"Don't ever break into my house again"
Amongst the shaded contours of his old haunt, anxiety clawing at his insides and tearing apart the memory of her beautiful smile, Izuku muttered insults into the wind directly firmly at himself.
"Stupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupid…"
He honestly didn't know what he'd been thinking: honestly not even sure if he had been thinking, but now he was left with the fallout of Jackrabbits impulsive decision and he knew that it would eat at him every time he saw her.
He could chalk it up to him being excited about the prospect of introducing Ochako to Eri, or maybe even up to his mile-a-minute mind being impatient to see his little sister again, but deep down he buried the ugly reality alongside the identity he wore every time he donned the mask. The truth was, he was getting his wires crossed. Izuku, the timid and friendly man who worked at Ryukyus agency had a vastly different relationship with the pro hero Uravity than Jackrabbit did, and he was ashamed to admit the lines were blurring.
Following their impromptu coffee date, they had spent nearly enough everyday together, and it had lulled him into a false sense of comfort around the space heroine. But… she didn't know him, not really. A relationship built on lies was bad enough, but one built on a false identity was just asking for trouble. The image he presented to her was fiction and everyday it became more tiring to keep up the facade, especially in the face of his mounting feelings.
The wind picked up forcing Izuku to hold the lapels of his jacket closer still to his body, yet turning a corner, he couldn't help but reach out and trace the worn brick work with a bandaged finger, lost in his caustic thoughts. He caught a glimpse of his battered hand and smiled at the memory of her orders but faltered once he realized that even that was built on deception. MMA, the voice in his head scoffed at him. Not a total lie.
At the time, he'd been so caught off guard by her genuine concern, his rehearsed half-truth had almost abandoned him, filtered through the sieve that was his frontal lobe whenever he was in her presence. She was starting to make him slip up and sooner or later she had to notice: she was smart like that. Shaking his head loose from the encroaching anxiety that tangled his brain like a web, Izuku marched on, making his way through familiar backstreets and side alleys.
The twists and turns of Musutafu's urban sprawl left him with very little beyond his own thoughts and so he forced himself to count the positives, like the fact that Eri had loved Ochako.
It hadn't been a spur of the moment decision to introduce his little sister to the gravity heroine, he'd been ruminating on the idea for weeks now, weighing its pros and cons endlessly in the chaos of his mind ever since she'd helped him rescue those girls. It was risky, for sure but he decided that Eri having someone to truly look up to, someone that would look out for her beyond the regular purview of heroes but wasn't on the wrong side of them like he was, was exponentially more important than his paltry secrets. It didn't stop him from cringing internally every time Eri had cheerfully revealed something about him to his hesitant ally, so innocently happy to have another who she assumed would care for him like she did. Izuku could see the gears turning in Ochakos head, fitting the puzzle pieces into place. She was almost done with the edges, he was sure of it.
All of that though, was secondary to the fact that Ochako had promised to come back. Eri had a new guardian now, one that was good for her. If he were to ever be caught or killed, he could at least face it with peace, knowing that his sister was cared for by someone he trusted.
He felt secure in that at least, as he passed through the bones of his hometown.
Stopping short at a familiar junction, he stood under a battered and bruised street light that cast dancing shadows, playing out his memories amongst the shades. The shop windows to his left displayed large and loud posters of all the latest heroes and he smiled to himself remembering the day he and Kacchan had left the store, toting their prized All Might cards. Kacchan had wielded his like a spoil of war: Izuku had just been happy to share something with his would-be friend.
Blinking back the memory, he moved on, keeping his head low against the wind.
He didn't see many people out and about, which was surprising despite the time, but he was grateful. He wasn't exactly conspicuous in his normal clothes but ever since he'd begun his 'part time job' as his mother called it, he'd felt more comfortable when walking the streets alone. Not that he'd ever liked crowds, his vigilantism just gave him a good excuse to avoid them. He passed perhaps a handful of people milling about, none of them giving him a second look, too wrapped up in their own worlds to notice a quirkless nobody like him.
