A/N: Happy middle of the week! Here's another chapter for folks. Hope you enjoy it. If you feel like making my day, drop me a review. Otherwise enjoy!

**I do not own these characters or the world, that belongs to our lovely author of MHA, Kohei Horikoshi. Also, cover art was a commission by me from the artist Krumbs. Follow them on if you'd like! They are extremely talented!

Twelve
A Plan is Made

Mina Ashido looked less than agreeable. She sat with her arms crossed over her chest, eyes closed, and nose slightly upturned in disappointment or disgust, maybe both. It was the picture of disagreement and to Mineta, that was very bad.

"Come on Ashido! I told you what I saw and I'm not lying! I swear! But you're the only one that can get that information. Midoriya sure as hell isn't going to spill his guts to me, let alone anyone, but Uraraka, well you're friends with her!" Mineta pleaded.

All morning he'd eagerly awaited lunch coming so that he could seek out Ashido's help in getting to the bottom of Midoriya and Uraraka hand holding. His drive to get answers had only increased since Midoriya had been making all kinds of racket that morning and his explanation of said noises seemed hollow. Mineta had tried to explain it away as masturbating but he'd not felt that little tingle in the back of his mind when someone had recently done the deed. Midoriya obviously would've denied such a claim anyway.

When lunch had finally arrived Mineta had instantly sought out Ashido and with great effort had convinced her to come with him to a more secluded portion of the cafeteria. The other girls in their class had shot confused looks their way but he didn't care about that. This was entirely a professional encounter and while yes, he most definitely was a pervert, he wasn't actually going to perv on Ashido. Right now, anyway.

A few of the boys had shot curious looks in their direction as well but no one had actually said anything or attempted to stop them from moving away from everyone else. So he'd been able to quietly explain everything he'd seen and everything he knew and why he needed her help. However, she was less than agreeable.

"I don't know Mineta. You say you saw them holding hands, so what? Why is that such a big deal?" Ashido asked doubtfully, though there was a soft blush in her cheeks that made Mineta certain that the holding of hands was most definitely a big deal.

"It's a huge deal! Midoriya and Uraraka holding hands can only mean one thing: they're going out!" Mineta's voice had unconsciously raised making him nervously look around. He lowered his voice and said, "And if they're going out then that totally means that they could've gotten to like second base or even third base or," he paused dramatically, "made a homerun!"

Ashido laughed out loud at that. She continued to laugh even as Mineta tried to tell her to quiet down. All her loud laughing was attracting curious glances in their direction.

"Come on, Midoriya and Uraraka go all the way? Please," she said, still laughing.

"If they're a couple it'd make perfect sense! That's what couples do! And in this co-ed society where we're all hormonal and horned up, well, being a couple for sure means that you'd at least hit all the bases," Mineta defended quietly. Why was it so improbable that Midoriya and Uraraka could go all the way? Midoriya was a guy, he might've been a huge fanboy and bit of a nervous crybaby nerd, but he was still a boy and that meant he had a sex drive!

"I'm sorry Mineta, I just don't see that happening," Ashido said with a sigh and looked at Mineta with skeptical eyes.

"Then how do you explain them holding hands? I saw them holding hands and Uraraka was clearly excited enough that she activated her quirk and started to float away. Bakugo had to grab her for fu—" Mineta started to explain when Ashido suddenly leaned forward and stared at the little lecher.

"Wait, you didn't mention that Bakugo was there, you just said that you saw them after class holding hands and walking back to the dorm together and you'd heard a bunch of loud weird noises coming from Midoriya's room…but Uraraka started to float away?" Ashido asked curiously.

"Yeah? Doesn't she like do that when she's excited or something and loses control of her quirk?" Mineta asked, vaguely aware of seeing Uraraka float at random times when she appeared to be embarrassed about something, though honestly when that happened he was more apt to try to get an upshot of her skirt, if she was in school uniform…so his memory of her floating up and away was a bit spotty.

"She does," Ashido mused softly. She was very quiet for a few minutes, apparently lost in thought. Finally she asked, "So she was floating and Bakugo not Midoriya grabbed her? Did she start to float before or after Bakugo's arrival?"

