Chapter 12

GREETINGS DESCENDANTS OF THE FUTURE CITIZENS OF SUPER EARTH! IT IS, YOUR LOYAL, PATRIOTIC WATCHER, ZAYDEN STORMVOID, RETURNING FROM THE BRINK ONCE AGAIN TO GIVE YOU ANOTHER CHAPTER OF WELCOME TO THE MCU PHASE 2!

Yeah, it's been a while, and I've had a lot of comments asking if this story was abandoned or not but let me be clear, unless I say it myself in a short chapter, show it in the title, or have one of my family members say it for me if I am otherwise deceased, that this story is not over and will continue unless I say otherwise...or I am dead, whichever comes first. In the event of the latter option, I'll have my family make a statement with an update chapter.

Now, last time, we had the longest prologue leading up to the reactions with Izuku vs Miruko, in a first-to-land-a-hit challenge that had our main protagonist using everything in his arsenal and failing to land a hit, until he said it was Floating time and out-weaved Miruko in the air and landed a Brooklyn Smash into her abdomen. Miruko has noticed that Izuku's new ability is similar to Shimura's Float but has accepted defeat this time and has now taken Izuku under her wing as her protege. Oh, how envious and sympathetic we all are for Izuku. We also had new seating arrangements, Aizawa, Mic, and Midnight were all so depressed that they skipped out on an entire day of school, and Nezu and Hawks had an off-screen talk about the PLF and the Commission that has our rodent principal super antsy to take down the corrupt bastards. We even have tension and conflict within the group as Izuku and Aizawa mirror their counterparts and clash against their ideals of Naivety & Freedom vs Order & Rationality.

As for the first part itself, we had a multitude of new counterparts revealed, including Tokoyami as Falcon, Re-Destro as Pierce, Skeptic as Sitwell, Sliden'Go as the future Crossbones, and Rappa as Batroc the Leaper. We had the beginnings of Rogers's struggles with living in this new world and sadly reminiscing on the past, including visiting an elderly Carter who had almost the whole of the audience in tears, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s corruption, Aizawa's car chase and assassination attempt, and all the Sisterhood girls antsy to show why this story was M-rated.

That was by far the saddest and most tearful chapter I have ever written because I put some of my worries and fears into it. My mother jokes that she is really forgetful and that she might get Alzheimer's when she gets older, but I always secretly hated those jokes, because I fear that she might jinx herself one day. None of our family members have a history of the disease, but with the way my life has been shaping up, and after already losing my grandfather...I really hope that those were jokes, and I even had that represented with Setsuna trying to joke her way out of her feelings when she saw her older self.

And now to respond to some reviews before I start tearing up:

MugiwaraYugo: As a 5'4 man myself, I wouldn't know, I'm already short enough as it is. Secondly, it isn't really super important that Izuku is bigger than canon, I just wanted to show a subtle way how One For All can physically change a person over time. I mean, All Might went from a reasonably tall and average-sized teen into a colossus of a man. Even Shimura was the perfect encapsulation of a 'Dommy Mommy' if you will. It shouldn't be all that surprising that the Quirk is subtly adjusting and growing Izuku's body to better serve as a vessel for all that power. I always assumed that the reason why so many other Fics like having a taller Izuku, other than wanting their main protagonist to not be the second smallest guy in his class. Izuku won't end up growing to an All Might-level size, but a respectable amount would be cool.

DragoonKnight Agnim: Technically, Setsuna was the first of the girls that Izuku admitted to that he liked, but I see what you mean.

CrossoverKing2018: The setup for Melissa and Izuku's talk was all over Iron Man 3. Izuku and Momo fighting together in the first chapter, as well as all his other interactions with the girls, are to slowly build up their eventual confessions and for Izuku to slowly get closer and realize his feelings in full for each of the girls. Apologies if you felt unsatisfied but these chapters and these pairings are designed to be a slow burn and we have like a phase and a half worth of movies left before Izuku wins over all the girls. Plus, Izuku and Momo teaming up was supposed to parody Captain America and Black Widow. Despite Romanoff being Ochaco's counterpart, Momo has the greatest chance of potentially mimicking and implementing Black Widow's and Hawkeye's weapons into her arsenal, as she can legitimately just create Black Widow's Taser Discs, while Izuku showed off what he learned from Cap. The movies and the heroes aren't just meant to inspire and improve their straight-up counterparts, they are also meant to improve all the characters in their own ways, like how Ochaco wants to implement air jets on her boots, something that's more in line with Iron Man than Black Widow, or how Melissa is shaping up to be her own spin on an Iron Man variant despite Bakugou being Tony's counterpart.

Guest: You're right that white hair would have fit with the 'Winter' aspect of the Winter Soldier, but I chose red to be the dye in this case because of the connection to Russia. Red hair, red flag, the 'Reds', the red star on the metal arm. In comparison to Todoroki, it compares toward how his left side, the side with the red hair, the red scar on his face, and the fire aspect of his Quirk, is the side that Todoroki has always had the most conflict with, the side that represents his father and everything he doesn't want to be in a Hero, much like how Bucky grapples with his past as the Winter Soldier. Hell, Bucky when he goes to Wakanda earns the name of 'White Wolf'. Get it?

Wabba: Miruko's not going to be in the harem for a LONG while. I might set up the pieces for it in this story and the sequel for Phase 3 but nothing is going to bear fruit until the sequel story after that, and if I ever get to it, you guys will see why. And for the last time, No one is leaving the 'harem'. I may have said that Izuku would be okay if the girls did move on from him, but that was just to show Izuku's selfless side and to show that he doesn't see the girls as his property or rightfully belonging to him but rather sees them as people that deserve to love whomever they should, and if it just so happens to be him, then he's not going to complain about that.

MadTitan9: Well, thanks for informing me about that, I'll be sure to try and add this info in where I can. As for your earlier review, glad to see that I can add some interesting conflict between characters. I can see why some, if not most, people have such an issue with Aizawa, and learning about the actual social ramifications of expulsion definitely doesn't make him look any better, but I guess, personally, when it came to Aizawa, the worst interaction I had with him was during the Quirk Apprehension Test, and how he treated Izuku in it. Like are you telling me that Izuku somehow was not as good in a grip strength test as Hagakure or Mineta? As far as I'm aware, Hagakure, Mineta, or Koda should have ended up in last since, Mineta was only good in one event, Hagakure and Koda's Quirks wouldn't help them much in any of the others, and Izuku was decent all of them and great in the Ball Toss one. Aizawa clearly picking on Izuku was by far the worst thing Aizawa did for me, but I guess Aizawa's forward progression as a character somewhat blinded me at times similar to how a lot of people like Bakugou and his story and character despite him being a bully, committed suicide baiting, threatening with the use of a Quirk, and almost actually committed murder in the Battle Training Exercise. In a way, I guess I got so used to Aizawa that for my stories I try to fix or improve upon the mistakes and flaws of his character to make him more nuanced and likable, especially with his relationship with Eri, and I hope that I can explore more and deal with Aizawa's issues and mentality. As for Izuku, I already started Izuku's mistrust of Hero Society in Phase 1 with the First Avenger and Avengers, with Izuku's treatment as a dancing monkey and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Phase 2 program, but Winter Soldier is just going to further grow that sentiment that Hero Society and Heroes aren't all that they are cracked up to be. Also, honestly, I made a typo with the E and A in Pokedamia, I have just been rolling with it.

And now the Index:

"Zayden," -Normal Dialogue

'Zayden,' -Internal or Mental Dialogue

"Zayden," -Flashback and Mental Flashback Dialogue

"Zayden," -Dark Shadow, Buff Might, and Movie Dialogue

"Zayden," Comms, PA, and Tv Dialogue

"Zayden," -F.R.I.D.A.Y. Dialogue

"Zayden," -Jarvis & A.I. Dialogue

"Zayden," -Movie Narration Dialogue

"{Zayden}," Movie French Dialogue

And finally, I do not own My Hero Academia, which belongs to Horikoshi, adapted by Bones Studios, and I swear to God, both of them, Horikoshi better not be making Izuku fully Quirkless by the end of the manga or I will find it a bigger disappointment than the Attack on Titan ending, and Bones better deliver with both this 4th movie and the final season. Also, I do not own the MCU or the movies that encapsulate it, those belong to Marvel, who also better start getting their shit together, Disney, who are pretty much a lost cause at this point, and Sony, who should give us the Amazing Spider-Man 3/Venom 3 crossover that we've been asking for, maybe with Black Cat as that Spidey's eventual love interest and all three against the full Sinister Six. Oh, and the works of the movies and all the credit belong to the directors, studios and their workers, and the actors and actresses that made these movies happen.

Now, let's all dive together into the chapter!


Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Part 2: Who Can You Trust?

Third POV

The scene shifted to night in a neighborhood, Izuku Rogers rolling up in his motorcycle, stopping around the curve to his apartment.

"So, that's where Rogers lives?" Mina asked.

"You expected something different?" Shoto questioned, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't know," Mina shrugged. "I just expected for an Avenger, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and Super Soldier like Midori's counterpart to have something a little more, I don't know, personal? Expensive? Secretive? Like Stark's place. I mean what if he gets attacked?"

"Sometimes the most secretive places are the ones you don't expect," Toru pointed out, patting her friend's shoulder. "Like the most obvious and ordinary."

"Young Hagakure speaks true," Toshinori spoke up. "It is often rare for Villains to find and attack a Hero's residence. Not simply because the information is carefully well-hidden, but because they often never expect Heroes to live in residential areas like civilians."

Endeavor blinked and turned inward. The new Number 1 Hero had made a lot of enemies during his time as the Number 2 Hero, and while most of those Villains he had locked up, others persisted in the shadows, often he was made aware by the Commission or his agency of Villains trying to find his home to attack him while his guard was down. All those times went empty for them, and Endeavor and his agency quickly tracked and took them down.

However, his decades-long streak of keeping his family and home safe from Villains had recently ended. 'Ending,' Endeavor thought with a growl. The wrapping-covered Villain had tracked his home down when no others before he succeeded, kidnapped and took his son, Natsuo, hostage, all in a bid to get him to kill the Villain, to finally live up to his name and end it all in the Number 1 Hero's flames.

The memory of his son held hostage by the insane man burned him from the inside, but what fan the flames was one ever-burning question: 'How? How did a man as insane and lost as him find out where I lived? How did he find out?'

Izuku walked up the steps, faintly hearing a voice call out "So sweet. That is so nice."

Izuku perked up, his heart stopping for a split second. 'That voice,' Izuku's eyes widened as he recognized that voice anywhere.

When Izuku reached his floor, he saw his blonde neighbor coming out with a clothes bin and a phone between her ear and shoulder. "Hey," The familiar girl greeted Izuku, who smiled and waved hello as he made his way to his apartment. "I got to go, though. Okay, bye."

Toshinori and David's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.

'That voice. That hair,' David gasped out lightly.

'Could it really be...' Toshinori's jaw dropped.

Izuku turned back to face his blonde neighbor, that blonde neighbor who looked like...

Melissa blinked, mouth opening, and her aqua-blue eyes met her own.

"My aunt," Melissa explained, tossing her phone into the bin. "She's kind of an insomniac."

"MELISSA?!" The students exclaimed surprised.

"Man! No fair! Your counterpart showed up before mine!" Mei pouted, slightly upset that her newly decided best female friend-best male friend reserved for one Izuku Midoriya-showed up in this world before she did and could experience all the crazy, wonderful 'babies' it had to offer.

"And she showed up in Greenie's movie," Setsuna chuckled, a half-smirk rising as her eyes drifted to the surprised girl. "How...convenient."

Izuku and Melissa were likewise taken aback that Melissa's counterpart appeared, but that surprise was only as big because of what happened between the two so recently.

'Just a day after Izu and I finally talked and confessed our feelings for each other, I, or my counterpart, showed up in one of the videos with his counterpart. That can't just be a coincidence, right?' Melissa thought, finding the timing of all this, as Setsuna said, extremely convenient.

However, despite the surprise, Melissa smiled, happy to know that she had a counterpart of her own in this world and that she was fortunate enough to meet the love of her life again in another world far, far away. Absentmindedly, her hand grasped Izuku's, and the green-haired teen locked their fingers together.

Izuku smiled nicely at her, but before she could go, a split second of contemplation sparked in his eyes. "Hey, if you want," Izuku spoke up, stopping the girl in her tracks. "If you want, you're welcome to use my machine. Might be cheaper than the one in the basement."

"Oh, yeah?" The blonde tilted her head, slightly interested. "What's the cost?"

"A cup of coffee?" Izuku asked, smiling anxiously.

"Ooooh!" Mina, Hagakure, and Nejire all cooed in unison, gazing teasingly at the two blushing dorks.

"I must admit. That anxious smile and simple offer do come off rather cute and tempting," Yui admitted, quickly snagging a look to her left.

Shinsou's eyes twitched while his mouth morphed into a frown, his knuckles cracking.

The Melissa-looking girl chuckled, a light blush on her cheeks. "Thank you, but, um, I already have a load downstairs," She explained while a look between understanding and disappointment flashed across Izuku's face. "And you really don't want my scrubs in your machine. I just finished a rotation in the infectious disease ward, so..."

"Ah, well, I'll keep my distance," Rogers raised his hands in surrender.

"Hopefully, not too far," The nurse replied, a smirk on her lips. Izuku smiled back.

If it had been any other time just after she watched the counterpart to one of her best friends get attacked by a metal-armed man, Midnight would be cooing at the adorable flirting between these two. Unfortunately, for the green-haired teen, some of her peers didn't show the same level of restraint.

"Ohohoho! Midoriya! I didn't know you had a type for blondes too!" Pixie Bob daintily placed her hand over her smirking mouth. "Perhaps interested in blonde cat girls, too?"

"Knock it off, Pixie," Mandalay lightly smacked her teammate over the head with an annoyed tone. "I would have thought you would have backed off after seeing Midoriya with Tokage."

"Hey, the more the merrier, right?" Pixie Bob tried to continue her teasing, finally raising her hands in surrender when her leader silently threatened a more forceful hit for her compliance.

"Why is it always the shy ones?!" Mineta wailed, bloody tears shooting from his eyes.

Choosing to ignore the teasing from their peers, Izuku followed his counterpart's example and lightly squeezed Melissa's hand. The blonde American's face grew hotter and brighter, getting the hint before a shit-eating grin spread across her face. She squeezed back, sealing a promise for a coffee. When Izuku finishes what he has to do.

Just as Izuku was about to enter, the nurse said, "Oh, and I think you left your stereo on."

"Oh?" Izuku looked back at his door, now noticing the faint sounds of 1940s music coming from the other end. "Oh, right. Thank you."

"Yeah," The possible Melissa smiled before walking down the stairs.

As soon as she was gone, Izuku's smile dropped to a serious frown, looking toward his door, suspiciously.

"He never leaves his stereo on, does he?" Hawks narrowed his eyes, already knowing the answer.

"Nope, he doesn't," Miruko replied nonetheless, ears twitching as she began paying super close attention to what may be on the other side of the door.

Inside his apartment, the window off-to-the-side opened, the Super Soldier sneaking in just as the music stopped. As he made his way inside, the same 1940s music played, prompting Izuku to hide behind a wall, his shield in hand.

"Smart," Vlad King nodded. "Coming in through the window to sneak in undetected and catch whoever is on the other end off-guard."

"That song sounds familiar," Momo tapped her chin, attempting to remember what it was called.

"I'm disappointed someone as classy as you wouldn't know what the song is, Yaomomo," Kyoka teased, successfully bringing an embarrassed blush to Momo's cheeks. "But anyways, the song's called 'Dream a Little Dream of Me'. It was a song that first came out in 1931, which would make sense why Rogers would have it. It was first produced by Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt, with the lyrics by Gus Kahn and sung by Kathyrn Elizabeth Smith, often referred to as the First Lady of Radio; but it only got its highest-ever success after it was covered more than 30 years later by Ellen Naomi Cohen, or Cass Elliot as she was called, with her group known as the Mamas & the Papas and then later by Anita Harris. The song has had over 400 different recorded versions over the years from other artists like Ella 'Queen of Jazz' Jane Fitzgerald, Morna Anne Moray, Michael Bublé, Blind Guardian and-"

It was only after the 30th tap on her knee from Asui that Jiro snapped out of her fervor, noticing the smiles and smirks from everyone around her that suddenly made her blush crimson. Looking down to see Izuku, she was met with Izuku staring at her, eyes staring whimsically at her, jaw slightly ajar before it turned into a wide grin.

Jiro's blush reached a burning zenith and shrunk into herself, tapping her jacks embarrassingly. "S-Sorry," she apologized.

"No, no, no, it's alright, Kyoka, really," Izuku waved his hands, dismissing her need for an apology. "I didn't know that the song had so much history in it, and, well, it's nice to know more about it since my counterpart seems to like it a lot too, so, thank you, Kyoka."

Jiro stared agape at Izuku, eyes watering as she could feel the sincerity in his voice, the gratitude to be ever closer to his counterpart thanks to her knowledge and ramblings. Blinking away the wetness in her eyes, she smiled prettily as her crush-no-love. "No problem, Green," Jiro replied. "Anytime."

Izuku blushed hard, both at her nickname for him and how dazzlingly beautiful Kyoka Jiro looked when she smiled like that.