Winding his way through the urban jungle, past neon fronted bars and shuttered shops until they drained away, leaving terracotta colored houses and brickwork streets in their wake, Izuku arrived at the neighborhood he was looking for. He took a short, steadying breath to compose himself, doing his best not to look at the flat and unassuming building floating at the edge of his periphery. He couldn't ignore it though, it was like a splinter of bone buried deep within his heart.
It had been close to a decade since he'd stepped foot in the place and yet he couldn't shake the ghosts, not when they were so entwined into the very fabric of his existence, dictating his every move with a malevolent hand.
He shrugged his shoulder in a round arc, readjusting the muted backpack that now carried his helmet and costume, while staring resolutely ahead, determined not to catch a glimpse of the place. His green hair, matted from being covered for some time, hung limp in front of his darkened eyes, aiding him.
Not for the first time, he resented the fact that the workshop/dungeon he was on his way to existed right by his old middle school. He liked that it was so close to his mom's house, sure, but he hated being confronted with the blades of memories that pierced his already fragile mind like shards of ice. It was a constant reminder that he wasn't quite enough.
A voice like a python, a savage mixture of the darkest parts of his psyche and his childhood friend smashed together, wound itself around his mind and whispered to him a painful truth.
If you wasn't such a useless Deku, you could have saved those girls without having to resort to this cloak and dagger bullshit. You wouldn't have to lie to Ocahko like this if you had a quirk.
"Get out of my head," he murmured to no one.
But it was the truth. The sinister voice in his head never lied to him, never told him anything he didn't already know and now, with Ochako steadily becoming more important to him than ever, becoming a lodestone for his pathetic existence, the crushing weight of lie on top of lie was once again starting to build.
It hurt more to lie to her, it seemed, than it did to anyone else. It hurt in a way that he hadn't felt since the times he'd had to lie to All Might back in school. It had been a while since he'd spoken to the retired hero, the guilt would gnaw at him anytime he looked into the man's kindly, skeletal face. Izuku knew the old man still cared for him but that only served to exacerbate his issue. Pretty soon, lying to Ochako would drain him in the same way that it had drained him to lie to his idol. This time around though, he wasn't so sure he'd have the will to sever the connection. Any time he laid eyes on her, whether it be at work or at work, his heart pounded a violent message against his ribcage and his common sense screamed at him to get away now. Because it knew what he would do. Any day now, he wasn't going to be able to stop himself from telling her the truth: he wasn't going to be able to stop himself from taking off the mask.
Do it. With you out of the way, the real heroes can take down Razor.
"No," Izuku muttered, softly but resolute. That was the one thing he couldn't abide by. He wouldn't allow even one of Razor's victims to slip through his fingers. He'd save them, even if he had to defy his demons to do it.
In his fragile position, Izuku was unable to stop the tide of memories from pulling him under. Flashes of his old classroom, the blank and mocking faces of his peers lit by the backdrop of mini explosions from an outstretched hand. They surrounded him, laughing and jeering at his every move, breaking down into hysterics whenever he'd dare utter his dream
He clenched his jaw and shook his head. He wasn't the same person anymore, he wasn't powerless.
Sure you're not.
"Go away."
With a frustrated snort, he stalked on through the gloom, eyes to the ground, running away from the past and the pain like he always did. He didn't look up again for sometime, trusting his feet to remember the route.
It was darker out in the suburbs, the faded oranges and blues of the neon strip was far away, allowing an eerie haze to settle over the quiet houses and apartments. Up above, what little starlight left behind in the wake of the city's pollution was chopped and scattered by fat and lazy clouds alongside the thin silver sliver of the waxing moon. Not for the first time that night, Izuku was reminded of loved the night sky. He gave a smile but let it slip, remembering himself.
Locked in a cage of reflection, he didn't notice that his feet had completed their autopilot task and, before he knew it, he'd arrived. Huh he thought silver linings, I guess.
