There are two pictures of Midoriya Izuku resting in his lap, dwarfed by his hands. On the left is the boy, age four, smiling brightly up at him without a care in the world. It is the same picture that had been used for his missing posters when he had first disappeared, the same poster that he keeps pinned to the corkboard in his office. That innocent smile feels more and more like an accusation these days.
The most recent image they have of him sits on the right, a frame from the video that's been going around of the attack on Ingenium, which is still circulating in spite of the commission's best efforts to bury it. The image has been enhanced as much as possible, one split second that Izuku had turned towards the camera captured and ran through a dozen different quirks and software programs until they had something resembling a human instead of just a blur of motion. The boy on the right is hardly recognizable as the same smiling child. There are dark bags beneath his eyes and a gauntness to his round face that shouldn't be possible with the way the baby fat still clings stubbornly to his cheeks. His green eyes seem unnaturally bright, shining with desperate tears. Behind his parted lips, there is a gap where a tooth is missing. Ingenium's coat covers the majority of his body, but his thin legs peek out beneath the hem and the hero had reported that it looked like there had been blood stains on his clothes.
Toshinori swallows down his nausea and tries to ignore the pain every breath causes. He forces himself to tear his gaze away from the older Izuku's haunted expression. Iida Tensei is watching him from across the room, cast-clad leg stretched awkwardly in front of him as he waits for Toshinori to gather his thoughts. His blue eyes are dark and intense, framed by dark bags and burst blood vessels. He looks nothing like the cheerful hero who had appeared on the news just hours before to assure the public that everything was under control. He must have a very good makeup artist and PR team.
Toshinori leans forward, doing his best to hide the way it burns his abdomen to do so, and reluctantly returns the pictures. Iida's hands are cold and rough when they brush against his own.
"Would you like to discuss this now, or did you want to wait until your other guest arrives?"
Iida gives him a look he's not quite sure how to read, but considers it for a heartbeat before he says, "It's pretty normal for him to be late, so let's give him another moment to get here. I think he'll have something interesting to show us."
Toshinori nods and settles back into his chair, shifting every now and again to try to find a position comfortable enough that he doesn't feel like dying. Iida watches him, expression neutral but assessing as he tries to figure out what All Might's personal assistant would want with this case, and why he is here instead of All Might himself. His lip twitches into a smile for just a fraction of a second at the thought; what would this young hero do if he knew the slowly shriveling husk sitting uncomfortably before him is All Might himself?
A knock on the door to the meeting room saves them from the ever increasing awkwardness pervading the room. Iida offers Toshinori a flickering smile of his own. Neither of the injured men make any move to stand, and Iida has barely gotten out a polite, "come in," before the door swings open to reveal a scruffy young man.
He surveys the room with narrowed eyes, taking in Iida's cast and bandages and Toshinori's yellowing bruises and wrist splint, before he sighs and sees himself to the other empty chair. Iida smiles at him, though it looks somewhat ghastly beneath the bandages wrapped around the shattered crown of his skull. The newcomer does not smile back. He folds his hands primly in his lap but slumps gracelessly in his seat, dark eyes moving between the two injured men.
"Thank you for joining us," Iida says, voice filled with gracious sincerity. His smile is easy and professional, a mask showing none of his true emotions. It's easy to see why he's so well liked among civilians. "Yagi, this is Aizawa Shouta. We attended UA at the same time back in high school and he is currently operating as the underground hero Eraserhead. Aizawa, this is Yagi Toshinori. He is joining us today on All Might's behalf."
Aizawa glances towards Toshinori and tips his head, just this side of polite. There is a question in his searching gaze but, just like Iida, he doesn't voice it. With that formality out of the way he turns back towards their host, waiting for the man to continue.
"I apologize for asking you to join us on your day off, but it is my understanding that you recently covered overseeing an arson site investigation for another hero, Citadel. He told me that in your report you noted that a notebook was found hidden in the apartment."
"That's right," the man says. His voice is low and gruff and Toshinori can't read his emotions any more than he can tell what Iida's thinking behind his polite smile.
"I believe that that notebook may be a piece of evidence for a case that's recently been brought to my attention. Would you mind walking me through how you found it?