Peeking over to where the sound was coming from, he spotted none other than Director Shouta Aizawa lying on the chair next to the record player, gazing at him silently.

"Oh, phew, it's just Mr. Aizawa," Ochaco breathed a sigh of relief. "Or rather Director Aizawa."

"He must have come here after he escaped from the metal-armed assassin," Asui stated the obvious.

Relaxing, Izuku leaned on the corner. "I don't remember giving you a key," Rogers said.

Aizawa grunted as he got up partially. "You really think I'd need one?" Aizawa questioned the Avenger, leaning forward on his knees as he still sat in the partial shadows. "My wife kicked me out."

"Wait, he's married?" Izuku questioned.

"Didn't know you were married," Izuku admitted.

"It never fails to amuse me when you and Baka-go do that, Green Bean," Setsuna shook her head fondly while Izuku blushed.

"HEY!" Bakugou exclaimed, angered by the insulting nickname.

"So, is he married or is he still lying?" Sato asked.

"I rather doubt if he was married and fled to his home first that his wife would chase him out after what happened," Ojiro scratched his cheek.

Aizawa scoffed, finding that, if that situation did occur, he wouldn't blame Emi for...Aizawa blinked, confused about why he suddenly thought of Emi when picturing his hypothetical wife. 'Goddamn crazy woman,' Aizawa cursed to himself, feeling like her constant proposals were starting to get to him.

"But then why lie at all?" Kosei continued the questions while Aizawa dismissed the mere possibility of marrying Ms. Joke. "Why not tell Cap that he was nearly assassinated?"

"A lot of things you don't know about me," Aizawa replied.

"I know, Shouta. That's the problem," Rogers said, moving out of the corner and flipping on the lights. The light of the lamp turned on to reveal Aizawa's bloody cuts and bruises from his earlier altercation. Izuku blinked in shock, but a raised hand from Aizawa, one where he had his phone in hand, halted him before he could let a word out. Shouta turned to the lamp and turned it back off.

Aizawa turned to his phone and typed a message. Izuku looked as Aizawa turned the phone over, the message reading: Ears Everywhere.

"So, he believes he's being watched and listened in on, huh?" Fat Gum frowned.

"Given the day he's had, I would agree with him," Snipe scoffed.

"If he is being watched and listened in on, then the dim lighting and the music were good choices," Ryukyu stated. "The music would make it hard for anyone listening in on what they are talking about, and the dimness masks his wounds and makes targeting him difficult."

Midnight's and Present Mic's nerves only worsened at the thought of Aizawa being still watched, let alone aimed at. 'I have a bad feeling about this,' Mic thought.

Izuku immediately understood, looking around his room for listening eyes or devices. "I'm sorry to have to do this, but I had no place else to crash," Shouta apologized. He turned over his phone with a new message: SHIELD Compromised.

Nezu and Hawks frowned deeply. Of course, they were already on edge at the thought that this top-secret surveillance and paramilitary agency was compromised, but the comparison it invoked only worsened their moods. The Commission, Heroes, and even U.A. itself with its potential traitor, made Nezu's paws crack under the sheer anger he felt. The corruption of the organization meant to serve the public, the bad apples that spit on the name of Heroes for fame, money, and agenda, and that his precious school was plagued by a mole that he, with all his intellect, cannot seem to find, it all cast a shroud of shame and incompetence over him, of how he had failed Hero Society, the civilians, and his students and faculty.

Hawks likewise did his best to keep the rage and anger inside him. Ever since Endeavor freed him from his horrible father, Hawks wanted to be like his Hero, to be one himself, and when the Commission took him in with the opportunity to do that, he took it on as quickly as possible, abandoning the name he shared with his scumbag father and even keeping his distance from a mother that didn't even want him in the first place. He felt under the Commission, the very people who oversaw and supported the Heroes, Hawks would achieve his dream of shining as brightly as Endeavor.

And then, very quickly he found himself not free to pursue his dream, but stuck in another cage, with a new pair of owners who saw him as a prize bird for their own uses. Espionage, sabotage, interrogation that bordered on torture, even assassination, Hawks was no more than their hit man, their puppet. The life he led cast a shadow over the Heroes he once idolized, seeing more and more of the money-hungry, fame-lusting fakes that only took this once noble job for selfish, self-serving reasons. And now, as a puppet for both the League and the Commission, seeing the good and the bad with both sides, his loyalties and friendships tugging at him from all directions, the cage he felt himself trapped in felt more cramped and depressing than ever before. The only thing that shamed him further was the painful fact that he was no more as corrupt and tainted as the rest of them.

Izuku frowned. "Who else knows about your wife?" Cap asked.

Aizawa got up, groggily. He turned the phone over again for the next message: You and Me. "Just...my friends," Shouta revealed.

"Good. Ask a question while hiding the real question in a way only the two of them would understand," Endeavor analyzed.

"So, Rogers and the Director are the only ones that aren't compromised?" Mount Lady asked.

"The only ones Aizawa is 100% sure of," Kamui Woods replied.

"Is that what we are?" Rogers asked further for more info.

Aizawa didn't realize how much that question stung as soon as it came out of Izuku's mouth. Aizawa never pretended to be friendly with his students, he was their teacher, and they were his students, and that was all Aizawa felt they should see each other as, it was the rational way to treat himself and his class. You can't mourn for people you don't have a connection with or be mourned over by people who might even hate you.

But this class of his, this class above all the others did something to him that no other class ever did. He cared about them. He cared about them more than just students or his responsibilities. If Aizawa was bold enough or willing enough to admit it, he saw them like kids of his own. Dramatic? Some of them. Annoying? Most of them. Problematic? Absolutely. but he cared for them nonetheless, they grew on him.

And now to hear the doubt of whether or not Midoriya's and his counterpart were friends stung more than he wanted it to, especially after their little confrontation earlier. Aizawa began to look back at his past actions and wonder about the actual rationality of them, and whether or not the rest of his class felt any different.

'I wouldn't blame them,' Aizawa thought, his previous attempts of deceit and manipulation finally coming to bite him in the ass.

"That's up to you," Aizawa replied.

A second later, a gunshot is heard and blasting through the wall behind him, a bullet shot through Aizawa's chest. "AAH!"

"NO!" Class 1-A, in unison with Midnight and Mic, exclaimed.

Two more sniper shots were fired, once more piercing through the wall and finding their target. Said target fell to the floor, groaning and sputtering in pain.

All Might's fists cracked; his jaw clenched tightly while fury burned within him. This was the USJ all over again, himself not around to help his students and peers, arriving late and finding Aizawa beaten within an inch of his life by the Nomu. Now, here he was again, standing on the sidelines, unable to help or do anything to save Aizawa's counterpart.

Eri immediately clasped her hands over her mouth, trying in vain to keep her gasps and sobs in while tears began to flow from her eyes. 'No, no, no, no, no, no! Not Grunkle Aizawa! Not him too!' Eri whimpered, remembering how Sir Nighteye was badly wounded trying to save her, how Mirio lost his Quirk trying to save her, how Papa risked his life to save her, and now, seeing Grunkle Mic's counterpart killed by Loki, Uncle Shoto's falling to his death, and now this...Eri tossed herself on her Papa's chest, trying to shake the horrible images from her mind.

Midnight's world began to crumble around her. All around her, she could envision Shirakumo's body crushed to death by rubble, his counterpart, for as evil as he was, crushed under his ship, and Agent Yamada stabbed in the back by Loki. Now, counterpart or otherwise, seeing those bullets pierce through Aizawa, and how easy it was to replace the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. with her kouhai. Midnight broke down.

Izuku got down to help him, looking around for a shooter. He found them in a reflection outside his window: The same dark armored assassin, his left side revealing more of his metal arm, with a red star on the shoulder.

A horrible weight crashed all over Mic when the bullets pierced through the Director. Sound became void, everything around him vanished, and all that was left was himself and his best friends dying in front of him. Shirakumo and the rubble, Shouta pierced by bullets, he even imagined a what if where Kayama's counterpart was crushed and buried from when the Tesseract collapsed that base in the Avengers. All around him, he felt his friends dying, and he couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. And then, he saw him, that assassin with the metal arm shooting Aizawa dead, and he wasn't alone. He saw Doctor Garaki standing over Shirakumo's corpse as he deformed it into Kurogiri and Loki standing atop the rubble that Kayama was buried under laughing. With that, a new feeling overtook the sadness and the pain: sheer, unbridled rage.

The U.A. teacher wasn't alone in his anger. Izuku did his best to comfort the whimpering Eri, but she was the only thing keeping him from exploding into the same furious state he was in when Dr. Erskin was shot or when Shoto fell from the train. Izuku was full of rage and hatred, for himself for not pulling Aizawa away fast enough, for not using that shield and blocking those bullets like it was supposed to do, and for that assassin for attacking his teacher and making Eri cry.

The rest of his class joined him in the fury. While some of them were simply frozen in shock and disbelief, from Mineta, Aoyama, and Asui, or too busy letting tears fall from their eyes, those being Hagakure, Momo, and Mina, the rest gazed at the screen and assassin with eyes like daggers. Fire sprouted on the left of Todoroki's enraged face, Iida gained a furious look he hadn't shown since Stain, Bakugou's hands were a constant crackle of mini-explosions while the ash blonde teen had pure fury written on his face.

The most furious of them were Ochaco and Shinsou. The chestnut-haired girl looked about ready to commit murder, her fingers twitching while the beads on her tips throbbed and seemingly pulsed. That assassin just shot her teacher, her counterpart's boss, both versions had taken both of hers under their wings, shielding them from danger, teaching and guiding her. She began to imagine something she never did before: how high the man had to be before releasing him to the ground would crack his skull.

And, finally, with Shinsou, he once almost let himself think of the most horrendous orders he could order for that man with his Quirk. Just like Ochaco and her counterpart, Director Aizawa was his boss, someone who trusted him and let him off the hook after his brainwashed actions. But more importantly, this was the counterpart of his mentor, his teacher, the man who saw something in him to train personally, to take him under his wing and teach him how to fight as he does. In all honestly, the man was now like a father figure to him; and that assassin crossed a line when he shot him.

Rogers dragged Aizawa's body out of the line of fire as he continued to sputter and cough. Before Izuku could go, Aizawa grabbed Izuku's arm, forcing the Super Soldier to face him. Releasing his arm, he showed what was in the hand: the drive.

"It's the drive he got from Romanoff," Vlad King growled, fury still burning in him seeing his colleague, and sometimes rival teacher, be shot at.

As the captain took it, Director Aizawa sputtered out "Don't...trust...anyone..."

Izuku's eyes momentarily lost their fury, replaced by surprise. The green-haired teen didn't know why those words struck a chord within him as they did. Maybe it was because it came from Aizawa? No, Izuku knew, he just didn't want to admit it. Looking down at his hand, he thought of the one thing he kept secret from everyone, from his class, his friends.

'One For All,' Izuku thought. Izuku remembered All Might's words about keeping this power secret, of the consequences that would occur if the world knew about the Quirk that could be transferred to others. Only a short handful of people know about it, and only two did he ever tell the truth about it: Aizawa and Melissa. Bakugou discovered it for himself, and he and All Might just confirmed it. Nezu, Recovery Girl, Gran Torino, Sir Nighteye, and Tsukauchi knew from All Might before. Aizawa and Melissa were the only ones he ever told the truth about his Quirk, and the former was mainly out of obligation, demand, and with the help and consent of All Might and Nezu. Melissa was the only one he ever willing told in full, and that was because she needed to know about it. Not even Setsuna or the rest of the girls knew about the secret Quirk.

Hearing Aizawa say those words almost seemed like a slap to his face, how he was friends, best friends even, with all his classmates, how in love he was with the girls, how trusted and loved he was by his mom, Eri, and Kouta, and yet he hadn't ever told them his biggest secret, gave them his greatest show of trust by revealing to them the truth behind his Quirk, and a part of him still felt in the right of it.

He couldn't tell Eri and Kouta, they wouldn't fully understand, and they were too young to have such a burden of secrecy put on them. He had no prior obligation to tell the truth to the teachers or his Hero mentors who didn't know, like Endeavor and now Miruko, and Izuku hadn't spent enough time with them to prove they were trustworthy. But his classmates, his friends, these people he shared unbreakable bonds of friendship and even love with? Hell, he hasn't even told his own mother. He felt ashamed and dishonest.

And yet Aizawa's words still rang in his head, along with that ever-constant question: 'Can I risk it? Can I risk dragging them into this secret, knowing that I could put them in danger? Or am I just making excuses because I can't trust them or anyone?' Izuku didn't know the answer, and he didn't know if he wanted to know it.

A repeated loud banging on his door brought Rogers's attention before the door was broken down. As Izuku hid behind a corner, he heard the nurse's voice call out to him. "Captain Rogers?"

Izuku peeked out to see that the blonde nurse held a gun in her hand. Izuku peeked out further, shocked. "Captain, I'm Agent 13 of S.H.I.E.L.D. Special Service," The nurse revealed her true identity.

"Kate?" Izuku questioned, confused.

"Melissa," The blonde corrected him. "I'm assigned to protect you."

"MULTIVERSAL COUNTERPART DETECTED!" F.R.I.D.A.Y. showed both versions of Melissa together. "AGENT MELISSA AKA AGENT 13! MULTIVERSAL COUNTERPART: MELISSA SHIELD!"

"Woah, so Melissa's counterpart is actually a super spy?" Setsuna blinked, surprised. "Badass."

Melissa looked over to Izuku, but no words came out of her mouth before Izuku intervened. "I know, you don't have to say anything or apologize," Izuku replied. "You aren't responsible for your counterpart and what she does, nor could she tell me. It wouldn't be the only one of us to keep secrets."

Melissa immediately understood what that last whispered part meant and nodded, smiling relieved. But as she turned back to the screen, Izuku's eyes drifted down, Aizawa's words echoing again. Not to distrust Melissa or his classmates, but what else was being kept secret from his counterpart.

"On whose order?" Rogers questioned as Melissa passed him.

The secret agent paused as she made out the body on the floor. "His," Melissa revealed.

"That would explain why Shield's counterpart was just randomly his next-door neighbor," Mount Lady hummed.

"Well, it only seemed off to us but to them, Rogers would imagine they were just random strangers to each other," Death Arms argued.

"Regardless, this could be the countermeasure or means of security that Aizawa implemented to safeguard or keep an eye on Rogers," Kamui Woods stated.

"Whether it is obvious or not, it does make sense," Mirio pointed out. "Melissa SHIELD. Melissa as an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Eh? Get it?"

The group, including Melissa, just stared at Mirio blankly.

"Well, I thought it was funny," Mirio chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck.

Crouching down and feeling his pulse, while Izuku watched, Melissa brought out her radio. "Foxtrot is down, he's unresponsive," Melissa called it in. "I need EMTs.

"Do we have a 20 on the shooter?" The dispatcher on the other end questioned.

Izuku Rogers peeked back out to see the assassin fleeing. "Tell him I'm in pursuit."

Izuku remembered Dr. Erskine being shot by the HYDRA agent, and how he ran while his counterpart was off-guard. It felt like history repeating itself. 'You're not getting away either,' Izuku declared internally, rage and determination returned to his eyes as, if history had to repeat itself, it would repeat in him catching the assassin.

Immediately, the Super Soldier jumped out his window, shield first, sailing toward the building across the street, crashing through the window of a lower floor. Izuku got up and ran. Looking up, and as tense, ominous chase music played, Rogers saw the red-haired assassin running on the rooftop.

Kyoka flinched at the high-pitched tone of the theme.

"Kyoka, are you alright?" Momo asked, worried. "Do you need us to lower the volume?"

"Nah, nah, I'm good, it just caught me off-guard for a second," Kyoka eased Momo's concerns. Truthfully, Kyoka was more worried about why the music felt so familiar or sounded like a high-pitched scream.

Rogers crashed through a door, hopped off a wall and onto and off a desk to not lose momentum, and crashed through a glass door, and through another wooden door, running past room after office room. He slammed into the wall, his shield leaving a large crack, and ran to the right.

"I'd hate to be the office workers of that place when they came in the morning to find the place wrecked, heh," Awase rubbed the back of his neck.

"Uh, dude, no offense, but now may not be the time for jokes," Sen gestured toward Class 1-A who were taking the shooting of the teacher's counterpart incredibly seriously. Not even Kaminari had the energy or drive to lighten the mood, choosing to instead stare at the screen with surprising seriousness.

"Oh...um, s-sorry," Awase apologized.

"It's fine," Shoji accepted the apology. "It's not you we are angry at."

Bursting past the doors and down the long hallway, Izuku saw the assassin jump off the roof and onto the rooftop in Rogers's path. Izuku crashed through the window and onto the roof where the assassin kept running. Captain America finally tossed his shield at the assassin.

But then, the assassin turned around and grabbed the shield with one metal hand.

Eyes widened to dinner plate sizes. Mei stared shocked that the assassin easily caught the powerful, beautiful shield, and equally terrified that he would steal it now that it was in his metal grasp.

Izuku felt the same, almost violated by someone else, this assassin, holding his shield. Izuku nearly compared it to the thought of losing One For All to All For One or Shigaraki...and that thought disgusted him almost as much as it horrified him.

Izuku stared, shocked and panting at the metal-armed assassin, the assassin's left side of his face hidden by his red hair. A patch of war paint over what little Izuku could see of that side, and his right dark grey eye, was likewise painted over.