Before him stood a low slung and blocky building with scorch marks painting the pavement in perfectly neat squares at its two entrances. One of them was a slab of gray metal that barely passed as a door while the other was a battered looking shutter of corrugated steel. Izuku had tried his luck with both in the past and still had the burns to show for it. The brick work was relatively modern, a byproduct of having to be pulled down and relaid every few months to keep up with the barrage of various forms of damage. The place had no windows, shattered glass would be expensive to replace every two days after all, but a small sunroof spilled cold fluorescent light into the air acting as a beacon in the dark of night, telling Izuku that his mad scientist of a friend was still awake.
Tentatively, he slammed a fist just above the sliding eye slot before taking a few very large steps to the left. A series of loud and no doubt lethal bangs were his reply and he watched in half amusement, half exasperation as the brick surrounding the door rattled unstably. A second later, the door fell off its hinges right where he had been standing, sending a reverberating clang into the night. Clouds of oily black smoke belched forth from the new hole in the wall and a figure emerged coughing and spluttering.
It was a woman; dressed in dark overalls secured loosely around her waist by a tool belt bursting at the seams with various wrenches and screwdrivers, and a black tank top smeared by grease and god knew what else. Her usually pink hair was a mottled gray by the layers of grime and probably a few days of not showering, while her perpetually present steampunk goggles gave her an alien and frankly quite intimidating look. A manic smile was plastered on her face, no doubt the result of another not so successful experiment given the explovie outcome. Despite the pyrotechnics, Izuku knew her optimism was unquenchable and he had never known someone quite like her.
Yes, Mei Hatsume was certainly something. Izuku just counted himself lucky he'd learned how to deal with her outlandishness years ago. He knew how much those doors hurt.
The bohemian woman waved away the billowing maelstrom of ash and fumes with a flailing arm and began mumbling to herself a million and one calculations about where things may have gone wrong while designing her latest baby. Her head darted about like a great bird, the sheer magnitude of the thoughts running through it too much for its dainty size.
Spotting him amongst the smoke, the woman beamed. "Midoriya!" She chirped from behind her zoom lenses, her face a little demonic coated in soot. "I was wondering when I might see you again. Here for an upgrade?"
Izuku smiled back warmly. She was a little odd, sure, but he was happy to count her as one of his friends. "If I say no, will you give me one anyway?" He mused. The last time she'd installed one of her 'upgrades', it had been a locking mechanism for his helmet so that no one but him could take it off, whether he was conscious or not. She'd had to use a power saw to remove it when the voice control system somehow 'forgot' his voice.
"Probably!" She sang, dialing up the wattage of her smile and moving her lenses to rest atop her head. Weighty looking black bags tugged at the skin underneath her eyes.
Izuku sighed but couldn't find it in himself to be annoyed. Mei's eccentricness was part of the reason she made such a good ally for Jackrabbit and such a good friend for him. She knew who and what he was but supported him anyway, only asking for help testing her babies once in a while. She knew he meant well and he'd never forget that. Plus, it helped that she was probably the single most intelligent person he'd ever met and that her gear was better than what was made at most of the high end support companies.
Izuku made his tentative way towards the woman, doing his best to dissipate the worst of the smoke surrounding her. When he was confident that neither of them were going to choke to death, he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and smiled down at her kindly. "How about this, Mei. I'll let you make whatever changes you want to my stuff, if you promise to eat something, take a shower and get some sleep tonight. Sound fair?"
Mei's ever present grin dropped and Izuku could see the debate raging in her eyes. Her shoulders slumped a fraction and she fixed him with a pout after a few seconds of deliberation. "Fine…" she huffed. "But only a quick nap! I've got too many ideas. Now gimme!" She demanded, holding out her hands. Izuku rolled his eyes fondly and lowered his bag into her expectant arms. She grunted under the weight a little but the manic grin returned in force.
The crazy woman spun on her heels and marched back into the now thinning clouds of smoking debris. "Come! Come! No time like the present!"
Izuku followed cautiously behind, ready for literally anything.