Aizawa sighs again but sits up a little straighter as he prepares to deliver his report. The dark circles under his eyes, crumpled clothing, and mussed hair tell of many sleepless nights. Toshinori winces in sympathy at the sight of it; he remembers the horrible exhaustion of those early days of his hero career, back before his body was used to running itself ragged. Iida, despite the bags beneath his own eyes and the medley of wounds, still manages to look relatively fresh faced and bright eyed. Though the two young men are almost the same age, the difference between a legacy hero and a hero new to the field is glaringly obvious.
"The fire was started in the main living space of the apartment, and it managed to destroy the majority of evidence that may have otherwise been found," Aizawa tells them, and it sounds like a warning, like he's letting them know now not to get their hopes up. "The mattress in the bedroom escaped the worst of the fire, though. Inside it, a fireman found a notebook, which sustained some damage but was still overall legible."
He shifts in his seat, pulling a black pack into his lap. It appears to be made of the same material as his clothing, practically invisible against his hero suit. Simple, but effective. Toshinori nods to himself, impressed at the quiet ingenuity of underground hero gear. Aizawa glances towards him and Toshinori feels himself flush at getting caught up in his own thoughts. Thankfully, the young hero doesn't say anything.
From within the bag, he pulls out a simple manilla folder and flips it open, revealing what must be a photocopied version of the notebook in question. Toshinori feels his breath catch in his throat. Before he can say a word, though, Iida holds out a hand.
"May I?" he asks, though he is already reaching towards the folder. Aizawa nods and meets him halfway, the shiny laminated pages catching the light in a way that makes it impossible for Toshinori to even get a peek at the notebook's contents as it exchanges hands.
He sinks back into his seat, trying to be patient as he watches the young hero flip through the pages. His polite smile has been replaced with a tight lipped frown and steely eyes. Aizawa watches him with equal intensity.
"There were other metal notebook bindings like the one on this one found in the ashes, so the thought is that there were more that the perpetrator burned to hide evidence. It strikes me as a kidnapped child," Aizawa says, confident in the assessment but obviously fishing for more information. "I also have a hunch that this 'Stendhal' may be involved in a series of murders that I've been investigating in Naruhata."
"What makes you think that?" Toshinori asks, intrigued and horrified in equal measure. He goes to lean forward only to stop when the stabbing pain in his side reminds him of the massive hole that recently took the place of several vital organs. Aizawa watches him flinch and lean back in his seat again with narrowed eyes. It makes Toshinori uncomfortable; it feels like those sharp black eyes are opening him up and digging through his remaining insides in search of answers to questions not yet fully formed. When he speaks, he angles his face towards Toshinori but his eyes keep darting between him and Iida, like he's not entirely sure who he should be directing his report towards.
"The quirk and fighting style match up with some of the murders. Stendhal apparently has a paralysis quirk of some sort, which would explain the lack of defensive wounds on the victims. He also has an affinity for blades, which lines up with the murder weapons. It's not much; just a series of coincidences really, but it's a hunch I can't seem to shake."
He seems hesitant to admit as much, the slightest crease between his brows standing in sharp contrast to the overall neutral expression he's worn so far. Toshinori hides a smile, remembering the early days of his own hero career. It was nerve wracking enough to be speaking to more established heroes, but it took a whole lot more courage to offer up theories and ideas for judgment by peers.
"It's always good to follow your instincts," he assures kindly. Aizawa blinks at him before inclining his head in acknowledgement. Toshinori wonders if maybe unreadable is his default and not just a subset of nervousness.
"Thank you," Aizawa says after a long second of silence. From within the black pack, he pulls out another folder and leans forward to hand it to Toshinori without prompting. At the questioning look he gets, he simply says, "Crime scene photos."
Bracing himself for what he is certain will be an unpleasant sight, Toshinori opens the file. Red greets him from the glossy, high definition pages. Splashes of it on the walls and pooling nearly black on the floor, brownish-red on the faces of the milky eyed dead, and the glistening red and white and yellow of wounds and severed limbs. He grimaces but makes himself flip through the photos, closely examining them for anything that the heroes and police before him could have possibly missed. Aizawa wasn't being facetious when he said there were no defensive wounds on the bodies; there's not a single sign that the majority of these people put up a fight at all.
He meets Iida's eye when he's finished. The young spotlight hero nods, and with a grave expression he holds out the photocopied notebook. Toshinori reaches for it, offering the crime scene photos in exchange. Midway through the reach, with his side screaming in agony, Aizawa stands from his spot without a word and switches the folders for them so neither injured man has to overexert himself.