And yet, Izuku couldn't help but blink at the sudden feeling of...familiarity? 'W-Why do I feel like I know him?'

Enji Todoroki too felt the same, a splash of the same reaction dousing over his face as he blinked. It was this same familiarity he felt when he saw Touya...Endeavor shook his head, pushing those horrible memories from his consciousness, unwilling to face them in full yet. Or the haunting feeling that there was a reason for this happening again.

Shoto felt the same as he gazed into the assassin's gray eye, both the glare and the eye color rather familiar, but the white-and-red-haired teen couldn't, for the life of him, figure out why.

Pony even blinked, suddenly finding herself interested in the assassin. Not romantically, God no, not after what he did with Director Aizawa, but something of that assassin was ringing a bell in her brain but she couldn't figure out what or why.

The metal-armed assassin tossed the shield back at Rogers, Izuku catching it in hand but pushed back at the force behind the throw.

Izuku, Mei, and Melissa let out a sigh of relief they didn't know they were holding. Izuku even allowed a split-second flow of One For All to go through, as if to remind himself he still had the Quirk inside him, safe and sound.

"That is concerning," Iida muttered.

"That the assassin could catch Deku's shield?" Ochaco asked.

"Not just that, but the strength behind the assassin's throw," Iida mentioned. "Where Midoriya -sorry, Rogers- threw the shield, the assassin easily caught it with no issue, but when he threw it back at Rogers, the captain was forced back."

"I see," Itsuka frowned. "You're saying that the assassin might be just as strong if not stronger than Cap?"

"I am unsure. I don't have all the variables to conclude that theory, but it is a concerning possibility," Iida shook his head.

The Avenger slid to a halt, looking at his shield before back to where the assassin jumped off. Izuku ran and jumped onto the edge, looking out at the neighborhood below but finding no trace of the assassin, as if vanishing into thin air.

"Dammit! He got away!" Kirishima cursed, frustrated.

"He managed to vanish in that split second Rogers took his eyes off him," Sero frowned. "I would be impressed if I weren't so angry."

"Goddammit, Deku!" Bakugo barked in rage. "Your Shitty Ass let him get away! What do you have to say for your-"

Bakugo was cut short when Izuku whirled his eyes to meet his, and Bakugou was left frozen by what he saw. Izuku looked back at him more offended and angrier than he ever had been before, almost like he talked shit about his mother. "Not. Another. Word." Izuku growled out, a spark of green bioelectricity briefly illuminating his form, only adding to the menace behind his glare.

This uncharacteristic anger was even more unsettling than when Midoriya snapped at Mineta for perving on the girls. This was actual malice and hatred, two things that the group never thought they would see in Midoriya, or even want to see in him ever. Even the girls weren't turned on by this confident side of him, they were more worried, and afraid. Even All Might looked unsettled by it.

"Tsk," Bakugo made a noise with his mouth and turned away once he regained his fire though he didn't respond to Midoriya, who just looked back at the screen, not bothering to look at anything or anyone else.

Izuku looked around, frowning as the assassin had gotten away.

A black car rolled up by the hospital, Ochaco Romanoff stepped out of the car in a hurry. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent rushed throughout the hospital, finding and entering the room on the other side of an operation room. Izuku Rogers stood there as the doctor and nurses operated on Shouta Aizawa.

"And here we go," Rin muttered quietly, almost bracing himself for the roller coaster of emotions among the group.

Izuku and Ochaco, without looking, clasped hands, the latter having enough sense to leave one pinkie out, not wanting to cancel Deku's gravity by accident. Setsuna clasped her hands over theirs while Melissa and Eri took Izuku's right one. The same action was done with many of Class 1-A, clinging onto whoever was nearest to them and those from 1-B near them doing their best to show the same support. Yui looked over to see Shinsou's miserable face, hating that she had to sit so far away from him to show him the same support that even Monoma displayed.

Midnight and Mic held hands, pouring out their hope that Aizawa would make it, yet equally bracing for what they dreaded was the inevitable. While Ryukyu comfortingly clasped Midnight's other hand, Mic placed his other hand on top of Aizawa's kneecap. Yamada knew his best friend wasn't one for handholding unless it was with Eri, and not even his own death was the exception that broke that unstated rule. The best he could do without sparking a negative reaction out of his friend was a rare hug or this, and he respected that and did as such. He couldn't be there for Shirakumo when he died, there wasn't even a Shirakumo here to comfort when his counterpart died, not as he once was anyway, but he would be there for Shouta, his best friend. It was the only thing he felt he could do.

It was a strange thing for Shouta to see himself being operated on. He was, obviously, not as attentive during the operation after his injuries sustained by the USJ Nomu, but still, to see himself on what could be his deathbed was surreal. He knew that he couldn't somehow wish that his counterpart would make it, the universe, or rather multiverse, was too unforgiving and merciless for that. Instead, his only demand would have been, survive or not, for the students and Eri to not see this. Sadly, Reality was, as ever, disappointing.

A shocked Ochaco let out a gasp at Aizawa's condition. "Is he gonna make it?" Romanoff asked.

"Please make it. Please make it," Hagakure whimpered.

"I don't know," Izuku responded, the two gazing at the heart monitor showing his vitals and the blood and work of the doctor and nurses.

A part of Izuku hated that he had to be honest with his response, but then it would have been worse if he lied, especially to Eri as she was now.

"Tell me about the shooter," Ochaco inquired.

"He's fast. Strong," Izuku recounted the assassin who caught his shield easily. "Had a metal arm."

At his description, the brows on Ochaco's face raised, her lips parting slightly, and remembrance in her eyes before she schooled her features.

Hawks noticed the reaction on Romanoff's face, his eyes narrowing. 'Hmm. Now what can you be hiding now, Agent Romanoff?' Hawks pondered to himself.

Joining the two was Agent Nemuri Kayama, gazing at her boss and friend, with even the normally schooled and serious agent shocked.

Nemuri sniffled and shuddered, her counterpart's emergence reminding her that Aizawa called for her just before those faux policemen attacked him; how she wasn't able to be there when he needed her.

Unable to take this anymore, Mount Lady got off her seat and crouched to Midnight's feet. She placed her hand gently over Midnight's and Ryukyu's. Noticing the gesture, Midnight looked at Mount Lady's sad, genuine eyes. No words were spoken between the two rival heroines, but they didn't need to, their eyes already told enough. Kayama sniffled and nodded in thanks. Takeyama nodded back.

"Ballistics?" Ochaco inquired further, this time to Kayama.

Kayama shook her in response. "Three slugs, no rifling. Completely untraceable," The agent informed the two.

"A true professional," Snipe muttered. "And a dangerous one at that."

"Soviet-made," Romanoff recognized.

Nemuri looked to Ochaco, surprised at her accurate assessment. "Yeah," Nemuri nodded.

Izuku frowned. 'She knows him,' Izuku realized, not realizing until Ochaco's breath hitched from his hand's grip on Ochaco's slacking. Deku immediately rectified his mistake, squeezing her hand back to the same comforting grip he had displayed before, Ochaco's hand squeezing back in response.

Izuku almost shook his head, chastising himself for that momentary lapse. Ochaco wasn't at fault for the actions of her counterpart, as they have repeatedly told themselves by now but, in that instant, Aizawa's words came up again and he found his trust in Ochaco Romanoff momentarily shaken. The spy had already kept secrets from his counterpart during that rescue mission and now she knows who the assassin is but isn't saying anything. Izuku felt suspicious of Romanoff and almost took it out on Ochaco. Izuku didn't think he would find a more horrible way to treat a friend, much less someone he loved.

Suddenly, the heart monitor began to beep loudly and dangerously, causing the doctor and nurses to rush into further action, drawing Izuku's, Ochaco's, and Nemuri's attention. "He's in V-Tach," A male nurse warned.

"Crash cart coming." "Nurse, help me with the drape." "BP's dropping." "Defibrillator!" The nurses and doctor shouted among each other while the three watched. Behind them, Rumlow and Sitwell joined in, watching the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. dying.

Nezu narrowed his eyes. 'If there are two in all of S.H.I.E.L.D. that could be turned, it's them,' Nezu thought as he looked at the counterparts of the PLF's Skeptic and Sliden' Go. 'One could have organized the group of men that attacked Aizawa in his car and the other could have used his networking and hacking skills to lock the Director out of his system.'

The nurses and doctor had pulled away the blue sheets to reveal Aizawa's bare bloody chest. "I want you to charge at 100," The doctor ordered.

"Don't do this to me, Shouta," Ochaco pleaded quietly.

The strength in Ochaco's grip grew and Izuku was there to meet it. The girl was almost in tears, silently begging for her teacher's counterpart to make it.

"Stand back," The doctor warned, rubbing the defibrillators. "Three. Two. One. Clear." The doctor pressed the defibrillators onto Shouta's chest, the electrical charge attempting to restart his heart.

Kaminari flinched as looked at his hands, silently cursing that he wasn't there to help. With his Electrification Quirk, he was a living defibrillator; he could shock as much juice as he needed to jumpstart his teacher's heart. Instead, he was stuck here, sitting on a bean bag, completely worthless. 'Not like that's anything new, huh,' Kaminari reprimanded himself, thinking of all the times he became useless to his friends after one all-out blast.

"Pulse?" "No pulse," A male nurse reported, while Nemuri did her best to blink away any wetness in her eyes, while all Izuku and Ochaco could do was watch silently.

Recovery Girl sighed heavily; years of situations similar to this weighed on her old heart. The worst was poor Toshinori after the battle that gave him that horrible scar, she had never seen anyone as badly wounded as the Number 1 Hero back then or as surprised when the man held the strength to live on with no stomach and only half his lungs.

Recovery Girl wanted to believe that if a man could come back from that, then surely Aizawa's counterpart could too, but she knew better. It is never in one who worked and fought as hard against death to get their hopes up. Death was a cruel and fickle mistress and showed no favor or kindness to anyone, and so the old pro braced herself for the worst, as she had done with other patients and Heroes in the past.

"Okay, 200, please," The doctor ordered to raise the voltage. "Stand back! Three. Two. One. Clear!" As the second attempt failed to facilitate a response, Kayama's and Romanoff's demeanors cracked further with dejection and desperation. Even Rogers was in disbelief at this happening.

Mirio's constant smile was long gone, and it only was worse here. Seeing Aizawa like this brought him back to the hospital after the Hassaikai raid, to seeing Nighteye so wounded, missing an entire arm and a hole through his stomach. It was clear his mentor wasn't long for this world. And yet the last thing Sir did was use his Quirk one final time and claim that he was going to be an amazing Hero. Mirio worked hard every day to ensure Sir's final Foresight was right, but to see another of his teachers like this, Mirio had to look away. He was grateful Nejire and Tamaki were here to support him before he broke.

"Get me epinephrine!" The doctor yelled. "Pulse?" The doctor and nurses looked at the heart monitor. All the vitals flatlined.

Eri hated that noise, she hated it more than anything in the world. She remembered it every time Overhaul cut her apart, bit by bit, piece by piece until her body couldn't take it and gave out...only for Chisaki to bring her back to repeat the cycle. Eri heard herself flatline more times than she could remember or count, and now here it was again, only this time it was the flatline of someone she loved and cherished, and she hated it more than ever.

Eri's horn glowed momentarily before it ceased. She could feel her Quirk cut off before it could activate fully. She knew the one person who could make that happen was still looking after her, even as his other self was dying in front of his eyes. Eri's tears only grew worse.

"Negative," One of the nurses reported.

"Don't do this to me Shouta. Don't do this to me," Ochaco repeated like a mantra, begging the man to live.

One by one, the shoulders of the U.A. teachers began to slump, accepting mournfully the outcome staring at them in the face. Hound Dog looked more furious than ever, and Thirteen and Ectoplasm looked particularly, the former weighed down as she recalled the bodies of disaster victims that she was too late to save, and the latter from yet another death of someone close to him or counterpart that he wasn't there to help. Snipe took his cap off and placed it over his heart, Cementoss clasped his hands together and bowed in prayer, Power Loader sighed in defeat and hung his head downwards, and Vlad King growled in anger before calming down and placing a fist over his heart and bowing.

Finally, Nezu frowned blankly and passively at the screen, though anyone who knew the Principal of U.A. could tell from his stuck-up tail and cold anger in his black eyes that he was downright furious.

The doctor went to Shouta, attempting to feel a pulse. After moments of silence with nothing, with Kayama unable to let a tear or two fall, Izuku lowered his head, walking away. Just as he did, the doctor asked, "What's the time?"

Kayama could not stop the particularly loud sob. Mic slumped in his sleep, looking dead inside himself, realizing what Aizawa must have felt like when watching Agent Yamada die.

And as for Aizawa, he didn't bother to look, he knew it was going to happen. The only thing his red glowing eyes were focused on was Eri, disabling her Quirk. He was sure his counterpart would say it was the rational thing to do.

"1:03, Doctor," The female nurse reported. Kayama lowered her head and walked away, leaving Ochaco there alone.

Ochaco's and Shinsou's eyes were shadowed over, tears rolling down their cheeks.

"Time of death, 1:03 a.m." The doctor called it. Romanoff stared blankly at Shouta's dead body.

The atmosphere was at an all-time low, the only events to have matched it being Agent Yamada's death and Izuku Rogers's presumed death. All that was felt was sadness, pain, helplessness, and rage.

Finally, a voice cut through the moping. "Enough," Aizawa spoke up, glaring down everyone. "You are all acting irrationally. My counterpart may be dead but that's it, it happened, moping won't bring back the dead." Aizawa ignored the irony of his statement, knowing one of his best friends may have been brought back from the dead, but he wasn't himself. "Now, the important thing left to do is find whoever this metal-armed assassin is and uncover what my counterpart was trying to discover."

Silence met him but after a few moments, the students nodded in response, sending one last look of apology and sympathy to which Aizawa decided to accept it, ignoring another thing that became apparent: that his class does care about him. He can at least put that nonsensical worry to rest,

Izuku lifted Eri to Aizawa with Black Whip and the insomniac teacher braced himself for the tightest hug he ever received from the white-haired girl. He hated hugs, but whatever he could do to be there for Eri was worth the hassle.

Halting in his tracks at another part of the hospital, Izuku looked down at the drive Shouta gave him.

While most of the students recovered from their lapse of grief, Izuku stared on with hardened, cold, angry eyes. 'If it's the last thing I do, I will finish what Director Aizawa started,' Izuku thought. 'He trusted me to do it.'

Izuku found himself with Ochaco in a hospital room, Aizawa's corpse draped enough to show his head and shoulders, the latter of the two looking down at her boss with arms crossed and a frown. Izuku lowered his head, while Ochaco's eyes were watery, her breathing audible and angry.

Kayama came up beside Rogers. "I need to take him," Nemuri said. Izuku looked at her and agreed silently. The Super Soldier walked toward his fellow Avenger, while Kayama blinked more tears away.

'I always thought it would be you boys that would be crying over my death, not the other way around,' Kayama bitterly joked, a tremendous irony that she, the eldest of her friends, would, in a way, be the last one standing.

"Ochaco," Izuku whispered, a tear falling from the Russian agent's eye. Finally, Ochaco placed a hand on Aizawa's forehead before marching out of the room.

"H-He must have really meant a lot to Romanoff," Kyoka sniffled, wiping away her tears, trying to recompose her cold tomboy persona.

"Romanoff said that it was Barton who gave her a chance to join S.H.I.E.L.D. instead of killing her, but Director Aizawa must have been the one to take her in when no one else would," Asui croaked, a hand placed over Ochaco's shoulder.

Ochaco sniffled and wiped her tears away, nodding in thanks to Asui. 'He trusted me enough to allow me to join S.H.I.E.L.D. I owe him,' Ochaco thought, as she stared ahead with a fire in her eyes. 'Now, it's time for me to return the favor.'

Izuku marched after her. "Ochaco!" He called out to her, the hallway filled with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, in uniform and out, police, and doctors.

Romanoff stopped and turned toward him. "Why was Aizawa in your apartment?" The agent questioned him.

Izuku tensed, wondering what his counterpart would do and what he would do in this situation. Would he trust Ochaco? Yes, in a heartbeat. But would he trust Agent Romanoff, master spy, assassin, and liar? He wanted to believe that he would. They saved the world from an alien invasion. But shamefully, Izuku didn't know.

Izuku sighed and dropped his arms against his legs in emphasis. "I don't know," Rogers lied.

"Why wouldn't he trust her with the truth?" Pony asked, slightly upset. "They saved the world together!"

"He's adhering to the Director's final words," Reiko pointed out. "Trust is a precious thing that cannot be taken for granted now."

"Plus, even if he were to tell her, it might not be the best time with all the ears around them that could hear them," Setsuna gestured to the multiple SHIELD agents, doctors, and police all over the place.

"Cap," Izuku turned around to see Rumlow calling to him. "They want you back at S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Like that one," Setsuna pointed out, a bad feeling welling up in her gut.

"Yeah, give me a second," Izuku tried to wave him off.

"They want you now," Rumlow insisted.

"He seems pretty insistent," Jurota growled suspiciously.

"All hands for whomever just got a red flag vibe from this guy?" Kaminari asked, raising his hand.

Immediately, every hand in the room was raised. Hawks smirked pettily, glad that everyone could see Sliden' Go's counterpart for the traitorous snake he was; just like their version was.