"During? I don't know, he was just sort of there when I saw them and she basically started floating right away, what does that matter anyway?" Mineta failed to see why Ashido was fixated on Bakugo in this scenario. It was clearly a Midoriya and Uraraka encounter, Bakugo just happened to be there and have superior height that he used to stop her from floating away.

"Did you see or hear anything that led to her floating?" Ashido asked carefully.

"No, but I assume it was probably about them like talking about what they've been doing together…in bed," Mineta replied without missing a beat.

"Gross! And not likely!" Ashido snapped and slapped the pint-sized pervert on the shoulder. The force of it knocked him forward and made him spill his drink.

"Hey!" Mineta snapped and shot Ashido an annoyed look.

"Sorry," Ashido said only half apologetically.

"Whatever she and Midoriya had been talking about made her float, or at least that is the only thing that makes sense. Bakugo being there was just coincidental. He's taller than Midoriya and even though he's like Midoriya's frenemy, he still helps him out sometimes. That's the only part Bakugo played in this," Mineta explained.

"I just find it odd that he helped Midoriya or Ochako. Why would he do that?" Ashido asked quietly, more to herself than to Mineta.

Mineta rolled his eyes. He felt fairly certain that Bakugo had only intervened because he happened to be there and was probably already feeling a bit off center since he must've had such a hard on that he had to masturbate after class and couldn't wait till he got back to his room. Mineta thought it made logical sense that a dude like Bakugo would probably be more inclined to help if he already felt off balance by a break in routine or a break in his rock-hard psyche that required deviation from the usual.

Haha, rock hard, thought Mineta with a smirk.

"Come on Ashido, all I'm asking is for you to do a little investigation into what's going on with Midoriya and Uraraka. Isn't that something you'd want to know if they were together?" Mineta said trying his best to sound innocent while also being coercive. It more so came off as creepy.

"Well, I think she would've told me…maybe…" Ashido's voice trailed off and her eyes glazed slightly, her mind clearly somewhere else.

"Would she though? Isn't she like more close to Asui?" Mineta asked with a shudder. The hot ass frog was somehow always someone he had eyes for and yet she was perhaps the most ruthless of the girls when it came to his perversion. She'd practically drowned him once just because he'd been perving a bit! Even though he had no doubt that Asui might in fact one day kill him for his lechery, he still had a soft spot for her. Something about that frog just set his blood ablaze.

"You're right about that. She spends a lot more time with Tsu, so if anyone knew anything it'd probably be her, but Uraraka doesn't exactly have a good poker face. If done right, she doesn't even need to confess to anything for you to know what's going on," Ashido mused.

"So then go do it! Get her to spill!" Mineta pressured urgently. He had to know what was going on with those two! He had to know if Midoriya had been shacking up with a babe this whole time and not telling everyone about it!

"It's not that simple and besides, I'm still curious why of all people, Bakugo chose to help her or him," the pink haired girl said stubbornly.

Mineta sighed in annoyance. Boy she was hung up on the Bakugo idea. Why? There was nothing there! It was clearly a Midoriya and Uraraka thing not the other way around. In all honesty, Mineta wasn't even sure that Bakugo knew Uraraka's name. As far as he knew, he'd only ever heard Bakugo refer to Uraraka as round face or cheeks. Though it was entirely possible that Bakugo didn't know most of his classmates' actual names, aside from maybe Kirishima. Did he even know Midoriya's first name? Was that even possible?

"If you want to go that route fine, I don't care as long as you also investigate what's going on with Midoriya and Uraraka," Mineta said.

"And why would I even share anything I find with you?" Ashido shot back with narrowed eyes.

Mineta gasped in contempt. "Because I'm the one who brought you this gold mine of information! You owe me!"

Ashido snorted. "I don't owe you anything…but you did bring this to me and not anyone else," she sighed heavily looked away and then back and finally said, "okay, I will see what I can find out for you, but don't act or behave differently around any of them. If you do, they'll know something's up. Don't say anything to them, leave that to me. Better yet, say nothing to Midoriya and leave it all of it to me. If there is anything going on it'll be much easier to find out from Ochako than from Midoriya let alone Bakugo."

Mineta rolled his eyes at Ashido's mention of Bakugo. She really was hung up on that, wasn't she? He imagined that if they mentioned or asked anything to Bakugo that he'd just lob an explosion in their face. Going the Bakugo route was a path that would almost certainly not lead anywhere.