"I know what happened to Iida," he says once the folders have exchanged hands. Toshinori glances up from the manilla folder he had been gathering the courage to open and finds Aizawa's dark eyes pinning him in place, the look bordering on accusatory. "—but how did you get hurt?"
"Oh," he says, smiling as he fumbles his way through the cover story that should have been second nature by this point. "I was involved in a car accident. Doctors tell me I'm lucky to have survived."
(What doctors actually say is that he shouldn't be alive at all.)
Aizawa doesn't give any indication whether he believes the story or not, but he doubts it if Iida's incredulous stare is anything to go by. Toshinori offers a weak smile and turns back towards the folder, suddenly willing to face down whatever terrible truths it holds if it means he can escape the awkward atmosphere of being more or less caught in an admittedly terrible lie.
"Oh," he says when he flips it open and sees Izuku's name on the first page. He turns a few more, scanning over each careful word and the childish pictures. He pauses on the drawing of Izuku and Inko, notes how the woman's stick figure face is all smile and nothing else. He frowns, letting his fingers linger over the tragedy drawn in crayon and captured in printer ink and laminate.
"Definitely him," he murmurs.
"You're sure?" Iida asks, though there's already a grim sort of acceptance on his face.
"Yes. I've known Izuku's mother for years now, and therefore I've been privy to parts of his young life before his disappearance. He draws his mother the same here as he did when he was four and, though I can't say for sure, the handwriting looks very similar."
From the corner of his eye he notices Aizawa's eyebrows rise. Some flicker of understanding crosses his face, softening it just a little, like Toshinori's presence in this room is suddenly more acceptable to him. He keeps his eyes glued to Izuku's notebook and tries not to think too much about Aizawa's shifting thoughts, focused only on reading carefully through Izuku's thoughts and the brief descriptions of his life with his kidnapper.
"The apartment that we were investigating had all the windows bricked over, and the room this notebook was found in was able to be locked from the outside. I also observed damage to the hinges and door, like the room's occupant was trying to get out," Aizawa tells them, watching their expressions carefully. "I'm assuming this is not a case of parental kidnapping."
"No," Iida sighs, closing the folder of crime scene photos. He lifts it and gives it a little wave. "If you suspect that the man who did this is the same person who kidnapped Midoriya Izuku, then he's also the same person who attacked me."
Aizawa's eyebrows climb impossibly higher, practically disappearing into his hairline. He looks at Iida, then Toshinori.
"I know there were videos of the attack," he says carefully. "Were analysts able to get any clear images of this person? This Izuku kid isn't exactly a qualified sketch artist."
Toshinori snorts out an almost-laugh, surprised by the quip. Iida narrows his eyes at him before seeming to relax a little, the barest hint of a smile creasing the corners of his eyes.
"I actually have someone in mind to help with that," Iida tells them. "A friend of mine had a few run-ins with Stendhal, and I think he'd be able to help us get a better idea of what we're dealing with."
There's a slight hesitation when he says friend that makes Toshinori think that maybe there's more to their relationship that the younger hero isn't saying, but he keeps his suspicions to himself as Iida continues.
"There was an altercation prior to my contact with Midoriya Izuku and Stendhal, which likely resulted in facial trauma."
"So what your friend remembers of this guy might not even be what he actually looks like anymore," Aizawa mutters, lip curling ever so slightly with annoyance. Iida shrugs, seemingly unbothered by the underground hero's irritation.
"We've got some guys working on analyzing the video, but to be honest he was moving quick enough that they're having some trouble getting a clear picture. This guy was fast, which makes me wonder whether he might have some sort of speed enhancement quirk. He cut me, but I didn't experience any kind of paralysis."
"So either Izuku was wrong about Stendhal's quirk, he has a secondary quirk, or he was confident enough in his abilities to not bother using his quirk on you."
"None of those things bode well," Toshinori chimes in, grimacing at the thought of a villain strong enough to bring a hero like Ingenium down without the use of his quirk. Aizawa gives him a look that tells Toshinori that if he was even a tiny bit less polite he would be rolling his eyes.
"No," he says in a voice too flat to be anything less than mocking. "It doesn't bode well at all."
"Aizawa," Iida says, tone just sharp enough to be a reprimand, and the underground hero turns a glare towards him that could curdle milk. Toshinori wonders what their past might be as Iida smiles and says coyly, "Watch yourself, or I'll tell Nemuri you're being rude."