Looking at the agent for a second, Izuku nodded. "Okay." Satisfied enough, Rumlow nodded and turned back toward the group of geared-up agents behind him.

Izuku turned back to Ochaco. "You're a terrible liar," Ochaco accused him, before walking away.

"Yep, if there's one thing that Midoriya kind of sucks at, it's hiding secret," Kirishima smirked.

That comment and its ultimate falsehood was like a punch to the gut to Midoriya. Melissa and Bakugou looked at Izuku, one visibly concerned about him and the other doing his best to look as neutral as possible. Deku nodded to both of them, telling them silently that he was okay. Both Melissa and Bakugou could see the blatant lie but said nothing in reply, while Melissa opted to continue holding Izuku's hand.

Meanwhile, with Bakugo, he opted to smack Kirishima on the back of the head.

"Ow! What was that for, bro?" Kirishima questioned.

"The nerd's already mad as is for failing to get that assassin and Aizawa's death, you really want him to snap at you by pointing out his faults?" Bakugo responded.

Kirishima wanted to say that admitting one's flaws would be a sign of manliness and Midoriya is not one for getting angry over pride, but the sharp glare of Bakugou's made Kirishima shut his mouth.

Bakugo sighed, slightly annoyed that he had to fight the nerd's battle for him all to keep One For All safe before the nerd cracked under the guilt. Speaking of which, Bakugo wasn't blind to see that Melissa looked at Izuku just like he did, remembering that the nerd talked alone with her last night. Putting the pieces together, Bakugo realized that Deku must have told Shield about One For All, which was possible, she was Quirkless much like himself, she was All Might's surrogate niece and goddaughter, and he figured if there was one girl the nerd would spill beans to about the Quirk, other than Pink Cheeks, it was her.

"That was nice of you, sticking up for your friend like that," Bakugo heard Ibara speak and looked at her smiling proudly at him.

The old Bakugou would have made a dismissive comment or denied that Deku was in any way his friend, but to Ibara, he said, "Nerd's not in the right head space," Bakugo replied, looking away. "Didn't want Shitty Hair making things worse before his hardhead says something he'd regret and making things a headache for me."

Ibara rolled her eyes, yet still smiled. "Brood all you wish, but it was still a noble act," Ibara scooted closer to him and rubbed his thigh gently. "Mayhap that is deserving of an award come our date night."

Bakugou stiffened to that of a statue. 'Shit...I should stick up for Shitty Deku more often.'

Izuku was left alone in the hallway while agents walked past him, a man attending to the vending machine beside the captain. "S.T.R.I.K.E. team, escort Captain Rogers back to SHIELD immediately for questioning," Sitwell's voice could be heard from an earpiece. Rogers placed his hand on his hips, contemplating what to do as he overheard the agent.

"Questioning?" Mina raised an affronted eyebrow. "Why are they treating him like he's guilty of something?"

"Rogers was the last to be seen with Director Aizawa before his fatal injury," Detective Tsukauchi replied. "It is just standard investigation procedure, don't you worry." Yet despite his words, Tsukauchi couldn't help but shake his own suspicions.

"I told him," Izuku heard Rumlow reply. Looking around, the First Avenger's gaze fell upon the vending machine. Rogers's face lit up.

"Ooh, it's the Midoriya-idea face!" Kaminari exclaimed.

"W-What?" Izuku stuttered, surprised. "I don't make an 'idea face'."

"Deku, Deku, Deku," Uraraka sighed and patted his hand as warmly as she could. "You do."

Izuku pouted, an embarrassed sweat drop rolling down his head.

The next thing the audience saw was Rogers striding toward Rumlow. "Let's go," Izuku said.

"Yeah," Rumlow nodded and followed right along with Rogers. "S.T.R.I.K.E., move it out."

As they all began leaving the hospital, the scene shifted toward the vending machine. The vending machine guy secured it shut, the camera zooming in on 5-10, showing the drive tucked secretly behind the gum.

"Ooooh, I like Spy Greenie," Setsuna grinned, delighted, and maybe slightly aroused.

Even as his face burned from embarrassment, Izuku wrote down discreetly in his notes.

It was dawn as the helicopters patrolled around the Triskelion. Izuku Rogers, in his suit, turned the corner to see Kat-Agent Melissa conversing with Pierce. As they finished their talk, the now-revealed agent greeted him. "Captain Rogers."

"Neighbor," Was all Captain Rogers said to her as they passed each other. Melissa looked back at the angry Super Soldier before walking away herself.

Mineta and Kaminari hissed. "Awkward," Mineta cringed.

Izuku tried not to feel like a broken record by squeezing Melissa's hand to silently tell her that he wasn't angry at her and that her counterpart was doing her job, like with Uraraka. Izuku wanted to be angry at his counterpart for showing such anger or mistrust toward the girls' counterparts. Then again, he wasn't the Izuku currently in the middle of some internal conspiracy where he worked, having to figure out who to trust.

"Oh, Captain, I'm Alexander Pierce," Pierce greeted Captain Rogers.

"Sir, it's an honor," Rogers shook his hand.

"The honor's mine, Captain," Pierce replied. "My father served in the 101st. Come on in." The two walked into his office.

"Oh, so does that mean his dad fought alongside Rogers in the war?" Kirishima asked.

"Or he was simply one of the men the captain liberated from the first HYDRA base he raided," Death Arms answered.

"That photo was taken five years after Shouta and I met when I was at State Department in Bogota," Pierce revealed as Izuku looked at a photo of a younger Pierce and Shouta Aizawa, the latter's left eye still intact.

"Yeah, without the eyepatch you look-er I mean, looked just like him, man," Mic nervously chuckled, though the grin failed as his correction quickly reminded him of his best friend's counterpart's fate.

Aizawa noticed the slip-up too, but he just hummed in agreement.

"E.L.N. rebels took the embassy," Pierce removed his grey blazer and set in on his chair, grabbing onto a pair of files. "And security got me out, but the rebels took hostages."

"E.L.N.?" Pony questioned.

"The National Liberation Army," Momo answered, frowning. "It was a Marxist-Leninist guerrilla insurgency group that advocated for the composite communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism and liberation theology. They were mostly involved in continuing Colombian conflict."

Hawks had to suppress a snort at hearing the familiar-sounding group name, or at least the last two words of it. Hawks made a note to ask Skeptic if Destro got the name for the MLA based on that terrorist group. If only to see if he can make one of the trypophobic's veins pop.

Izuku stood by the monitor in the room, turning his gaze from the photo to Pierce on the other side of the room. "Shouta was Deputy Chief of the S.H.I.E.L.D. station there, and he comes to me with a plan." Pierce walked toward the captain. "He wants to storm the building through the sewers. I said, 'No, we'll negotiate'."

"Turned out, the E.L.N. didn't negotiate, so they put out a kill order," Pierce reached the captain. "They stormed the basement, and what do they find? They find it empty." Pierce dropped the papers on the table, both he and Izuku sitting on the couch next to them. "Shouta had ignored my direct order and carried out an unauthorized military operation on foreign soil, and saved the lives of a dozen political officers, including my daughter."

"Huh, sounds awfully familiar," Toshinori's wide grew into a wide, teasing smile aimed at the eye-twitching insomniac of a teacher.

"Ribbit," Asui croaked in laughter, a bitter hint to it as she recognized the subtle comparison Aizawa's unsanctioned operation was to the Bakugo Rescue Squad disobeying orders to go after and save Bakugo from the League, despite her pleas to not break the law going after Bakugo and get themselves hurt. Quite ironic that their teacher who scolded them for going off on their mission did the very same thing here. It made her rather guilty for not supporting them like she should have, for being so upset and afraid that they, that Izuku, would get hurt again.

"So, you gave him a promotion," Izuku figured.

"I've never had any cause to regret it," Alexander agreed.

"So, that must have been how Aizawa became the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Sato asked.

"Perhaps," Mirio shrugged. "Or just to a higher position in S.H.I.E.L.D. before becoming Director."

A moment of silence occurred between them before Pierce asked the obvious question: "Captain, why was Shouta in your apartment last night?" Pierce questioned.

Izuku looked up at Pierce, silent for a few seconds, contemplating his answer. Finally, he shook his head. "I don't know," He replied.

Following his counterpart's instincts, Izuku stared at Pierce with contemplative suspicion. This man stood at the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., even above Director Aizawa before his...passing. His earlier argument with the World Security Council made him appear like a humble and pragmatic figure who cared about the greater good than personal ambition or pride. He shared a personal, friendly with the counterpart to his teacher and appeared to be the man who gave the eyepatch-wearing man the job of Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. By all accounts, this man should be trustworthy.

'And yet,' Izuku frowned, remembering back to how urgent Rumlow wanted him to get to the Triskelion for questioning, how Aizawa didn't let Pierce in on what he suspected was the compromise of S.H.I.E.L.D. despite their history...and how Aizawa was attacked and assassinated right after he asked Pierce to delay Project INSIGHT. Izuku stared at Pierce with ever-worsening suspicion. 'I feel something off about this.'

"Did you know it was bugged?" Pierce brought up.

"I did, because Shouta told me," Izuku answered, honestly.

"Did he tell you he was the one who bugged it?" Pierce asked further.

Izuku stared at Pierce, silently, the silence an answer in of itself, but the eyes held something else.

"He's suspicious of why Pierce revealed that," Ragdoll picked up on Rogers's thoughts. "He thinks that Pierce revealed that so that Izuku could lose his trust in Aizawa and reveal what he's lying about."

At Ragdoll's observation, Izuku's frown worsened, a very bad feeling pooling in his gut.

Hawks gritted his teeth, feeling like he was looking at that long-nosed, eccentric zealot of Destro. He remembered meeting with the former leader of the MLA, and how he appeared like a kind, honest, and helpful man who sought the needs of his people. But then Hawks hadn't mastered all those courses the Commission gave him about interrogation to not notice himself being probed by the now legless general of the PLF. He used kind words, big speeches, and sympathetic values and ideals to butter himself up for Hawks to see him as a good guy, he offered his condolences and sympathies for the hard life he must have led being trained under the Commission to gain his trust, and then start subtly probing to see if he had any loyalty still to the HPSC and reveal any damning secrets of theirs.

But for all of Re-Destro's charm and charisma he flubbed on one crucial point: revealing he knew that the Commission trained Hawks. That was something only the top brass of the Commission knew. That meant either Re-Destro used some connections to figure out all about Hawks and find out his own secrets, for blackmail or testing loyalties, or someone in the HPSC's top execs was a PLF mole.

Seeing how their staring match was going nowhere, Pierce sighed, rubbing his forehead with his thumb, and reached out to a panel by the desk.

Momo blinked at what Momo recognized as a nervous or frustrated tick. She remembered the one place she saw that same tick: her father's meeting with both Yotsubashi and Chikazoku. She didn't recall everything about the meeting, having only entered by the tail end of it at her father's invitation. Momo recalled how Mr. Yotsubashi gave her the widest, most cheerful smile she'd seen in a man, shaking her hand enthusiastically before excusing his manners and following proper decorum. Momo honestly found it rather charming and humorous of the man, almost chastising herself with how she dropped the guards she developed from her parent's societal & etiquette training.

Yaoyorozu recalled how Yotsubashi seemed particularly interested when she mentioned her recent acceptance into U.A. back then. He had asked if she had already chosen a Support Company group to design her Hero suit, and even tossed his company, Detnerat, to develop it. Her father made a point to ask when Detnerat had decided to venture into the Hero's side of Support Items and suits, to which Chikazoku said just recently but that they were already making brilliant strides and products thus far so they could have made her suit, with a discount for an 'old friend' as Yotsubashi threw in.

Ultimately, she and her father had to reject the offer, excusing it to U.A. only allowing certain approved companies to design their suits and Support items and to have a recently started-up new contender in the field of Hero Support Items would not only be allowed by U.A.'s strict rules but risky should any complications arise from their sponsorship. Chikazoku did not look pleased at all, but Yotsubashi had laughed it off and accepted the rejection with good spirits.

It was then that she noticed how he rubbed his forehead with his thumb, the young heiress blinking when she thought she saw a black spot form where he rubbed, but with a blink of her eyes, it was gone. After that meeting, her father informed her never to talk with them unsupervised or have them be at all involved in her Support Items and Hero suit.

"I want you to see something," The secretary said. Clicking a button, the monitor showed a video of Batroc, captured and interrogated.

"Who hired you, Batroc?" The interrogator questioned the mercenary.

"Oh, it's Batroc," Kendo perked up, noticing the man with a similar name to her. "It appears they managed to catch him after all."

"Is that live?" Izuku asked.

"Yeah, they picked him up last night in a not-so-safe house in Algiers," Pierce revealed.

"Are you saying he's a suspect?" Rogers questioned, watching two interrogators confronting the French-Algerian mercenary. "Assassination isn't Batroc's line."

"No, no. It's more complicated than that," Pierce replied, digging through the papers he brought. "Batroc was hired anonymously to attack the Lemurian Star. He was contacted by email and paid by wire transfer, and then the money was run through 17 fictitious accounts. The last one going to a holding company that was registered to a Jacob Veech."

"Am I supposed to know who that is?" Rogers asked as Pierce gave him the file.

"Not likely. Veech died six years ago," Pierce revealed. "His last address was 1435 Elmhurst Drive. When I first met Shouta, his mother lived at 1437."

"I-Is he implying that Aizawa was the one who hired Batroc?" Midnight blinked, flabbergasted.

"But why would he do that?" Awase rubbed his forehead behind his bandana. "Why would the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. hire pirates to hijack his own ship and then send Cap and Widow to take them down?"

Ochaco blinked, her mind flashing back to her counterpart downloading the intel from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files on board the ship. Her eyes widened.

Izuku looked up from the papers at Pierce. "Are you saying Aizawa hired the pirates? Why?" Izuku questioned.

"The prevailing theory was that the hijacking was a cover for the acquisition and sale of classified intelligence," Pierce answered. "The sale went sour and that led to Shouta's death."

"The drive," Ochaco gasped out. "Director Aizawa sent my counterpart to download all the files she could from the Lemurian Star."

"And did so without telling Greenie-sorry, Cap-or the rest of S.T.R.I.K.E. about it," Setsuna caught on to what Ochaco was revealing. "The entire attack was staged for Romanoff to hack into the Lemurian Star and steal all the files it must have had exclusively from there."

"But then something went wrong," Todoroki added. "Aizawa tried to access the files inside the drive but was denied access and locked out, to which he was later targeted and... attacked."

"So, he was trying to steal the info to sell it off?" Sero scratched his head, confused.

"Like shit, he would!" Bakugou cursed. "If that pirate-ass Director is anything like our teach, he's no snitch or traitor. There must have been something on there that he wanted but couldn't get without arousing suspicion, but whoever he was trying to sneak around found out and sent a hit out on him. The real question is what is on that drive that killed him?"

The pros were amazingly impressed with their students figuring out and connecting the dots thus far of this mysterious plot, it brought a smirk of satisfaction on Aizawa's, Vlad King's, and Nezu's faces. Of course, the chimera of a principal had already figured out all of this minutes before, and there was one crucial piece that the students were forgetting from their calculations. The principal was already making predictions of who would figure it out first.

As he spoke, an unconvinced and dismissive look flashed on Rogers's face. "If you really knew Shouta Aizawa, you'd know that's not true," Izuku refuted the theory.

Pierce gave a short nod. "Why do you think we're talking?" Alexander pointed out.

Pierce got up, walking over to the window to look out at D.C. "See, I took a seat on the Council not because I wanted to, but because Shouta asked me to because we were both realists," Pierce revealed, placing a hand on the window as he stared out. "We knew that, despite all the diplomacy and the handshaking and the rhetoric, that to build a really better world sometimes means having to tear the old one down." Pierce looked back at Rogers. "And that makes enemies."

Hawks's feathers almost ruffled when Pierce talked about 'tearing the old world down', his mind taking him back to the army of thousands under the PLF's command, the giant of a monster at their disposal, the League now at the head with Shigaraki sitting on a throne like a king of a new blooming empire. For as messed up as the system he worked under was under the Commission, he knew that one built by Shigaraki was even worse. Far, far worse.

Izuku had gotten up as Pierce did, his hands clasped together as they stared each other down. "Those people that call you dirty because you got the guts to stick your hands in the mud and try to build something better. And the idea that those people could be happy today..." Pierce paused and shook his head. "Makes me really, really angry."

Izuku frowned and looked down at his feet where he looked at his iconic red shoes. They were the only shoes he ever wore, even if he was mocked for them. When he got into Aldera, he remembered how some teachers and older students looked at his shoes with disgust as much as himself. He found quickly that there was a rumor that anyone who wore red shoes, specifically his brand of red shoes, was a tell-tale sign that he was Quirkless. Of course, being the inquisitive soul that he was, and wanting to prove that logic false, he looked up all he did about this 'Quirkless Red Shoe' Theory, finally concluding that it was only a piece of propaganda spun on by Quirkists against the Quirkless, particularly sympathizers of the old Villain Destro and his book, the Meta Liberation War.

Not that he couldn't do much once he learned that theory anyway. Any teacher he tried to tell that to made him quickly get the message that he was unwanted and any attempt to report a student, one of his 'betters', would be met with punishment, usually detention. Any student he tried to tell that to would just think he was crazy or report him to a teacher, which then led to more detentions and, when the teachers feigned not to look, a beating from the students. It was these injustices done to him that he found himself nearly agreeing with Pierce, a bitter part of him wanting to see the very world that treated him so poorly done away for a better, more accepting world.