The inside of the workshop was so different from how it had looked the last time Izuku had been there, he began to wonder if Mei had moved to a different building entirely. Benches, cluttered with the corpses of half finished products and the assorted tools of their demise, covered most of the floor space, while the walls of pristine riveted steel were obscured by shelves, laden with all manner of material ready to be warped and shaped at the whims of their mistress. Low hanging, harsh lights illuminated the spaces between the chaos, bathing the shop in a yellow glow that Izuku was sure was bad for the eyes, but then again Mei barely slept anyway, so it was likely her eyes were immune to damage entirely at this point. In one corner, a graveyard of old ideas and failed 'babies' sat, an intimidating mound of wire and metal that was almost as large as the teetering tower of schematics that rested atop the room's sole desk. Cables thick and thin criss crossed the battlefield of a room in a great web of ingenuity and tripping hazards, draping over the wood and metal at random. Izuku felt his life expectancy plummet by virtue of simply being in the room.
He stood still as a statue while Mei floated to one of the benches. Without ceremony, the woman yanked his suit out of the bag and began to examine it under the lens of her quirk enhanced iris, humming a tuneless melody while she worked. Despite the looming threat of death by random malfunction, Izuku couldn't help the smile that grew on him at the sight of Mei Hatsume in her absolute element.
He still remembered fondly the day she'd come across him training in the words near UA, a bomb shaped like a support item in hand. She'd needed a willing test subject and he'd… well he'd been the only person in the immediate vicinity. A match made in heaven. Years may have passed since their days at school but she was still a fast ally, one that Izuku trusted with his life. Beyond that though, there was something about the woman that Izuku couldn't help admire. Her drive and tenacity were unmatched by even some of the greatest heroes and Izuku recognised the fire in her gaze, one that spoke of endless motivation. Motivation to aspire to greater heights within her field, motivation to best the craftswoman she was yesterday and, above even that, motivation to help others. Quite simply: to him, she was a hero, licenses be damned.
Izuku thought back to the conversation he'd had with Ochako just a few weeks prior and smiled.
"I think people can be heroes without necessarily being heroes y'know?"
He was pretty sure she'd been referring to Jackrabbit at the time but Izuku certainly agreed to the sentiment, even if he didn't agree with whom she'd based her point off of. Mei deserved the accolade a lot more than he did, he was sure about that. In fact, without her aid in using Razor's communicator against him, Izuku would never have been able to find the brute in the first place. Those six girls owed Mei their lives and they would never know. It made Izuku sad to think that Mei would never get the credit she deserved all because he worked in the shadows like a coward. Ochako may have rightfully gotten her laurels over the matter, but Mei did not and would never, solely because of him. If that wasn't bad enough, she'd rebuffed every attempt he made at paying her, stating that having him as a human test dummy was more valuable than any amount of money.
Then you should buy her a gift. New tools.
Izuku hummed in agreement with himself and began a steady scan of the woman's workspace, looking for anything that might need replacing.
Before he got too far however, the object of his musings bolted up right, holding aloft his blacked out helmet and turning it over in her hands under the cold burn of the lights. "How's the inbuilt camera holding up? Good quality?" She asked, without looking at him.
"Very good. Even better than my phone," Izuku replied. Another one of Mei's little upgrades. He hadn't asked for it but it had proved useful on a few occasions regardless. She really did think of everything.
A horrid thought crossed Izuku's mind and he almost bit his tongue in half trying to keep it from escaping his mouth. Despite the fact that Mei usually had a way of telling what pieces of equipment he needed without having to be asked, there was one thing that had been festering at the edges of his mind for some time: one tool that he'd conjured up after witnessing Ochakos quirk first hand. He didn't want it, it felt like another betrayal to add to the pile, but logic won in the end. He cringed and swore under his breath. "Hey, Mei?"
"Hmmm?" She hummed, blindly fumbling for the small phillips head that was several inches out of reach. Izuku strolled over, picked up the tool and placed it in her grasping hand. The woman glanced up curiously and fixed him with an inquisitive look.
"Do you think you could make me something like a grappling hook? I want to pull myself towards walls from a distance." Izuku was expecting the questions, well aware that something like that was more in the purview of thieves and the like, but Mei didn't even flinch, her eyes just lit up like distant stars.