Toshinori begins to sweat, recognizing the name of the feisty young heroine who had been making waves recently. Aizawa scowls, but after a tense pause nods curtly, spine a little straighter at the threat of Midnight scolding him or, heaven forbid, sending her fans after him. Iida looks a little too satisfied with the fear he's instilled in his guests. Then, like a switch has been flipped, he turns serious again and pulls the photos of Izuku into his lap.
"The analysts managed to get a good picture of Izuku, which at this point has not been released to the public. We're not sure how his kidnapper will react if we do, or whether he'd be in any danger."
"You think he'd hurt him?"
"I'm really not sure," Toshinori says, and the younger heroes turn their attention towards him. "Izuku has been missing for six years, and this is really the first solid evidence that's been found for his case. His missing poster was circulated when he was first declared missing, and obviously his kidnapper didn't dispose of him at that time. The case was just local back then, though, and certainly wasn't making it onto nationwide news. The kind of attention this case is garnering now, mostly due to Ingenium's involvement, may be a breaking point for him. We just don't know yet, and as such, it's been decided that we should proceed with caution."
As he speaks, Iida silently holds the two photos out to Aizawa who takes them with solemn acceptance. As he examines the pictures, his face drains of all color.
"It doesn't help that the HPSC doesn't like all the attention," Iida adds, oblivious to Aizawa's slowly mounting horror. He heaves a sigh and looks very much like he'd like to take a long nap at the very mention of the commission. "A hero being involved in the case but not doing anything doesn't look good on them at all."
"Two heroes," Aizawa says, his voice choked and soft. He looks as if he's seen a ghost as he tears his eyes away from the picture to meet Iida's searching gaze. He swallows several times, adams apple bobbing, before he manages to say, "I've met this kid."
.
When Izuku opens his eyes one morning after nearly a week of being left alone, his heart almost stops when he realizes that Chizome is hovering in the corner of his room. Silently watching him sleep.
"You scared me," he says, voice cracking around the words and throat sore from disuse. A smile twitches on the man's lips at the sound, there and gone so quickly Izuku isn't sure if he actually saw it or not. He squints suspiciously at Chizome, waiting for him to say something about his voice cracking, but it seems that he won't be teased today. He pushes himself up, the blankets still clutched tightly to his chest. He's not yet willing to shed them and face the cold outside his sleeping mat.
"You want breakfast?" Chizome asks, hoisting a brown paper bag in the air. It smells greasy and the bag looks soggy, but after a week of scraping together meals from a carton of eggs and a bag of rice, Izuku is convinced that heaven must be inside that bag.
He makes grabby hands for it and Chizome's face splits with a restrained smile. It looks strange beneath the clean bandages wrapped across the place where his nose should be, but the sight of it makes the painful knot in Izuku's chest begin to ease just a little bit. He's relieved to see that Chizome has been taking care of his wound while he was gone. As he pulls breakfast from its bag and allows Chizome to sit close enough that their knees brush, he's not sure if this is an apology or forgiveness. Reveling in the taste of the food and the feeling of another human so close, he realizes that he will accept it either way.
They eat in silence for a while, broken only by the crinkling of wrappers and Izuku's small hum of thanks as Chizome hands over half of his food. Outside the frosted window, snow has begun to fall, blanketing the yellow grass and bare trees in soft white powder. Izuku watches it thoughtfully for a while, the blanket still pulled tight around his shoulders. There are crumbs on his sleeping mat that he'll have to clean up later.
"The place looks nice," Stendhal comments, red eyes scanning the dust free room and the mostly clean window. Not even cobwebs linger in the corners, chased away by a broom wielded like a sword.
"I cleaned," Izuku tells him simply, before he turns his gaze towards Chizome."You look nice, too."
His words aren't just platitudes or niceties, either; the man really does look much better than the last time Izuku saw him. His clothes are free of tears or stains, and his hair looks well maintained. The matting that had been forming has been brushed out, and it has been pulled back into a sleek bun. The bandage above his mouth is clean and looks like it has been professionally applied, and he must have gotten medicine because the swelling and redness of infection is gone. He looks like a completely different person than he was a week ago. Chizome grins broadly, a real smile, with his tongue spilling over his bottom lip. The sight warms Izuku a little, reminding him of the smiles the man had given him before...whatever happened in Naruhata happened.
"I was job hunting. Most places don't want to hire someone covered in filth."
"Did you find a job?"
"Yeah," he says, his grin going lopsided as his tongue moves wetly behind his teeth.