But then he remembered why he wore these same kinds of shoes every day. It wasn't to accept that he was Quirkless and his so-called place in society as a nobody, it was because his mother gave them to him. Even before he found out he was Quirkless, his mother gave them to him because the red reminded her of his father's eyes. Izuku mentioned how he was a little upset that he didn't gain anything from his dad aside from the messiness of his hair. So, his mother found the shoes with the red coloring and gave them to him for his birthday. And when he found out he was Quirkless, and found out the supposed stigma his school revealed about them, even when his father abandoned him and his mother, Izuku didn't stop wearing them. Because they weren't the shoes of a Quirkless nobody, they were the shoes of a son who was loved by his mother, who never abandoned him.

And that love is what snapped Izuku from falling for that man's speech, one Izuku found not hopeful but bitter and angry, and he didn't want to be like that. He didn't want whatever new world he wanted to be one made out of anger, resentment, or retribution against those who tortured him, he wanted one where nobody had to feel self-conscious about the type of shoes they wear, where people would be judged by the character of their person rather than the hateful preconceptions of hateful people, a world where people were more smiling, at peace, and hopeful, not bitter or angry. And Pierce reeked of it.

"Captain, you were the last one to see Shouta alive. I don't think that's an accident," Pierce believed. "And I don't think you do, either. So, I'm going to ask again. Why was he there?"

After a few seconds of silence, Izuku answered. "He told me not to trust anyone."

"A partial truth to make him seem cooperative but continue to keep the real truth hidden," Tsukauchi analyzed.

"I wonder if that included him," Pierce proposed.

Aizawa's eyes narrowed at what supposedly was a friend to his counterpart, one that seemed pretty confident to throw his name under the mud and still act like an angry friend looking for payback for his dead counterpart.

"I'm sorry. Those were his last words," Izuku spoke, half-honestly. "Excuse me." Captain America made to leave, taking his shield and strapped it to his back.

"Captain," Pierce called out, the Super Soldier looking back, the secretary sitting on the edge of the desk. "Somebody murdered my friend and I'm gonna find out why. Anyone gets in my way, they're gonna regret it." Pierce raised his eyebrows at him. "Anyone."

Izuku was almost fooled again. He nearly bought that righteous anger, that desire to avenge his friend but couldn't be fooled by that threat laced in those final words, a threat made against him. Izuku already had enough experience with threats and jeers masked under sympathetic and helpful words to know it when he saw it.

Taking a moment, Izuku nodded. "Understood." Izuku made his way out of the room, Pierce gazing at him.

"Phew, at least he got out of there," Hagakure breathed a sigh of relief, not liking how threatening and pushy Pierce was toward Izuku, worried that he was going to be in trouble.

Setsuna narrowed her eyes. 'Oh, it's not over,' Setsuna thought, her gut instinct telling her things were about to get a whole lot worse. 'Not by a long shot.'

Rogers waited, gazing at the world, as the elevator came to his floor. Seeing it arrive, the captain got in. Leaning on the rail, Izuku called out, "Operations Control."

"Confirmed," The computer verified.

Before the doors could close though, Rumlow inched his hands between the doors, reopening them for him and a couple of men to enter. "Keep all S.T.R.I.K.E. personnel on site," Rumlow spoke to the men, who copied their orders, while he stared apprehensively at Cap's back. "Forensics."

"Confirmed," The computer verified him and his men.

Nezu stilled, the furs on his body standing on end at seeing the Hero traitor's counterpart appear.

"Cap," Rumlow greeted the Super Soldier.

"Rumlow," Izuku turned and greeted him back. The doors closed and the elevator began its descent.

"Evidence Response found some fibers on the roof they want us to see. You want me to get the tac team ready?" Rumlow asked the captain.

"No, let's wait and see what it is first," Rogers denied.

"Right," Rumlow nodded.

However, Izuku stared down at one of the men with Rumlow, his hand on the weapon strapped to his leg at all times. Furrowing his brows, Izuku stared suspiciously at the man while he tried to appear as casual as possible.

Izuku and his classmates froze, red flags raised in their minds in unison.

"Something is not right there," Ojiro said, leaning in.

"His guard is up, his hand on his weapon when they are supposed to be in a secure environment," Shoji pointed out. "It's almost like he is getting himself ready?"

"Ready for what?" Kosei asked.

"For things to go down," Bakugo answered, eyes narrowed.

The elevator stopped for four guys to enter, two in business suits carrying briefcases, and two in tactical gear, one of the former two calling for Administrations. Rumlow snuck a look back at Cap. "Excuse me," One of the business-suited guys excused himself as he and his cohort made space. Rogers was forced to move, standing in the middle of the elevator.

With every new entry into the descending elevator, the group's nerves stood on end, their suspicions growing clearer as their worries likewise elevated.

"I'm sorry about what happened with Aizawa," Rumlow offered condolences. "It's messed up, what happened to him."

"Thank you," Izuku replied.

The elevator continued while the two men in suits talked to each other, quietly. Izuku stared at one of them, noticing sweat profusely falling down his dark skin.

Hound Dog snarled as he sniffed, almost like he smelt man's scent from the screen. "He's nervous," Hound Dog growled.

"No shit," Miruko's ear twitched as if practically hearing the men's rapid heartbeats. Her legs tensed, almost ready to jump into the fray herself.

The elevator stopped again. This time three more, big and intimidating S.T.R.I.K.E. agents entered the elevator. "Records," The lead S.T.R.I.K.E. agent said.

'They're boxing him in,' Ragdoll analyzed, her wide eyes darting to every single agent, from how they surrounded him, weapons at the ready, their heaviest hitters in the back and right up front, all gathering up for strength in numbers.

The elevator doors closed while Cap looked at the agent in front of him, the hairs on his back standing, while his two cohorts had moved about to be behind himself, not with their friend.

Izuku's eyes narrowed to their determined glare once more. 'So... that's how it is,' He thought bitterly, a sting of betrayal shooting through him as he fully realized what Rumlow and the others were planning to do. That betrayal hissed like acid, old wounds itched and stretched back open, phantom flares of heat burned anew down at his scars and old burns.

The elevator was silent, Izuku surrounded by the silent, stiff men, the air thick and tense.

Izuku's hands were taken by Setsuna, Melissa, and Ochaco. Eri ran back down to sit on her Papa's lap, hugging him close, while Kouta scooted his bean bag chair closer to his idol's legs. The rest of the classes stood at the edge of their seats, some doing their best to cease the rapid tapping of their feet, while others fidgeted with their fingers. Ojiro's tail swayed almost at the ready while Dark Shadow growled softly. Mineta practically hid behind his bean bag as if to take cover, Kosei began chewing at his fingernails, while Bakugo's fingers twitched and inched to let out an explosion.

All Might clenched and unclenched his hands repeatedly; experimentally flexing whatever muscles he had left. Aizawa glared at the screen and agents. 'My counterpart was right.'

Izuku breathed in deeply, and out, calming his nerves, all while his instincts dug his toes into the ground to prepare to jump. 'Here we go.'

"Before we get started," Izuku called out, breaking the silence. "Does anyone want to get out?"

The manly response made, at least, some of the students, like Kirishima and Tetsutetsu, relax a bit, remembering just who these guys were dealing with.

Seconds passed and the first move came from the guy in front. The agent brought out a taser rod and attempted to jab at Cap, the captain smacking it away and the room escalated to action. Multiple agents grabbed Cap and attempted to restrain him while Rumlow hit the emergency stop, pausing the elevator's progress. As they attempted to restrain Cap, one agent brought out another taser rod and jabbed at his chest, causing Rogers to groan in pain.

"ZuZu," Nejire whispered, worried, her hands trembling watching them electrocute Izuku with those tasers.

One of the business-suited goons came up, the handle of his briefcase disconnecting from the case, his sweaty cohort doing the same. The first clasped the handle around Izuku's right wrist, the device locking around it and began getting pulled magnetically toward the metal on the elevator's side. Izuku groaned forcefully, pulling forward against the magnetic pull and the pushing force of some of the agents, while getting electrocuted, with great effort.

In fighting against her worry for Muscle's counterpart, Mei narrowed her eyes at the devices that they used to attempt to restrain the captain. 'Removable handles that when the ends are connected, around the subject's wrist or person, produce a magnetic pull strong enough for even someone as strong as Captain America has a great effort resisting,' Mei analyzed, writing down if perhaps the same concept can be applied to Quirk-suppressant cuffs. 'If Heroes and law enforcement could better hide them, then undercover/stealth operations would dramatically increase in effectiveness.'

Finally, with sudden force, Rogers pulled his fist down, slamming his foot on the leg of his electrocutor, causing him to stumble and cease. Izuku smacked the other who pulled on his arm in the throat, stunning him, and elbowing the sweaty guy in the face, his magnetic handle flying off his hands and sticking to the wall of the elevator.

Melissa breathed a sigh of relief, both at seeing the other magnetic cuff stick to the wall and far from Izuku and the Super Soldier managing to fight back.

Kirishima and Tetsutetsu grinned, their blood pumping seeing the captain being so manly and strong enough to fight back against the pull of that device and start to kick butt.

Izuku kicked the one who cuffed his wrist away, palm-struck the first striking agent in the esophagus, launched a right hook on the electrocuting guy, which knocked him out cold, headbutted the big guy attempting to chokehold him, and tossed him across the elevator, his back cracking the glass on impact.

"Nice," Miruko grinned widely. "Quick and strong effective strikes to immobilize multiple targets rapidly, while pushing their bodies onto each other to keep more from advancing."

"Plus, striking at vital weak points such as the face and nose, throat and esophagus, and knee joints to cripple, stun, and/or incapacitate them," Edgeshot added, nodding his head impressed.

Rumlow kicked Cap's right wrist, the arm flying up and hitting the metal behind him, sticking him to the wall.

"Shit!" Awase cursed. "He got his wrist trapped!"

Momo fidgeted with her hand nervously, her worry spiking upon the action while pondering how strong it might be and how much of a disadvantage Captain Rogers was in with one hand restrained.

Izuku tried to free his wrist with no success. He noticed Rumlow with a taser rod ready to swing, blocking the downward swipe with his left arm. Rumlow batted it away with his other arm and swiped again, stunning Cap on his back, Rogers groaning in pain at the electric current. Gritting his teeth, Cap elbowed Rumlow off him, grabbed an advancing agent, and tossed him upward, the goon's face cracking the camera upon impact, the live feed Jasper Sitwell was monitoring.

"Mobilize S.T.R.I.K.E. units, 25th floor," Sitwell radioed.

'No surprise there,' Hawks thought, glaring at Skeptic's counterpart.

Izuku felt another sting of betrayal, even worse than with Rumlow. He only knew about the S.T.R.I.K.E. agent's existence and had seen him work with his counterpart only just now, but Sitwell helped and aided him and the Avengers against Loki by finding him. Now, knowing that he might very well be involved in this conspiracy and had been right under his nose that whole time made Izuku burn with shame and anger.

Cap batted another agent's taser rod into the chest of one of the big guys, stunning temporarily. The agent tried punching out of Cap's grip, Cap doing so to smack the guy back, the Super Soldier jumping, performing a near-perfect leg split, and kicking both Rumlow and the recovery stunned guy away, the latter slumping unconscious. The taser rod guy from before tried attacking Rogers, only for his wrist to get grabbed, twisted, and kicked across the face by the Living Legend, his boy flying to the glass and slumping to the floor.

Miruko couldn't help the shiver of delight at seeing the leg-base flexibility of the captain, her mind flashing to her earlier brawl with Midoriya and how pleasantly effective he was there too. Noting the comparisons between counterparts only made her desire to have Midoriya match, if not surpass, his counterpart only that much stronger. 'Oh, the fights we could have with each other,' Miruko thought, almost salivating at the thought.

Captain America jumped onto the glass wall where his wrist was still stuck, pushing off it and pulling back with all his might, slowly removing his wrist from the metal till he flew off, recovering in a backflip. Two agents tried attacking from behind, one was stunned by an elbow to the face, and the other Cap ducked his taser rod swipe, checking him with an uppercut. A hook to the face knocked the last business-suited guy out cold, and the final normal goon Cap flip-tossed him, his back hitting the wall, and his body slumping.

Itsuka analyzed Captain America's fighting style like it was homework and with fervor. 'My Quirk isn't suited to cramped and tight spaces, and not every fight can be won by just brute force, especially if my hands are tied,' Itsuka thought. 'If I can incorporate the same fighting style with my own, then Quirk or not, no one could get the jump on me.'

"Whoa, big guy," Rumlow got up slowly, both hands holding taser rods, his left extended palms and fingers out to take it easy. The two last men standing panted and faced each other. "I just want you to know, Cap, this isn't PERSONAL!" His last word was followed by a downward right swing, Cap dodging with a downright duck.

'Speak for yourself,' Izuku responded mentally.

As the whole group paid attention to the movie, Aoyama's head tilted down, his frowning expression and shadowed-over eyes going completely unnoticed.

Rogers stopped a downward swing from Rumlow's left taser rod, but the S.T.R.I.K.E. agent jabbed the right onto Cap's vulnerable left side. Izuku growled, smacking Rumlow's left arm off him, and attempted a right hook. Rumlow ducked, his left swing blocked again, and stabbed at Izuku's left side again. While the two growled at each other, Cap launched a swift right hook across Rumlow's face, grabbed the stunned agent, and tossed him upwards, his body crashing and breaking the glass and lights above them before his unconscious body fell to the ground.

Panting, Izuku replied, "It kind of feels personal."

Izuku was suddenly glad that he didn't mumble his thoughts out loud for everyone to hear.

The last man standing amidst an elevator full of knocked-out bodies, Izuku Rogers saw his shield lying on the ground. With a stomp on its side, the shield flipped up, his left arm going in the straps flawlessly. With a swipe of the shield, his right magnetic restraint was broken off.

"...Manly," Kirishima and Tetsutetsu whispered reverently, fist-bumping each other without looking.

"More like badass!" Kamakiri grinned. "And he did it all without the shield."

"The shield doesn't make the Hero," Izuku grinned. "It's just a bonus."

Steam escaped from the blushing red faces of the girls, as if Captain America's one-man, elevator beatdown wasn't enough to get them all hot and bothered. Melissa upgraded her handholding to full-on arm-locking Izuku's with her own, pressing his arm in between her large assets while Setsuna subtly did the same but with her leg and his, rubbing her thighs as well as pressing her breasts against his side. While the two girls appeared as natural and normal as they could be, Izuku's earlier confidence evaporated under a burning, red, steaming face. The only thing that was worse for him was noticing how much stronger, hotter, and trembling Ochaco's grip was on his hand, the pink-cheeked girl upgrading from pink to full-on scarlet.

Eri, sitting relaxed on her bean bag seat, giggled in approval of the girls' tactics while Kouta noticed, especially the leg locking, and gagged.

Deactivating the emergency stop, the elevator doors opened for Cap to find a whole squad of riot-geared agents aiming their guns at him. "Drop the shield and put your hands in the air!" One of the agents ordered.

"Oh, shit! I forgot about those guys getting sent by that bald prick!" Mineta exclaimed.

In response, Rogers side-stepped into a spin, slashing the cords of the elevator, sending it and the captain hurling downwards.

"So cool!" Kouta returned to fanboying over Captain America.

Flying down a few floors, the captain hanging on, the emergency braking locks stopped the elevator in place. Stepping into action, Izuku saw the elevator had stopped between two floors. Pulling the top doors open, he saw the S.T.R.I.K.E. agents rushing towards him. Rogers pulled the doors closed.

"Crap, he's trapped," Rin cursed.

Izuku looked out to his side to see the distance between himself and the glass roof of the lower side building.

"H-He's not thinking what I think he's thinking what I think he's thinking... right?" A nervous Mount Lady pointed a shaky finger at the screen.

"Oh, I think he is," Ryukyu sighed.

Ibara didn't know why Bakugou suddenly grasped her hand and squeezed so tightly, but she wasn't going to complain about it.

"Give it up, Rogers!" A S.T.R.I.K.E. agent tapped at the door, yelling at him. "Get that door open!" Stepping back and turning away, Izuku breathed and psyched himself up. "You have nowhere to go!"

"3...2...1..." Mina counted and pointed at the screen.

The Avenger proved him wrong the next second. Turning around, Captain America crashed through the side of the elevator, shield first, falling toward the glass roof. Bracing himself behind the shield, Rogers crashed through the roof, agents down below exclaiming and getting out of the way of the falling glass and the superhero. The First Avenger landed roughly on the ground. Groaning through the pain, Izuku pushed himself back up.

"MIDORIYA! HAVE YOU OFFICIALLY GONE INSANE?! THAT WAS EXTREMELY RISKY AND IRRESPONSIBLE OF YOU TO DO! HAVE YOU ANY IDEA HOW MANY BONES YOU COULD HAVE BROKEN IF NOT HOW CLOSE TO DEATH YOU WOULD BE IF YOU DIDN'T HAVE THAT SHIELD WITH YOU?!"

"I think Iida's officially forgotten that Midoriya's technically not our own," Ojiro muttered to Tokoyami as the two stared at the blue-haired Class President chastising his embarrassed, green-haired friend.

