aftermath when most of the calm had settled, he had been found reassembling the gear while onlookers had been watching the fight and had fixed it within minutes of it breaking. Needless to say, the pro-hero had hired him on the spot. He was here only provisionally, not allowed to see any real combat yet, but he had been making strides.

"How did they finally get it off her?"

"The kid she was trying to abduct- apparently, one of his crystals got blown away in the blast from your Indy Smash and cracked the side of her helmet. The investigators went over the statement you gave and saw it after finding a TikTok video that went viral of the fight when one of the bystanders posted it after they stopped to record the fight. They noticed the only thing that could remove the thing was the crystals he produced. Apparently, the suit can only be removed with organic matter."

"Hitachi? Is he here?"

"No. He's still in protective custody, though Fat Gum and Red Riot are over seeing it."

"That's a relief…" Izuku sighed. At least they had listened to him. Hopefully the amateur pickpocket would receive leniency after cooperating with the police. That was the only good in this situation. There had to be some sort of mistake or explanation, some sort of coercion or threat or brainwashing Quirk involved. The Momozono he knew was kind and well meaning. She was trying, and he- he had given her a chance! Maybe something in the suit made her do this, made her act out like this.

"I need to talk to her. We need to do something to find out why she did this-" Izuku paused to notice that his friend had gone uncharacteristically silent. "…What?"

"Izuku… I don't think you understand just how bad this is. You are compromised. Your whole agency was compromised. Momozono had access to dozens of secure, protected documents. She had access to case records. Who knows what info she managed to get for how long?"

Izuku started at the use of his name, and then paled in realization as he began going over events. The late nights, the overtime spent going over case files, the cups of tea brewed and shared together, the half-hearted attempts at straightening up the dilapidated office space. Was all of it a lie, some ploy to pretend to be his friend? Why? For what purpose?

"I want to talk to her."

"You can't."

"I have to-!"

"They think you're in on it," Bakugou growled loud enough for them to notice that more than a few heads turned their way, eyes that had already been watching at a distance. The words began to die in Izuku's throat while Bakugou scoffed, "They're idiots, of course. Anyone who knows you knows you don't have in it in you to pull something like this. You don't have a dishonest bone in your whole body- but this? Having a villain masquerading as a sidekick at some nothing hero agency in a bad part of town under a pro hardly anyone knows about? It doesn't just look bad. It's a potential breach of security.

"Remember what it was like when those Detnerat guys got outed as a front for the Meta Liberation Army? Civilians and long establish pro-heroes were popping out of the woodwork as a part of their cause, people supporting them long before the League got the hands on them. To those guys," Bakugou nodded over to the cops eying them from the desks and guards with hands on their belts, "anyone is a suspect, regardless of motive. The only reason I brought you here and told you all of this was because you wouldn't believe it otherwise and pursue it yourself, and because Tsukauchi vouched for you."

"Tsukauchi? Officer Tsukauchi?"

"Yeah, though I think they call him Captain Tsukauchi now. The man got a promotion last time we spoke. He has some detectives on this case and asked me to let you know the situation, Satoshi and Sugimori something. You're lucky. Not many are left now, but there are still some people who remember who you are and what you did for them nine years ago. All these new people being brought in to help fix and replace the old guys are bringing in some radical changes. This new generation of heroes and law enforcement is coming out with a lot of rookies filled with mistrust. People aren't as willing to trust pro-heroes like they used to, especially ones with little established names."

"…What are you saying, Kacchan?" Izuku asked, wanting his friend to get to the point he had been dodging ever since they left the office, despite the million questions he had begun asking Bakugou incessantly since they had left.

"I'm saying that as your oldest friend, I'm telling you to butt out. Leave this one to the rest of us pros to figure out. Get your own shit in order before you go messing with others."

"But it's a hero's job to meddle where they shouldn't-"

"You might not get a chance to be a hero if you pursue it when you're weak and vulnerable like this," Bakugou gritted his teeth and then swore under his breathe before taking a breath Izuku recognized as his 'I'm terrible at emotions' sigh and amending with, "I'm not telling you to ignore it. I'm saying go play nice for awhile and lie low while the big kids get involved."

Izuku frowned. Aizawa had told him something like that too, back when he had gotten a visit from his old high school teacher at the end of March. Back then, it had just been towards him fixing up his agency, but now all of that was risk- and for what? Because he wanted to give someone a chance to live out their dreams like he did, like he wanted to all those years ago. But… he couldn't just sit here doing nothing about it. He had to do something!

Just because Psyren had been arrested didn't mean the threat wasn't over. Lives were still at stake. People were still suffering because of them, because of him. It was his choices that led them to this point. His reason for taking in Momozono, his lack of strength to stop Psyren when he had the chance, his choice in refusing to tell Alyssa who he was. It was all his fault. He needed to make up for it. He needed to do something. He was the can-do hero, Deku! He was the successor of All Might and inheritor of One For All. He needed to do better, be better. His dream was to be the Number One Hero, and it wasn't just his dream anymore. It was his mother's and All Might's, and all the many other people who helped carry him this far and helped get him to this point. If he was going to help make the world a better place, he couldn't be sitting here on the sidelines waiting for something to happen. He wanted a world that everyone could smile in, one where he could take Alyssa for walks and dates in without fear of anyone hurting her again.