"A little nursery hired me on as an overnight janitor for their off season. Not sure how I landed that, to be honest with you; I've never been able to keep plants alive. It's nothing fancy, but it's gonna put food on the table until we can get back on our feet and move on to the next place."
Izuku thinks about the almost empty bag of rice and nods, shoulders sagging with relief. He finishes up the last of breakfast and puts the trash back into the greasy paper bag it had come in. Chizome accepts the bag when he hands it over, then crushes it into a ball and throws it into a corner of the room by the door. Izuku watches its arc with a frown, hoping that that means Chizome is going to take the trash with him when he leaves.
"Is this your house?" Izuku asks at last, eyes darting between Chizome's bare feet and the trash on the floor.
"Yeah, sort of. It was my parents' place, back before they died."
"Oh!" Izuku says, looking around the room with a renewed curiosity. "Is this where you grew up?"
Chizome laughs and shakes his head.
"Nah, though I visited a couple times with my old man to do maintenance on it. My parents bought a few old places like this, back when they were first married. Now I use them for safe houses when needed."
"Why'd they buy so many?"
"Eh, pretty much the same reason I use them for. They're meant to be safe houses."
"But…why?" Izuku asks again, and Chizome seems to consider the question for a long moment before deciding on an answer.
"My parents both had quirks some people deemed villainous, and even just a generation or two ago, that put them in a lot of danger. Things aren't much better today, but with how many quirks are out there, it's not as likely to get you killed anymore. My mom was actually chased out of her village when she was a kid because of it."
"That's awful!"
"Yeah, but she always said that was how she met my old man, so I guess it all worked out okay."
Izuku listens with baited breath, eyes wide, barely willing to breathe. In all their years living together, Izuku could count the number of times Stendhal had talked about his parents on his fingers. Whether it was the nostalgia of being in a place his parents had owned or the drugs' lingering effect loosening his lips, Izuku didn't want to break the man's reminiscing.
"Quirk discrimination is a dangerous thing, kiddo," he says, eyes dark as he stares unseeingly into the distance. "They spent most of their lives trying to outrun it."
"Is that…how they died?" Izuku asks, his voice barely above a whisper. Chizome's eyes focus again, scanning the room before finding Izuku's gaze. His faint smile grows and takes on a sharp edge, no longer the gentle one he wore when lost in memories.
"Nah, nothing like that. They were killed because some random asshole was after my mom's purse. That's all."
There is a lump in Izuku's throat as he asks, "Did they ever catch who did it?"
The laugh Chizome lets out makes Izuku flinch away, and reminds him that no matter how much he's cleaned himself up, this man is still unhinged in some bone deep way Izuku can't begin to understand.
"They were a couple with villains' quirks on the wrong side of town," Stendhal tells him ruefully. His eyes burn into Izuku's soul. "They stopped investigating after barely a day."
Around the lump in his throat, Izuku manages to choke out a soft, "I'm sorry."
He doesn't know what else to say, but that doesn't seem to bother his Chizome. The man just huffs out a rasping laugh and reaches forward to ruffle his hair. The touch sends shivers up Izuku's spine, but he leans into the warmth of his hand regardless.
"Don't worry," Chizome says, hand still resting feather-light and gentle upon his head. "I took care of it."
.
At 7:32 on a Monday morning, Nomi Tatsui gets a BOLO alert for a man going by the alias Stendhal. He stares at the rough sketch provided, thinking that the man staring back at him looks vaguely familiar in the same way that all composite sketches do. There's very little to go on, no age or name, just a description and a note that the guy has some sort of paralysis quirk and should be considered armed and dangerous. It says not to approach him, and to instead call the Ingenium agency.
Tatsui scoffs and rolls his eyes at that. He doesn't know why they even bother to send these sorts of things all the way out to the tiny agencies in bumfuck nowhere. In his years operating as a hero in his own little small town, he's only run across an actual villain once. Even then, the head of the so-called agency had taken care of that. At the rate they're going, he's never going to make a name for himself. He'll only be known as the guy who helps old ladies carry their groceries home or the wannabe hero who tells the shoplifting teenagers to return their stolen candy bars.
He deletes the email without bothering to read through the rest of it. If they can't be bothered to respond to his applications to join their agency, he certainly won't bother to respond to some stupid BOLO about some asshole that will never step one foot within 100 miles of his tiny little town.
"Stupid," he mutters, before donning his silver mask and begrudgingly setting out on patrol.
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