"I'm not stupid Ashido! I'm not gonna say dick to Midoriya let alone, Bakugo," Mineta wrinkled his nose at just the thought of trying to strike up a conversation with the ill-tempered boy. "And if I even attempted to say anything to Uraraka, well we'd be shit outta luck."

"You got that right!" Ashido said a little too loudly. More curious glances were shot in their general direction.

"Okay, we got a deal then. Partners," Mineta said confidently and extended his tiny hand toward her.

The dark eyed and pink haired and skinned girl looked at his extended hand dubiously, but grudgingly took it. "Partners, for now, but just because I'm curious, not because I think you should be creeping into the lives of others."

Whatever, I knew she was the best route to go. Ashido is a popular girl and popular girls always like to know what's what, Mineta thought with an internal sly smile. Oh how clever he was!

Ashido dropped his hand almost as quickly as she'd taken it. She briefly looked at it and Mineta swore he knew what she was thinking. With a lecherous smirk he said, "Yeah, you should probably wash that hand."

"Ew!" Ashido snapped and shoved Mineta, making him spill his drink yet again.

"Hey!" Mineta exclaimed angrily.

"You deserved that one," Ashido said with a wrinkled nose and got up and left.

Mineta started blotting himself and his tray dry. Once he'd sopped up enough of his soda, he shot a surreptitious glance around the cafeteria. Everything seemed to be in order. Ida, Todoroki, and Midoriya were seated near one another and not far from them Kirishima, Kaminari, Sero and Bakugo. Most of the girls were at a whole other table, sitting together. Uraraka was seated next to Asui. He'd not been able to pay that much attention to her or to Midoriya so he wasn't sure if they'd exchanged any glances. He continued to watch them carefully and was disappointed that no looks of longing or blushing cheeks were seen.

How disappointing. They're playing it cool. Fine, I can play cool too, Mineta thought to himself as he abruptly got up and made his way over to Ida, Todoroki, and Midoriya. He loudly plopped down his tray and let out an unnecessarily long sigh.

"Ah Mineta! Good to see you! How is your lunch?" Ida asked positively.

"Oh it's been real good," Mineta said with a large amount of emphasis on the word real. He eyed Midoriya suspiciously. "How has your morning been, Midoriya?"

Deku was in mid motion of eating noodles and paused at his question. After a moment of struggling to choke down the noodles he'd been eating he replied with, "Oh uh, it's been good. Yeah, it's been good."

Playing it cool, right. I know your secret, Mineta thought to himself as a knowing smile crept across his face.

"Oh yeah? You had kind of a rough start to your morning, didn't you?" He asked far too casually to actually be considered a casual question.

"You did? What happened?" Todoroki asked apparently unaware of Midoriya's furniture crashing around that morning.

"Oh, uh no, I just, well I activated black whip when I woke up and uh, well, the curtain rod fell down…but that's all!" Midoriya exclaimed nervously.

"Ah ha! I thought I'd heard loud crashing and had wondered what that was! Midoriya you must learn to control that new found power! Perhaps you should seek out more assistance from the number one hero!" Ida chimed in.

"That must have been difficult. I've never accidentally activated my left side in my sleep, but at least in the Sports Festival I did unconsciously activate the left side when you were about to land a full powered hit on me," Todoroki added thoughtfully.

"I can't imagine accidentally activating a fire quirk could go any way other than bad," Midoriya said seriously.

Mineta felt himself bristle. He'd wanted to put pressure on Midoriya, make him show a tell about what exactly he'd been doing that morning but thanks to Ida and Todoroki that was probably not going to happen. This was just boring conversation!

"Are you sure it was just accidentally activating your quirk? Not something else?" Mineta asked attempting to lead Deku in a conversational direction of his choosing.

"Uh, yeah," Deku said with just the smallest of blushes beginning to show in his cheeks.

There it is! Got him, Mineta thought triumphantly. "You sure it wasn't because you had some hot chick in there with you?" He asked with suggestive eyebrows.

"What?! No!" Midoriya sputtered in response.

"Why would he have a girl in his room?" Todoroki also asked, confused.

Why do the girls swoon over him? He's completely clueless, thought Mineta as he looked back at the innocent and curious expression on Todoroki's face.