Tokoyami hummed in agreement.

In the control room, Jasper gaped seeing Izuku Rogers get back up and begin running. "Are you kidding me?" Sitwell muttered in disbelief. "He's headed for the garage. Lock down the bridge."

As the garage exit doors were closing, Izuku Rogers on his motorcycle hopped out at the last second.

"He's on the motorcycle again!" Itsuka exclaimed, jumping from her seat. Noticing the stares, she quickly composed herself and sat back down. "S-Sorry." Itsuka's face blushed fully red.

"Cute," Tetsutetsu muttered, completely unaware or ignoring Kirishima's teasing chuckles.

The Avenger, his helmet now equipped, drove down the bridge to the exit, seeing road spikes coming up to block his passage. A Quinjet flew past him, ceasing and hovering in the air between him and the exit.

"Stand down, Captain Rogers. Stand down," The pilot called out as the captain drove toward him, its minigun out to fire. "Repeat, stand down."

"Green," Kyoka breathed out, worry spiking up like a rocket.

Izuku did the opposite, accelerating and leaning forward.

"He's crazy!" Pony exclaimed, afraid.

"No, he's Izuku," Asui replied.

The Quinjet opened fire, bullets nearing the captain, who weaved between the shots, easily.

"Yeah, that doesn't look like they're trying to bring him in alive," Manga muttered, exclamation points on his text bubble head.

"That's because they're not trying to," Shoda figured.

Pulling out his shield, he tossed it, the Vibranium-made weapon curving through the air and landing on the open turbine on the right wing, smoke and sparks sprouting as the turbine ceased and the ship jostled in the air.

Eyes widened and jaws began dropping at the perfect aim the captain displayed in landing that shot, as well as what they were about to witness.

Driving forward, Rogers hit the brakes, the bike flipping and launching him toward the Quinjet like an American-themed missile, planting his hands on the windshield and flipping on the top of the jet, rolling up to where his shield was and wrenching it out of the turbine. The turbine reactivated, and the jet jostled harshly toward the left, launching the Super Soldier leftward, to which he stabbed the shield into the metal wing, hanging onto the wing in mid-air.

Jaws fully dropped and eyes were already the size of some fine China. Eri's eyes were sparkling with stars and gasped in awe, while Kouta was grinning ear-to-ear while practically vibrating in his seat.

With the grace of an Olympic gymnast, Cap flipped back onto the Quinjet, shield in hand. Rogers tossed the shield, the red-white-and-blue-starred-weapon striking and bouncing off the jet's engines, both bursting into smoke and flames from impact and into the air. Running down the jet, Izuku dived off the jet and grabbed the shield just as it fell to his level.

With a mid-air flip and the Quinjet spiraling out of the sky, Captain America, heroically, landed, his shield front and center.

Cheers and exclaims of ovation came out of the students at what was perhaps one of the most impressive and amazing displays thus far. Most of the guys joined Kirishima and Tetsutetsu in screaming out "MANLY!" at the top of their lungs. The pros and teachers clapped impressed, right after getting over their shock at the Super Soldier taking out a jet single-handedly.

"Now THAT'S a Superhero landing!" Sero pointed.

"Amen, brother!" Kaminari praised and clapped in agreement.

All Might was practically beaming with pride, hoping to one day see his successor display a similar heroic pose or action with his own eyes, and, more importantly, for the whole world to see it, too. David Shield gasped out as he remembered when he saw All Might in Izuku's place right after the two saved him from Wolfram. The genius inventor smiled widely.

Aizawa smirked and chuckled. "Not bad, kid," Aizawa muttered. "Not bad."

Bakugo scoffed and looked away with a pout. "Stupid Deku...being a stupid showoff," Ibara registered as part of Bakugo's grumbles, making Ibara roll her eyes, giggling at her not-really-confirmed-but-might-as-well-have boyfriend.

The Sisterhood girls went from scarlet red blushes to thermonuclear red. Momo had to produce another, stronger fan for both her and Kyoka, the former's imaginative mind coming up with all manner of spicy, romantic daydreams while Kyoka started brainstorming the best song she could think of to express what she was feeling right now. Asui's tongue managed to slip out of her mouth drooling multiple times despite the frog girl's best efforts, Hagakure all but fainted while drooling, and Mina looked almost ready to join her friend, fanning her purple face with her hand. Nejire had to plunge her face into her bean bag seat to cover her squeals and they were still heard, much to Mirio's and Tamaki's amusement. Mei began designing the schematics and design of Muscle's own Vibranium Shield. Not because the pink-haired girl wanted to see Muscles do the same pose. Nope. Absolutely not.

It was a wonder how Ochaco didn't cancel Izuku's gravity when she ended up floating upwards, only tied down by Izuku's hand, while Melissa and Setsuna pressed even harder Izuku's sides.

"You better win over the rest of the girls faster, Green Bean. I'm not sure how much longer I can restrain myself from you," Setsuna whispered seductively into Izuku's ear and blew.

"What she said, Izu. The end of our I-Island date still hasn't finished till then," Melissa likewise blew seductively into his other ear.

It took everything in Izuku to just stay conscious, as well as to calm down his rapidly awakening friend downstairs.

Up with the pros, Miruko never felt herself burn up the way she did until now. She even had to physically restrain her foot from thumping like a horned-up rabbit. 'Shit! What the hell was that about?!' Miruko blinked as she tried to calm herself down. 'That's never happened before. Goddamn stupid, sexy-ass Midoriya-I mean Rogers!'

Mineta didn't know why he felt so unbelievably jealous and proud of Midoriya at the same time, but he certainly did, enough for a single tear to roll down his cheek and stare up at an unseen light shining down on him. "My brother-in-arms has ascended to Pervert Heaven's Gates," He muttered deliriously.

"Where the hell's that light coming from?" Dark Shadow squawked, confused and irritated.

The Quinjet crashed onto the opposite road, and the First Avenger took his chance to escape.

"And with that, any pursuing vehicles will be impeded, giving the captain ample time to escape," Tiger nodded.

"Do you think he planned that too?" Death Arms asked.

Kamui Woods shrugged, unsure.

Pixie Bob and Mount Lady were practically drooling at Captain America, with even the former's tail swaying around.

"Oh, pull yourselves together," Mandalay and Midnight, both fighting down a blush of their own, smacked the two, respectively, upside the head.

Back in the control room, all the agents gathered inside turned to Sitwell addressing them. "Eyes here," Sitwell called out to them. "Whatever your op is, bury it. This is Level 1." Agent 13 was also among the gathered agents. "Contact DOT. All traffic lights in the district go red. Shut all runways at BWI, IAD, and Reagan. All security cameras in the city go through this monitor right here." Sitwell gestured to the main monitor, which had a photo of the captain himself. "Scan all open sources, phones, computers, PDAs. Whatever. If someone tweets about this guy, I want to know about it."

Both All Might and Endeavor glared at the screen, the two very unpleased to see how quickly S.H.I.E.L.D. seemingly turned on the captain. The two pros compared it to when Midoriya was likewise accused of murder back in Otheon. To All Might, seeing his successor's integrity and innocence judged once more in another world made his blood boil, and to Endeavor, even if the boy was no longer his intern thanks to Miruko, a certain protectiveness still sparked up in him, not just as a former intern, but as the boy who helped free his son from his self-sabotaging nature.

'Hmm, perhaps he could help heal some of the wounds left over between me and Shoto, but how?' Endeavor pondered until a lightbulb flickered on his mind. 'Perhaps by making him Shoto's son-in-law? Fuyumi is available and I would think of no one better than the boy to treat her right.'

"With all due respect," Melissa, unable to stay silent, spoke up. "If S.H.I.E.L.D. is conducting a manhunt for Captain America we deserve to know why." Several agents around the room nodded their heads, agreeing with the secret agent.

Melissa smirked, proud of her counterpart for sticking up for Izuku and the agents who likewise agreed with her.

Before Sitwell could remark, he was cut short. "Because he lied to us," Sitwell, Melissa, and all the agents looked to see Secretary Pierce walking in. "Captain Rogers has information regarding the death of Director Aizawa. He refused to share it."

"As difficult as this is to accept," Pierce continued, looking briefly at Izuku Rogers's picture. "Captain America is a fugitive from S.H.I.E.L.D."

"I can't believe that their treating Midobro like he's some criminal," Kirishima scoffed, finding this completely unbelievable.

Midoriya flinched as he remembered the events of the operation against Humarise, how he was framed for murder and treated like a criminal back in Otheon. The green-haired teen could still remember the whispers, rumors, and posts made about him, demonizing him so quickly and effortlessly. He knew that it was eventually uncovered that all of it was perpetuated by Humarise's undercover agents in the police force and news, but to see how many people bought into it...it stung quite a bit.

And now, here his counterpart was treated the same, only worse. While he was at best to the world one of the U.A. students from the Sports Festival, Captain America was the proclaimed Symbol of Courage and WWII hero, and yet here he was getting targeted and hunted like a criminal by the very people he worked with, even seeing some heads nodding to Sitwell's and Pierce's words. Memories of what his counterpart and the other Avengers uncovered of S.H.I.E.L.D. with their Phase 2 project resurfaced and soured his mood further.

A part of Izuku began to wonder this single thought: 'In the same circumstances, would the Heroic Public Safety Commission do the same?'

Izuku liked to imagine they wouldn't. They were the Commission that oversaw the entirety of the Heroes and their agencies, they were the elected officials meant to keep us safe and in the know...but then, his naivety wasn't that blind. He knew fully well about how two-faced people, especially politicians and government officials. The teachers of Aldera were all smiles and bundles of joy at the parents and students, and then into scowling vipers toward him. He knew about the issues of corruption, and discrimination against metamorphic-based Quirks that made it almost impossible to see one get a high enough position in the company, much less Quirkless individuals. How quickly they once praised one of his favorite Heroes, Lady Nagant, and then suddenly treat her like she was scum of the Earth without a second thought, with Izuku not even hearing anything about a trial to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Yes, Izuku knew that if the same situation as Humarise or this was ever put on him here in Japan, the Commission probably would treat him the same. And that stung just as badly as every other betrayal. But what had Izuku still wondering was how many Heroes would follow the Commission's words blindly. How many in here would do the same?

Back at the hospital, a man walked through the hospital hallways, a navy blue hoodie masking most of his appearance as he tried to walk around casually.

"Greenie, are you trying to get me so hot and bothered?" Setsuna whispered again to Midoriya. "First, the elevator, then the Quinjet, now you are walking around incognito like a spy?" The reptilian girl shivered in delight.

Izuku blushed scarlet but steeled himself. 'Calm down! Calm down, Izuku! Think!' Izuku internally panicked. 'What would All Might do? What would Bakugo do? What should I do?'

Finally, gathering the courage and inspiration from his two biggest symbols of inspiration, Izuku countered. "H-Hey, maybe I'm just trying to pay you back after the things your counterpart did to me?" Izuku raised an eyebrow at her suavely. "The car ride to the lab, your red dress, shooting at me with the shield? You didn't think that made me feel some sort of way?"

Setsuna burned so brightly red it was a wonder she didn't catch fire. "Ohohoho, Greenie, stop tempting me," Setsuna leaned in and grinned, challengingly. "You wouldn't like me when I'm tempted."

"I'm quite tempted to take that challenge," Izuku leaned closer, the two's noses almost touching. They got closer, and closer, until...

"Okay, you two, settle down before everyone else notices," A blushing Melissa pulled at Izuku's ear, cutting off the tension and snapping the two to reality, noticing the burning blushes from the girls that overheard them, and even the smirks on Todoroki and Mirio's faces. The two green heads blushed red and settled down.

Reaching the vending machine, Izuku looked in shock and panic to see that all the gum and the drive were gone.

"AH! The drive's gone!" Pony exclaimed.

"B-But who shro-stole it?" Kinoko stuttered.

The popping of a bubble and her reflection had Rogers recognize Ochaco Romanoff was behind him, chewing on the gum.

"Ohohoho, Uraraka! You sneaky little spy!" Setsuna chuckled and suddenly leaned toward a blushing Ochaco. "Are you trying to tempt me, too?"

"SETSUNA!" Ochaco whined, comically punching and striking Setsuna's side much to the latter's laughter.

Izuku and Ochaco faced each other for a second before Izuku grabbed Ochaco by the shoulders and pushed her into the room behind her, pinning her against the wall, their faces inches from each other.

"Oooh, Midori, didn't know you also wanted to pin Uraraka like that?" Mina joined in the teasing. "Kind of hot."

"Okay, enough of this! You two, stop teasing Midoriya and Uraraka so viciously like that! And don't you dare start to join in either, Hagakure! They are clearly becoming uncomfortable!" Iida stood up and admonished the two teases. "Plus, this teasing is completely inappropriate to the conduct and civility of this school and the eyes of these poor, impressionable youths!"

Noticing what Iida referred to, the two teasing girls began to feel bad. "S-Sorry, Midori, Ochaco," Mina muttered an apology.

"Y-Yeah, I guess we took it a little too far, huh?" Setsuna rubbed her neck embarrassed.

"I wasn't going to tease them...much," Hagakure pouted.

"I-It's fine, Ash-Mina, Set," Izuku corrected himself. "It's all good."

"Y-Yeah, what Deku said," Ochaco calmed down her blushing. "But we aren't that impressionable, Iida."

"I think he was talking about Eri and Kouta," Tamaki pointed toward the two kids.

"Oh! I-I see," Uraraka blushed hard again, embarrassed.

"Where is it?" Izuku demanded.

"Safe," Ochaco replied.

"Do better," Rogers replied angrily, demanding more answers.

"Where did you get it?" Romanoff questioned.

"Why would I tell you?" Rogers questioned back.

"Aizawa gave it to you," Romanoff figured it out. "Why?"

"Girl catches on quick," Miruko smirked.

"For one, she isn't much a girl here, two, she's an expert spy and interrogator, and three, like she said before, Rogers is a terrible liar," Ryukyu replied.

"What's on it?" Cap ignored her question with his question.

"I don't know," Ochaco shrugged.

"Stop lying," Izuku grumbled, his patience waning.

"I only act like I know everything, Rogers," Black Widow fired back.

"Well, could have fooled me," Kosei scoffed.

"I believe that was the point," Honenuki pointed out.

Checking behind him to see if anyone heard or was peeking in on them, Izuku continued questioning the fellow Avenger. "I bet you knew Aizawa hired the pirates, didn't you?" Rogers brought up.

"Well, it makes sense," Ochaco agreed, a momentary flash of recognition in her eyes and open mouth before she schooled her features. "The ship was dirty, Aizawa needed a way in, and so do you."

"I guess you guys guessed right about why Aizawa hired the pirates, huh," Kyoka smirked.

"Yes, but the question remains as to what was exactly 'dirty' on the ship and its files," Todoroki pointed out.

"I'm not gonna ask you again," Rogers gripped Ochaco's shoulders tighter, his mashed teeth showing frustration and annoyance.

"I know who killed Aizawa," Romanoff was forced to admit.

Eyebrows were raised, both surprised and interested, from the group. Mic and Midnight leaned in close, paying attention to everything they could.

Surprise overtook Izuku's features, backing away slightly, going silent to allow Ochaco to continue. "Most of the intelligence community doesn't believe he exists," Ochaco began. "The ones that do call him the Winter Soldier."

"So, he is the Winter Soldier," Shoto muttered. "Makes sense then with the title of the movie."

"But why 'Winter' Soldier?" Ojiro asked. "Like cold and deadly like a bad winter?"

"It could also relate in some way to Russia," Shoji threw in his two cents. "Red hair, red star on his metal arm, the 'Reds'. It could be these are inspirations from the notoriously cold country, especially in winter."

"Eh, a stretch, but I guess that could work," Kamakiri shrugged.

"He's credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last 50 years," Romanoff detailed the Winter Soldier's record.

"50 years?" Tsukauchi frowned. "Well, that doesn't make sense?"

"How come?" Toshinori asked.

"Because that would mean the guy has to be fairly old, like in his 60s-70s at the least if he started young," Tsukauchi answered. "And from what we saw from his encounter with Rogers on the rooftop, he appeared fairly young, likely in his mid-20s to mid-30s."

"Perhaps it is a generational title," Gran Torino proposed. "A title or mantle given to multiple individuals throughout those 50 years but all different people."

"Hmm, perhaps," Tsukauchi found the theory feasible but left it at that without any further info.

"So, he's a ghost story," Izuku figured.

"Five years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran," Ochaco explained. "Somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control, went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out. But the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me." Ochaco lifted her shirt enough to show the scar by her waist. "Soviet slug. No rifling. Bye-bye, bikinis."

"Jesus," Kyoka cursed silently. "That's messed up."

"The killing or the 'bye-bye bikinis'-I'm joking! I'm joking!" Hagakure started to joke before a glare and earphone jack pointed at made her clarify. "Super messed up."

Ochaco rubbed at her side where the scar was for Romanoff, almost imagining the shooting itself and the feeling of the hot lead piercing through her body to kill an innocent man. The knowledge that she failed to protect him because of this assassin only greatened her sadness and intensified her fury against Aizawa's killer.

"Yeah, I bet you look terrible in them now," Rogers quipped, believing her.

"Going after him is a dead end. I know, I've tried," Black Widow continued, pulling out and showing Rogers the drive. "Like you said, he's a ghost story."