"Don't go being an idiot."

"Huh?" Izuku snapped out of his thoughts, questioning if he had voiced any of this aloud in his mutterings or if his friend had just read his mind.

"Don't 'huh' me. I know that look. You're trying to work a way around this because you want to bring in the people that hurt your girlfriend, but I'm telling you you're already too close to this. It's bad enough that you're probably going to undergo an investigation because of this, but you having Blake around the office and being all gross and cuddly won't do you any favors. You know how that looks, right?" the explosion hero eyed him, like he was waiting for the information to sink in. Izuku deflated somewhat at his words, pressing his lips together tight enough that it formed a thin line on his face. "I'm earning my spot as the Number One hero the right way. I don't want to have people telling me it was because you got dragged down into the mud by petty social drama and taken out of the race."

Ground Zero's words had Izuku recalling the teenager back in their days at UA. He wasn't as angry before, but some part of him, the passionate parts of him that demanded absolute victory that made him a great hero, still remained. Loud as he was, Katsuki Bakugou had never been stupid. Arrogant, maybe, hot-headed, absolutely, but he was never one to charge blindly into a situation he didn't think he could win. And now, when Izuku was being emotional and about to charge headlong into a battle, Bakugou was the one that was calm and in-control. Since the day they fought together against All-For-Shigaraki in Jaku, they had always been there to balance the scales, a foil for change, a counterbalance to keep the other in check when things went off the rails and one of them slipped off the path they both walked. So as much as he hated it, what Bakugou was saying was right. He couldn't be rational about this. Not right now.

"I know…" Izuku admitted, feeling some of the fight drain out of him. Like his rival was reading his mind again, he sighed and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"Just be careful and don't be a dumbass. There's a reason Cheeks and I haven't gone public, and it's not just because of the hero ratings. People date within the industry for a reason. There's comfort in having people around who know what they're doing and how to handle themselves. Alyssa isn't like us. She's a civilian, and worse, she's like you. She has no place in our world. And if people find out who she is, what she is, she'll become an easy target for every bad guy that you put away."

"I just assumed it was because you are a private person and 'it's nobody's damn business of who I date,'" Izuku joked, trying to ignore the words he also thought about late at night for the past two weeks playing out in front of him.

"You got that right," Bakugou smirked and then his face went back to being serious. "I'll say this. You've definitely picked the harder path ahead. This thing you're doing with her? Enjoy it now while it lasts, because once that other shoe drops, soon it won't be just a you-and-her-thing. Soon everyone and everything will want a piece of you, and it might affect her much more than it does you."

"I know. I'm handling it."

"Are you? Because of what I saw at your agency is proof of you handling it, I think you're underestimating how badly this could possibly go. I don't really know how you two met or why, but I'd argue that she chose to date you rather than date your life. Because she may have chosen you, but she has no idea what kind of life she signed up for by choosing you."

"What happened in Akihabara was a fluke. No one has any idea of the connection she has to me. Most people don't even recognize me in public because of how plain I look out of costume. They even keep spelling my name wrong in the news articles."

"Well, if you want to keep it that way, you're going to have to make some changes to how you two interact with each other in public. I don't think people catching you making out in your office is going to do you any favors, especially since you had a security breach within your own staff."

This time, Izuku did not have a response for him, his face already growing hot with embarrassment. He had already thought most of the things Kacchan had been saying. It was what he had beaten himself down with after dropping Alyssa off at the hospital, things convincing him that ending things with her after their fight would have been the correct action, the choice All Might would have made. However, try as he might, Izuku was not All Might. He wept openly, he wanted to save everyone- including the villains -he needed people. He couldn't be an island. He had tried once before, trying to emulate how All Might was strong enough to not need anyone to help fight his battles, and he had been miserable. He wanted to be with the people he cared about. He wanted to smile with them- with Alyssa.

But this development put him a bit at odds with this new reality he was making for himself. Because Kacchan had been wrong. Izuku was dishonest. Despite telling Alyssa he could be more honest, Izuku did have somethings that he kept to himself because despite everything they had been through, he hadn't been fully honest with Alyssa. She still didn't know about his Quirk, One For All, and his true relationship with All Might. Only a few people really knew about the circumstances behind it, and that had been for other people's sakes more than just his own. But so far, it seemed like the right call to make.

But there in lied the question: if you couldn't trust the people you worked with, the people you hired and hand-picked personally and had treated like friends, then who could you trust?

A/N: References are Cloud City (Kumori Labs) from Star Wars, Phantom Zone (Fantonmuzon) from DC Comics, Dan Backslide and the Dover Boys from Merrie Melodies, Royal Pain from Sky High, and the symbiote from Marvel Comics.