A notepad and pen appeared in her hands where Izuku could have sworn she was still holding his helmet, and she paced in a tight circle while doodling furiously. The scratching sounds of sudden inspiration filled the shop and a manic grin pulled at the workwoman's cheeks. Wordlessly, she muttered under her breath, running diagnostics and calculations faster than thought and, after a few moments, she stopped still, spinning her notebook around to face Izuku, the gleam in her eyes going supernova.
Peering at the work, Izuku blinked rapidly and was left speechless. "It's…wow that's exactly what I was looking for. Seriously, how do you do it?" He laughed.
A rough but highly annotated sketch adorned the page, depicting what at first glance looked like a simple pair of elbow length gauntlets but a closer inspection revealed the device's complexity. A tiny four-pronged hook with grooved teeth sat just above the wrist joint, connected to a thousand needle-thin threads of high tensile steel woven together in a matrix that made up the hook's wire, making allowances for both flexibility and strength. If the notes were to be believed, the hook would be under pressure and when activated, would fire from the wrist hole at high speeds pulling the wire along for the ride. When not in use, the wires wrapped around the forearm of the gauntlet acting as a second layer of armor. The new gadget would allow him to anchor himself to any solid surface from a distance and pull himself in even if he were at the mercy of Ochakos quirk.
Izuku smiled grimly. Unfortunately for his conscience, it was perfect.
Mei chuckled. "Ahh Izuku, what have I told you? Predicting the needs of the customer is the inventor's greatest asset," she lectured. With a triumphant grin she snapped the notebook closed and once again, Izuku's gear appeared in her hands. "Now then, I have work to do! Your costume should be ready by tomorrow but the new baby will take a few days," she said, turning back to her bench. Her expert and nimble fingers began to disassemble the reflective helmet into workable pieces and the sound of genius competed with her cheerful humming.
"Mei," Izuku said, sounding for all the world like a teacher who'd just caught his students trying to skip class. The inventor froze on the spot and a shiver of warning shot up her spine. A delicate looking wrench dangled from her statuesque grip. Izuku couldn't help but smile. "You promised," he offered, simply.
Like an oil covered and sleep deprived balloon, Mei deflated, letting the tiny tool slip from her hands and clatter to the bench with a clang. "Izzuuukkuu, you can't just give me an idea then make me stop working on it. That's cruel!" She whined.
The heartless man was unmoved, only offering the poor woman a tilted head and a patient smile. "I'm staying in town for the rest of the week so you've got plenty of time to work on it starting tomorrow. Now go take a bath while I go pick us up some food," he ordered.
With slumped shoulders and a muttering of expletives, Mei pouted, but dutifully marched towards the stairs that lead to her living quarters all the same.
The sounds of clattering and disgruntled mumbling melted from the ceiling of the workshop but Izuku waited to leave until he heard the distinct sound of running water. When he was sure that Mei wouldn't simply slink back down stairs the moment he walked out, the amused man ventured back out into the night in search of somewhere still open for carryout.
Most of an hour later, he returned, two still hot beef bowls in tow. Mei was once again hunched over his gear, fiddling with the interlocking mechanism that made up his steel greaves. For a moment he was suspicious, but as he stood beside her, he could see the distinct lack of oil stains above her brow. She'd held up her promise. It was another fight to get her to stop and actually eat, but after some coaxing with chocolate he'd snagged on his way back from the restaurant, Izuku talked her around.
He spent the rest of the night and even some of the early hours catching up with one of the few he could truly call a friend. It was almost relieving really, to be able to talk to someone without the specter of the mask hanging over his every word.
Food eaten, pleasant conversation shared, Izuku bade his friend a warm farewell with a promise to return in a few days to check up on her progress. While he was almost certain that she wouldn't be going to sleep, he was at least satisfied that she wasn't going to keel over from starvation anytime soon. Laughing to himself at her antics, Izuku plunged once again into the winding streets of the night, this time fortified against the whisperings of his conscience by the bulwark of a steady friend. Phantoms of Ochako and his own vitriolic self hatred would surely meet him with a sinister grin in time but for now, Mei Hatsume's crazed smile and wild eyes held them at bay.