Taking the drive, Rogers looked at his partner. "Well, let's find out what the ghost wants," Izuku replied.

Reiko nearly shivered at the thought of chasing after a ghost before remembering it was merely a metaphor.

'If I ever get my hands on the guy, he'll wish he were a ghost,' Mic growled internally, his darkest thoughts imagining unleashing a full-power yell right in that guy's ear and blowing his freaking brains out.

"Shouta Aizawa was murdered in cold blood," Pierce exclaimed in the Council room, toward the digital images of the councilmen. "To any reasonable person, that would make him a martyr, not a traitor."

"You know what makes him a traitor?" Rockwell proposed. "Hiring a mercenary to hijack his own ship."

Aizawa glared at this so-called Security Council for daring to question his motives and loyalty when they, or rather most of them, sent a nuclear missile to Manhattan.

"Shouta Aizawa used your friendship to coerce this Council into delaying Project Insight," Singh explained. Pierce rolled his eyes, exasperated, but not without the subtlest nod in slight agreement. "A project he knew would expose his own illegal operations. At best, he lied to you. At worst-"

"Are you calling for my resignation?" Alexander questioned the council members. "I've got a pen and paper right here."

"That discussion can be tabled for a later time," Hawley dismissed the action, for now.

"But you do want to have a discussion?" Pierce guessed.

"We've already had it, Mr. Secretary," Rockwell answered. "This Council moves to immediately reactive Project Insight. If you want to say something snappy, now would be a good time."

Instead, Pierce said nothing, the barest glimpse of a smirk on his lips.

Izuku frowned throughout the whole discussion between the Secretary and the World Security Council, trying to understand Pierce's motives. In one ear, he accused his friend of treason and made his counterpart question his loyalty to him, but now he's defending him as a martyr toward the Council, a council who believed that Director Aizawa was a traitor for trying to delay-

Izuku's eyes widened in realization, the dots slowly connecting. "Project Insight," He muttered out loud.

"Midoriya?" Aizawa questioned.

"S-Sorry, it's just...I think I might know what your counterpart wanted from the Lemurian Star," Izuku said.

Eyes darted toward him in surprise. "Well, by all means, Mr. Midoriya, do enlighten us," Nezu allowed Izuku to continue, hiding the smallest of grins.

"It's Project Insight, that's what Aizawa was trying to find out," Izuku pointed out. "Aizawa asked Pierce to delay Project Insight just before he was assassinated and after he failed to get any info from the device."

"Right?" Ojiro nodded, trying to see where Midoriya was going with this.

"Info from the drive that was from the Lemurian Star, which launched information to Project's Insight's network of targeting satellites," Izuku continued.

"Which is then received in sync to the three Helicarriers underneath the Triskelion," Melissa finished his train of thought, eyes alarmed and horrified.

Soon everyone else caught on pretty quickly with the same look of realization and fear.

"If someone hid something in the Lemurian Star, like a virus or program, then it would be inside the satellites," Momo said, growing sick with every word.

"Which would then be transmitted to the Helicarriers and use their guns to target and kill whomever the program targeted," Todoroki finished, cold eyes glaring at the screen.

The Heroes likewise were as horrified with the revelations of this outcome as the students, imagining the thousands upon millions of lives that could be at risk if the wrong hands took control of those Helicarriers.

Aizawa growled, knuckles cracking as this likewise infuriated him. 'All that argument with Midoriya about those things meant to keep the world safe, and now someone intends to fucking turn it against us,' Aizawa cursed internally, realizing just how accurate that statement the captain said about 'putting a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection' sounded so wrong and fallible.

At a mall, Izuku and Ochaco walked around wearing disguises, the former wearing a blue cap and glasses and the latter wearing a grey, black-stripped hoodie. "First rule of going on the run is don't run, walk," Ochaco advised.

"If I run in these shoes, they're gonna fall off," Izuku half-joked as they walked at an even pace.

"Midori, you look so dorky in glasses," Hagakure giggled. "Hey, I know! Iida, give Midori your glasses!"

"Excuse me?" Iida blinked, but a second later a floating hand robbed him of his glasses. "Hey!"

"Here you go," Setsuna placed the glasses over Deku's eyes.

"Umm, how do I look?" Izuku asked. While he couldn't see the reactions of everybody, obviously, however, what he could hear was a mixture of giggles, snickers, and squeals.

"Hagakure is right, you do look so dorky in glasses, Green," Kyoka snickered.

"But in a good way," Uraraka said, Izuku practically envisioning her smile clear as day.

"BAHAHAHA! And here I thought you couldn't look any more like a nerd, Nerd!" Bakugo laughed tauntingly.

"Hey! That's mean!" Izuku heard Nejire pout. "He looks adorable! Don't laugh at him!"

Izuku chuckled, removing the glasses before he gained a headache, and giving them back to Iida.

The two found themselves in an Apple store, Romanoff typing on a computer while Izuku took watch beside her. "The drive has a Level 6 homing program, so as soon as we boot up, S.H.I.E.L.D. will know exactly where we are," Romanoff explained.

"They're going to try and hack into a drive with sensitive top-secret information...at an Apple store?" Shinsou quirked an eyebrow.

"Well, last place they could possibly look?" Sero's response was more of a question than an answer.

"At least until they put the drive in," Jurota pointed out.

"How much time will we have?" Rogers asked, specifically.

"About nine minutes from..." Ochaco inserted the drive. "Now.

In emphasis, a team of vans rolled out of the Triskelion toward the mall.

"Right on cue, I suppose," Itsuka muttered.

"Well, they better get what they need from it as soon as possible before they show up," Ojiro replied.

"Aizawa was right about the ship," Romanoff said, the computer showing dozens of secret files. "Somebody's trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of A.I. It keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands."

"Interesting," Nezu hummed, rubbing his furry chin. "An A.I. program that notices and rewrites itself as a protective measure. Quite adaptive."

"Almost like it's thinking for itself," David muttered.

"Isn't that what A.I. is supposed to do?" Mount Lady questioned.

"Most A.I. back then only went as far as the information and directives that people gave it," David answered. "For an A.I. to adapt and respond to commands on its own accord like this would be a highly powerful one."

"Can you override it?" Izuku inquired.

Ochaco tilted her head, slightly, typing furiously on the command keys. "The person who developed this is slightly smarter than me," Ochaco admitted. "Slightly."

"Humble, my ass," Bakugo scoffed.

"You are the LAST person who should talk about being humble, Braguko," Ochaco stuck her tongue out at him.

"WHY YOU-"

"Nuh uh, sit down, you!" Ibara pulled Bakugou back down to his seat and tied him down with her vines. "Do not make me take back my reward, 'Suki."

Bakugo grumbled, blushing red but resorted to fuming silently.

"This is absolutely amazing," Mina ate a handful of popcorn, enjoying the show before her more than even the movie.

Outside the mall, the vans pulled up, Rumlow and his S.T.R.I.K.E. agents hopping out, the former shown stashing away his armed pistol.

"Whelp, they're here already," Sen threw his arm up.

"Only outside the mall, depending on how far into it this store is, they might have more time to spare," Kuroiro pointed out. "And for a mall in America, it must be pretty big."

"I'm gonna try running a tracer," Ochaco explained to the less-tech-savvy 90-year-old. "This is a program that S.H.I.E.L.D. developed to track hostile malware, so, if we can't read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from." The computer showed the triangulation process.

"Well done," Thirteen nodded in approval. "Think smarter, not harder. If they can find the origins of the files, then they could find the means to more easily unlock it than with brute force."

Ochaco blushed, containing as much fangirl energy inside her from exploding out at the praise she received from her favorite hero.

"Can I help you guys with anything?" One of the Apple store attendees came up.

"Oh, no. My fiancé was just helping me with some honeymoon destinations," Romanoff acted fast, wrapping her arms around Izuku's stunned shoulders.

"Right. We're getting married," Izuku stumbled on the lie.

"FIANCE?! / MARRIED?!" Izuku and Ochaco exclaimed, blushing scarlet red.

"Woah, woah, woah, love birds, let's take things nice and slow before jumping into such a big commitment," Setsuna grinned teasingly while the two only blushed harder.

"I swear that succubus is going to make them faint at least and explode at worst," Iida pinched the bridge between his eyes.

"Ah, relax Iida-san," Miruko patted the teen's shoulders. "Pump the brakes a bit and stop Whining so much!"

"..." Iida stared at Mirio with a deadpanned expression. "I'm not as experienced with social interactions as my friends but was that meant to be an Engine joke?"

"Yeah, it was!" Mirio lifted his chin proudly. "Like it?!"

"...No," Iida replied honestly and brutally.

Mirio slumped down comically depressed.

"That's what you get, Uncle Mirio!" Eri swatted Mirio's legs. "Don't torture Uncle Iida with bad puns."

While Mirio laughed, Iida shook in his seat, lifting his head up and away from the others, hiding the lone tear that shined proudly out of his eye. 'Uncle Iida,' He repeated the title in his head proudly.

"Congratulations," The attendee bought the lie, smiling and nodding at them. "Where are you guys thinking about going?"

The attendee attempted to look over at the computer, to which Izuku shifted to try and hide as much of it and the information as possible. Luckily, the process finished enough for Izuku to give out a location. "New Jersey."

"And we have our destination!" Kaminari exclaimed.

"New Jersey," Melissa muttered the name, pondering what could be there of all places.

"Oh," The attendee nodded. The attendee went silent and Izuku turned to see he was looking at him with recognition. Rogers tensed worried he had been made out as Captain America, only for the attendee to point at his glasses. "I have the exact same glasses." Izuku visibly relaxed.

"Pfft, Deku, you almost thought he got recognized," Ochaco snickered.

"Don't laugh about that little listener," Mic voiced out. "You know how nerve-racking it actually is for Pros like us to have some time in public without getting spotted?"

Multiple of the pros, especially the higher-ranked ones, shuddered at the same pain and trouble they all shared. Miruko puffed in frustration at all the measures she had to take to look inconspicuous, from tying up her long white hair in buns, covering her ears with a hoodie, and making sure her white bunny tail didn't poke out of her clothes which could get quite uncomfortable, especially on her literal tail bone.

"Wow, you two are practically twins," Ochaco replied, sarcastically.

"Yeah, I wish," The attendee, backing and raising his hands respectfully toward Rogers. "Specimen."

"Understatement of the century," Nejire muttered, still finding herself drooling over the Greek god-level physique of Izuku Rogers. "Hey, ZuZu, would you mind taking your shirt off again?!"

"No! Bad Auntie Neji! No objectifying Papa!" Eri pouted and pointed at Nejire, to which the periwinkle-haired teen played along and looked admonished.

"If you guys need anything, I've been Aaron," The attendee said, flashing his nametag.

"Thank you," Izuku nodded as the attendee continued his way around to help other customers.

Rumlow and the S.T.R.I.K.E. agents marched across the mall, looking around to find their targets.

Mineta was so full of nerves and worry for Izuku and Ochaco that he had resorted to biting at his fingernails.

"You said nine minutes. Come on," Izuku whispered, worriedly.

"Relax," Ochaco shushed him. She then smiled. "Got it." The triangulation gave an exact location of Wheaton, New Jersey.

Romanoff noticed Izuku's brows furrow and lean toward the coordinates. "You know it?" she asked.

"I used to," Rogers acknowledged, taking out the drive. "Let's go."

"Oh? A place in New Jersey that Rogers knows?" Sato tilted his head, intrigued. "I wonder what it is?"

Izuku and Setsuna blinked at the exact coordinates and looked at each other, the two pondering if it could be exactly what they thought it was.

Izuku and Ochaco walked amidst the numerous mall shoppers, Izuku looking around and spotting the agents. "Standard tac team. Two behind, two across," Izuku spotted two more. "Two coming straight at us. If they make us, I'll engage, you hit the south escalator to the metro."

"Shut up and put your arm around me. Laugh at something I said," Ochaco said suddenly.

"What?" Izuku looked at her confused.

"Do it," Ochaco insisted.

And so, Izuku wrapped an arm around Ochaco's shoulder, tilting their heads down while Rogers laughed out loud. The two S.T.R.I.K.E. agents walked past, none the wiser. Izuku looked back as they went.

"Oh shit, that worked?!" Sero exclaimed, astonished.

"Spy 101, people," Setsuna smirked. "Act normal by acting like everyday people. Although, Green Bean, you might need to work on that fake laugh of yours."

"Noted," Izuku rubbed the back of his neck.

One of the S.T.R.I.K.E. agents, his face bruised, looked around the Apple store. "Negative at the source," the agent radioed.

"Isn't that one of the guys that Rogers beat up in the elevator," Death Arms pointed out.

"Indeed, and he still bears the marks of shame for standing against the captain," Kamui Woods proclaimed.

"Oh, quit being dramatic, Barky, and just say that he's still black and blue from when Cap kicked his ass, like a normal person," Mount Lady retorted, snickering as Kamui sulked depressingly.

"Give me a floor rundown," Rumlow ordered, pressing the mic and earpiece closer amidst the noisy crowd.

"Negative on three," One of the two agents on the third floor called in.

"Negative on two," Two more on the second floor reported.

"Snake the upper levels. Work down to me," Rumlow ordered, getting onto an escalator.

Meanwhile, Ochaco and Izuku were on the opposite escalator, heading down. The Russian agent spotted Rumlow coming their way.

"WEEOO! WEEOO! Incoming!" Pony wailed and exclaimed.

Todoroki would have chuckled more at Pony's cuteness if Rumlow wasn't on a directive path toward his friends.

Ochaco immediately turned to Izuku. "Kiss me," she said.

"What?" Izuku blinked at the sudden demand.

"WHAT?!" Izuku and Ochaco exclaimed in unison, only adding to their blush.

"Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable," Romanoff explained.

"True, true," Hagakure nodded her invisible head.

"Whatever leads to Smooch City, am I right?" Mina smiled teasingly.

"Yes, they do," Izuku nodded.

Black Widow would have taken no more lip from him if she hadn't grabbed his face and smashed her lips onto his.

Wolf whistles and exclaims came out from most of the students, mainly the guys, while Izuku and Ochaco looked half a tease away from exploding like a pair of nuclear reactors. Kouta gagged while Eri gazed excitedly at her Papa and one of her Mamas from another world finally kissing.

Setsuna would have smiled more at seeing what an incentive for progress on her Green Bean's part could be to win Ochaco over, if not for the small ounce of jealousy that welled up in her. She wasn't suddenly apprehensive about sharing Izuku with the other girls or anything like that. It was just...well...

'That Greenie was supposed to be my Greenie,' Setsuna thought sadly, remembering how her counterpart lost the chance to be with this Izuku because of his sacrifice. She would never be angry at either Izuku for doing what was right, but she would be forever sad about what both of them had to sacrifice to achieve it.

As Rumlow passed by them, he spotted the two making out and immediately turned away, an awkward look at the display, resuming his searching elsewhere.

"I would say that's Mission Accomplished," Kaminari saluted to the captain.

"Why is it always Midoriya?!" Mineta wailed in bloody tears, both proud and jealous, about now Izuku Rogers managing to make out with the stupidly hot Black Widow.

"Dude, are you really going to keep crying about that over and over, again?" Sero deadpanned and stared at the smallest guy in his class.

"YES!" Mineta wailed.

"...Fair enough," Sero shrugged, done giving a shit.

Peeking to see Rumlow passed and didn't make them, Widow disengaged the kiss, getting off the escalator. "You still uncomfortable?" Romanoff asked.

"It's not exactly the word I would use," Cap replied, honestly.

"Oh, and what word would you use to find that situation, Green?" Jiro raised an eyebrow and smirked at him.

"Umm, well, umm, well," Izuku stuttered, before gazing from his peripheral at the nervousness of Ochaco's face, how she expected an answer and her growing nervousness looked like she feared the worst. "It looked...nice."

Ochaco's blush came back up, but her eyes softened, her lips curving to a soft smile. 'Deku,' Ochaco thought wistfully.

A blue pickup truck drove past a 'Welcome to New Jersey' sign. Izuku drove while Ochaco had her legs propped up on the dashboard, staring at him, curiously.

"Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?" Romanoff inquired.

"Nazi Germany," Rogers answered, his partner made a hum of acknowledgment. "And we're borrowing. Take your feet off the dash." Giving him an amused, mock-offended stare, Ochaco complied.

"Wow, who knew you could be such a stickler for the rules even after stealing someone's car?" Sen blinked, amused.

"Are we sure that Captain America isn't Iida's counterpart instead?" Hagakure whispered to Mina.

"I HEARD THAT!" Iida exclaimed, offended.

"Alright, I have a question for you, which you do not have to answer," The Russian agent brought up. "I feel like, if you don't answer it though, you're kind of answering, you know."

"What?" Izuku pressed her to ask the question.

"Was that your first kiss since 1945?" Ochaco asked with a cheeky smile.

"Well, she puts it like that," Ojiro rubbed his neck in almost embarrassment for Captain Rogers.

The girls tried to repress their giggles while Izuku wallowed in the depressed cloud of shame he was in while Ochaco, Melissa, and Setsuna tried in their own ways of comfort, jokes, and assurances that he was surely not such a bad kisser.

"That bad, huh?" Izuku figured.

"I didn't say that" Ochaco chuckled.

"Well, it kind of sounds like that's what you're saying," Rogers pointed out.

"No, I didn't," Romanoff denied, again. "I just wondered how much practice you've had."