"Mineta, just as it was inappropriate a few days ago, this topic of conversation is highly inappropriate! And it is against school policy to have a member of the opposite sex in your personal room during designated sleeping hours!" Ida chided. Mineta refrained from rolling his eyes.

"It's totally cool if you had a girl in there," Mineta began and shot a venomous warning glance in Ida's direction, "I'm certainly not going to judge, hell, I'd be jealous."

"It is not totally cool to have a girl, let alone anyone you could be engaging in sexual liaisons with, in your room after hours!" Ida exclaimed, exasperated.

"Did you have someone else in your room, Midoriya?" Todoroki asked turning his gaze toward his friend with uncertainty.

A deeper red blush was dotting Deku's cheeks now and Mineta felt like he was on the cusp of getting something juicy out of him.

"No, it's like I said, black whip activated and got a little out of hand. That's all," Deku explained nervously. Mineta wasn't buying it.

"You can play coy Midoriya, but I know that something other than black whip tentacles was going on in there. You also made a lot of noise last night too when you randomly cleaned your room. Why bother cleaning it if not for company?" He asked.

"A clean living and working space is essential to academic performance! It is every student's responsibility to clean and have a properly organized dormitory!" Ida rattled off before adding, "if Midoriya was doing late night cleaning, you should be commending him for his dedication to cleanliness!"

"Yeah, I'm not buying that," Mineta said with a huff.

"Even if Midoriya did have another person in the room with him, that isn't any of our business. It's up to him if he chooses to share that kind of information with us or anyone," Todoroki added.

"Well I think that as one of his neighbors it is my business—" Mineta started before something or someone abruptly bumped into him making him spill his drink yet again.

"Oops my bad! Sorry Mineta, I just didn't see you there!" Came Ashido's excessively cheerful voice. Mineta whipped around to look at her and saw that while she was smiling there was also a look in her eyes that made any retort he'd been planning die in his throat.

"Ashido you must try to be more careful. Judging by the drying stains on Mineta's shirt I'd say this isn't the first time he's spilled something on himself!" Ida observed.

"I was just about to head back toward class, guess I didn't realize that I was close enough to bump into him," Ashido explained.

"That's okay, I was just getting ready to head out," Mineta muttered, grasping that Ashido running into him hadn't been an accident. He gave a pointed look at the other boys at the table and refrained from sighing in frustration. "See you guys later."

"I'll walk out with you!" Ashido said cheerfully. Mineta briefly wondered if Ashido deciding to walk out with him of her own accord would raise any suspicions. This plan might be dead in the water before ever even launching.

After he'd dumped off his tray he left the cafeteria with Ashido trailing slightly behind him. Once they were out of the cafeteria and visible to far less eyes, Ashido picked up her pace and matched Mineta.

"What the hell Mineta? I told you that I would investigate it. You going off on your own to try to dig up information is just going to put Midoriya more on his guard—if there is even anything to investigate," she said with a huff and glared at the puny pop off quirked boy.

"Yeah, yeah, I know…but I saw an opportunity and couldn't help but try to take it," he explained and then narrowed his eyes at her, "but you totally deciding to walk out of the cafeteria with me to class isn't weird at all, is it?"

"Whatever, just let me do the digging and you can do the watching. I'm sure you'd prefer that anyway," Ashido suggested.

Jumping at that idea and all it conjured in his mind, Mineta said with a smile, "If you are referring to my part time hobby of voyeurism, then yes, I do enjoy to watch as well as participate.".

"That's disgusting," Ashido said with a wrinkled nose.

"It ain't for everyone that's for sure."

"Okay then," Ashido stopped walking and turned to face Mineta. "From now on you let me do the talking and the digging. Leave Midoriya alone and do not say anything to Uraraka either. You do your part time hobby and watch for things. Can you do that?"

Sighing, Mineta nodded in agreement. "Yeah I can do that."

"Good, now go walk to the bathroom or something, I don't want anyone to assume we're like together because we're walking together."

"Yeah, now you're concerned. Fine, suit yourself," Mineta said with a shrug and made his way toward the nearest bathroom. Diverting off from Ashido suited him just fine. He could certainly waste a few minutes in the bathroom engaging in his favorite adolescent past time.