"I cannot believe we have time for this nonsense," Endeavor pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

"Oh, come on, Number 1, don't be such a stick in the mud," Hawks patted the Flame Hero's shoulder. "I mean, I'm sure you and the Mrs. had some romantic moments, right?"

Endeavor didn't need to look at Shoto to know that the boy flinched or in a mirror to see his sad frown. He tried to think of all the good times he had with Rei, the very few in fact, but what came more often than not were the looks of sadness she had, depression, and worst of them all, fear, fear of him.

Endeavor elected to not say anything but that was in of itself an answer to Hawks and not one the Number 2 Hero took without looking surprised and concerned for his idol.

"You don't need practice," Izuku shook his head.

"Everybody needs practice," Ochaco refuted that claim.

"It was not my first kiss since 1945," Rogers confessed. "I'm 95, I'm not dead."

"Wow, Midoriya, you a 95-year-old kissing a 30-something-year-old woman? Have you no shame?" Kaminari teased.

Izuku sputtered out surprised and horrified in his defense before Kaminari cringed as he received a jack to the ear and a sound blast that sent him sprawling on the ground.

"That you deserved, Jamming Yey," Jiro said, excusing her actions. "And don't bother answering that, Green. He's just messing with you."

Izuku sighed, relieved. "Thanks, Kyoka."

"Don't mention it," Jiro shrugged, smiling pleased with a slight blush on her cheeks.

"Nobody special, though?" Romanoff wondered.

That got Izuku's mood back down, remembering that the special one his counterpart has is now old, already lived her life with another man, had kids, and has Alzheimer's.

Rogers let out a chuckle. "Believe it or not, it's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience," Izuku said.

"Super Soldiers, WWII vet, frozen in a block of ice for 70 years, superhero, agent, and old enough to be most girl's grandfathers," Sero listed all of Cap's life experiences. "Yeah, can't imagine who could match well with him on one of those old dating apps."

"I don't know much about the Super Soldier aspect, much less the WWII veteran status or being frozen in a block of ice, but if he were to look for a companion with a similar lifestyle as an agent and superhero, then she's sitting in the passenger seat," Jurota pointed out.

Izuku blinked and snuck a peak at both Ochaco and Romanoff and got to thinking. His counterpart didn't need to date to find happiness, especially when the love of his life was out of his reach now, but, even if he wanted to, would Ochaco Romanoff be the right person for Izuku Rogers to get with? Jurota was right that she knew what it's like to be an agent and a superhero like his star-spangled counterpart, but then the Russian agent, for all her jokes was also a loner, damaged, and full of guilt for her past actions and regrets.

'Actually, the more I talk about her, the more she and him have a lot in common,' Izuku figured out. Rogers, despite being the shining boy scout, was also lonely, living in a world not his own without his best friend or the love of his life, damaged from his time in WWII, fighting HYDRA, and being frozen for all that time, and he could easily see that his other self is holding so many regrets and guilt, namely the death of Shoto 'Bucky' Barnes.

'And above all else, my other self deserves to be happy with someone,' Izuku thought, smiling sadly. 'It took me so long to think the same for myself, I don't want for him to think that way about himself, too.'

"Well, that's alright. You just make something up," Ochaco suggested.

"What, like you?" Rogers looked at her.

"I don't know," The master assassin shrugged. "The truth is a matter of circumstance. It's not all things to all people, all the time. Neither am I."

Ochaco didn't expect that to sting so much to her. The true meaning of those words was something completely different from what she was feeling, but the idea of the truth and lying struck a chord in her.

Ochaco loves Izuku, she can admit that now to herself, but it felt so sad and humiliating to believe that it took so long for her to realize it, let alone accept it. Throughout their time in U.A., she always tried passing off her feelings as those of a close friend, a best friend, and that anytime she got so worried about him was just a friend looking out for another friend. Then there were the warm feelings she began getting, which grew hotter and more passionate the longer she got to know Izuku Midoriya, the more time they spent together, or how much she wanted to hear from him when they were apart, she thought back then that she was being silly, that she just liked spending time with him. And then when people like Aoyama or Mina made fun of, teased her, or pointed out her feelings for Deku, she would dismiss them at least and react extremely flustered at worst. She didn't want to admit that she was in love with him, partly because she was so focused on helping her parents by being a Hero, but mostly because she worried that Deku didn't feel the same, that he saw her as just a friend.

Then came the jealousy. Camie, Toga, the girls, she realized that she hated when they got so cozy with Izuku, how he hung out with them and looked so happy with them that she worried he didn't feel the same happiness with her, and it hurt a lot. And when F.R.I.D.A.Y. and the movies came along and she realized just how much the girls all liked Deku, fear and jealousy gripped her heart. Only when they finally confessed to each other how they felt about Deku did she truly realize that the jealousy and fear she felt wasn't from Deku being with them, it was her not being with him. And so, she and the girls formed their Sisterhood, agreed to try this shared relationship with Deku and see where it went, and she never felt better.

But not as much as she did when she fully admitted her love for Izuku Midoriya. When she finally was honest to herself about how she felt, it felt so freeing, so liberating. She didn't have to hide from how she felt; she just wished she realized it sooner rather than lie to herself for so long.

And now, the one thing she had to do that was left was to stop lying to Deku, lying to him about how she feels about him, about what she wants to be to him and him to her. The truth, to her, she didn't want it to be circumstantial anymore, she wanted Deku to know it, know her feelings, and, in turn, know how he felt about her.

'Today,' Ochaco gripped her hands by her lap. 'I'll tell him today. No matter what it takes, I'll tell him how I feel.'

"That's a tough way to live," Rogers regarded her with concern.

"It's a good way not to die, though," Romanoff replied.

"You know, it's kind of hard to trust someone when you don't know who that someone really is," Cap brought up.

"Yeah," Ochaco looked at him, pondering. "Who do you want me to be?"

"How about a friend?" Izuku suggested.

Izuku didn't know whether to frown or smile. 'I do want you to be my friend, Ochaco,' Izuku thought to himself. 'But I want you to be more than just that. I want you to be my friend, as well as something more. Is that too much to ask?'

The fellow Avenger smiled, chuckling. "Well, there's a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers," Romanoff replied. Izuku's lips curled to a small smirk. For the rest of the trip, they kept silent.

'You're right, other me. He is looking at things wrong,' Ochaco thought to herself. 'I'm already your friend, Deku. I always felt that being your best friend was the best thing I could be to you, and I still do. But now, I want to be that and more to you at the same time. Is that too much to ask?'

Finally, they pulled up to their destination, Ochaco looking around in surprise. The two got out of the car by the closed-off fence that blocked their passage. "This is it," Rogers said, his shield strapped to his left arm.

Checking her beeping phone, Romanoff tucked her phone away. "The file came from these coordinates," Widow confirmed.

"So did I," Cap revealed as they looked at the sign naming the area: Camp Lehigh.

"It's the camp where I was trained," Izuku revealed, gazing at the sign with a heavy heart.

Setsuna sighed. She knew when Rogers said that he knew the place, that he was talking about the camp, but a part of her still wanted him to be wrong. Why would she want to willingly break her heart with bittersweet memories?

Death Arms sat straight in his seat at the acknowledgment of the camp his counterpart ran. He remembered how he dismissed Rogers as the best candidate for the Super Soldier program, how he thought that bully Hodge was the better pick, and how Dr. Erskine proved him wrong, for the better. The Pro Hero saluted the camp, as well as the doctor who proved him wrong and gave their world their first-ever superhero.

It was night as the two made their way through Izuku Rogers's old military stomping grounds. Ochaco Romanoff had her phone out, trying to find the exact source of the coordinates. "This camp is where I was trained," Rogers informed.

"Change much?" Ochaco asked, still searching.

Izuku stopped, gazing up at the familiar flagpole. "A little," he admitted.

All Might smiled looking at the flagpole, recalling with pride how a small, scrawny little man showed up a whole group of taller, stronger soldiers with his wits and brains. 'I'm glad that I saw the same potential in Young Midoriya that Erskine did in Rogers,' Toshinori thought.

"Pick up the pace, ladies!" Izuku looked down as his mind conjured the voice of his drill sergeant. "Let's go! Let's go! Double Time!" The Super Soldier's mind imagined the jogging bodies of his fellow soldiers while the sergeant yelled at them. "Come on, Rogers, move it!" Izuku turned his imagined sergeant's line of sight to see himself, still in his skinny, pre-serum state, struggling to catch up to his healthier comrades.

Setsuna's eyes swelled up with wetness, feeling the same affection that her counterpart surely felt for the skinny, scrawny version of Izuku Rogers. Seeing him like that again, knowing that the man he was now, was because he earned it, and she knew her Izuku earned where he was, too.

"Come on, fall in!" The imaginary sergeant yelled while imaginary Izuku stopped and looked right at him. "Rogers! I said fall in!" Imaginary Izuku continued running toward the others while Rogers watched him go.

Izuku blinked repeatedly to vanish what he saw. He saw himself standing beside Rogers as he was today, and standing behind Rogers's skinny self was his own. Wearing his black Aldera uniform, as thin and scrawny as he was, looking at him like he was an entirely different person. Maybe he was?

No, that's not true. In a way, he's still that same scrawny, meek, bullied kid, he just grew. He was still meek at times, he was still not as buff or as strong as All Might, and he still felt the pains and trauma of his bullying even now, but as All Might said, to remember where he came from and the path he took to where he was now, was to show how strong you are and always were.

Izuku almost felt himself nod at his younger self, who in turn changed from his black Aldera uniform to the tracksuit he wore during All Might's 10-month American Dream plan training. And when the imaginary sergeant called for Rogers and skinny Rogers ran off, so too did he hear All Might call out to him to push on and see his younger self run off after All Might.

"This is a dead end," Ochaco called out while Cap reminisced. "Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio." Izuku snapped himself out of his conjured memories. "Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off." It was then when Izuku turned to her, that he spotted something. "What is it?"

"Army regulations forbid storing munitions within 500 yards of the barracks," Izuku informed as he and Romanoff strode toward what looked like a munitions bunker. "This building is in the wrong place."

"Right," Snipe nodded. "In case of any attack on the base, if the munitions were too close to the barracks and it exploded, then the explosion could in turn harm or kill the soldiers."

Cap smashed the shield against the locks of the door, breaking it instantly and allowing them entry. Walking down the stairs and flipping a switch, the lights came on to see an older logo of S.H.I.E.L.D. More lights came on to show numerous desks, cabinets, and other supplies.

"This is S.H.I.E.L.D.," Romanoff guessed correctly.

"Maybe where it started," Rogers figured, the two walking around the place.

"Huh, that does make sense," Gran Torino chuckled. "The logo of the S.S.R. was an eagle much like S.H.I.E.L.D.'s, and the very name could have been based off Rogers's Vibranium shield."

"More than likely given that Setsuna Carter was revealed to have been one of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D., from what Rogers said, at least," Recovery Girl added.

They entered another room, one filled with shelves, but it was the three pictures on the walls that threw in the two's attention. The leftmost one was of Colonel Chester Phillips.

"Heh, I guess I was a founder of S.H.I.E.L.D., too," Death Arms saluted to his counterpart's portrait.

"Don't start getting a big head there, DA," Mount Lady wagged a finger at him. "I still recall when you mocked Rogers for being so thin that 'you stick a needle in him, it's going to come out the other side'."

Death Arm flinched, doing his best not to look or notice the glares coming from the girls.

"And there's Stark's father," Ochaco recognized the middle picture.

"Masaru," Rogers named, looking at the younger face of Katsuki Stark's father, and a friend of his from long ago.

Bakugo's eyes froze at the sight of his younger father, the events of Iron Man 2 coming back to his mind, and all the trust and love that both Masaru Stark and his old man had for them that Bakugo and his counterpart finally realized and accepted. It only made the fact that he was gone in the present all the more painful.

Ibara placed her hands over Bakugo's, drawing his attention. The vine-haired girl smiled comfortingly at him, and Bakugo gave a soft one right back and nodded in thanks.

"Hey, do you know what that means, Bakubro?" Kirishima drew their attention. "That your dad was one of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D., too. How cool is that?!"

Bakugo blinked, surprised at the assumption that Kirishima stumbled upon. Seeing that the redhead was waiting for a response, Bakugo coughed and responded like his old self. "Of course, I realize that Shitty Hair! How stupid do you think I am?!"

Kirishima just smirked and chuckled, taking it as Bakugo's way of saying 'Thanks for telling me'.

But it was the picture on the right that drew Rogers's focus.

"Who's the girl?" Ochaco asked, following Izuku's staring at the picture of a younger Setsuna Carter.

Izuku Rogers said nothing, staring blankly at the pictures before turning away. Ochaco looked at the girl's picture, intrigued before going after her partner.

Izuku's eyes fell to his feet, the shame and pain he felt when he had to dive the Valkyrie into the Northern Sea's water and ice coming back to him, as well as the lost opportunity for a life with her that he missed out on.

Setsuna wrapped her arms around Izuku's eyes and leaned her head against his shoulder. Izuku wordlessly nodded in thanks for the gesture, pressing his forehead against the top of hers, while Setsuna snuggled closer in response.

Catching the slight, Izuku moved toward one of the shelves, specifically, between two shelves covered in spider webs and the sounds of flowing air coming from it. "If you're already working in a secret office," Izuku began, grabbing the right shelf and pulling, the sounds of rolling machinery evident of the shelf sliding along easily, revealing a secret elevator. "Why do you need to hide the elevator?"

"To hide it from lower-ranked employees," Edgeshot replied.

"Or to keep something hidden from all those that aren't in the know," Hawks pointed out.

Ochaco shined her phone at the elevator, blue light shining over and decoding the keypad.

"So, is the phone, like, showing the most often pressed numbers and then calculating the right sequence in which they are pressed to unlock the keypad?" Sen asked.

Melissa and Mei stared at him dumbly. "No, it's just decoding the keypad," Melissa replied like it was the simplest thing in the world.

Sen sweatdropped in embarrassment. "Well, I mean, it looked like it was illuminating some fingerprints in the pad, so I just assumed that-"

"Bro, stop, just, enough," Awase tried to get Sen to stop trying to explain himself, only digging the embarrassing hole he made for himself all the deeper.

As she pressed the buttons, and the light turned green, the elevator opened, and the two heroes entered. The secret elevator took them down several stories before opening them up into a dark room, tiny lights of machines and dimly lit panels on the roof and floor the only sources of illumination. The two Avengers walked along the room, the doors to the elevator closing behind them, making their way to the semi-circle of computers at the end of the room. As they neared it, automatic lights lit up the rest of the room brighter. Izuku and Ochaco looked around to see the rest of the room filled with incredibly old tech, servers, and screens.

"Well, this ain't creepy at all," Mina said sarcastically.

"This can't be the data point," Romanoff shook her head, in disbelief. "This technology is ancient."

"It looks freaking prehistoric," Mei shuddered.

Suddenly, Ochaco spotted a very out-of-place modern port for a drive.

"Except for that, that baby is just ancient by our standards," Mei pointed.

"Which means someone has been down here more recently," Momo summarized. "Which all the more suspicious?"

Steeling her nerves, Romanoff stuck the drive into the port. Instantly, more of the room's lights and serves were reactivated, the spinning of hard drives and the buzz of machines breaking the once veil of silence of the room.

"And presto!" Hagakure exclaimed.

Eri giggled. "You're funny Ma-Miss Toru," Eri replied.

No sooner when she said that did Eri get tackled into a hug, her cheeks rubbed by an invisible pair of cheeks. "OH! YOU ARE THE SWEEST, MOST PRECIOUS UNICORN EVER, LITTLE ERI-CHAN!" Hagakure squealed and continued to baby Eri to her delight.

Izuku smiled at the two, thankful for Hagakure's motherly care of Eri, turning back to the screen with a cold stare. 'Especially when things might get intense,' Izuku thought, a bad feeling welling up in his stomach.

A monitoring camera came to life and rose to look at Rogers and Romanoff. "Initiate System?" An electronic, frankly German-sounding, voice spoke as the words showed up on the center, main computer.

"Okay, if things weren't creepy before, they are now," Kyoka muttered.

"I like it," Reiko replied. "Revelry in the Dark."

"Revelry in the Dark," Tokoyami and Kuroiro mimicked her.

"Okay, should we be worried that they are a part of some weird dark cult or something," Kaminari whispered to Mineta.

Not so quietly apparently since he got a smack to the head by Dark Shadow. "We are not part of a cult," Tokoyami replied, simply.

Walking up to the keyboard, Ochaco typed. "Y-E-S spells yes," The agent muttered to herself. As the computer powered up, Ochaco grinned. "Shall we play a game?" Recognizing who was behind her, she turned to him, saying, "It's from a movie that was really-"

"I know. I saw it," Rogers interrupted her.

"Okay, if Rogers knows a movie that I'm blanking on, then I'm starting to lose my mind," Sero said.

"I think what Romanoff said was a quote from an old pre-Quirk era movie called WarGames," Izuku answered. "It was a 1983 Cold War sci-fi film. I think the quote that follows it goes something like 'Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War?'"

"Well, that's a bit morbid and foreboding," Kosei muttered.

"Revelry in the Dark," The three goths once more said, unified.

"Yep, right on cue," Nirengeki chuckled.

The computer came to life with green lines of light, until the lines and lack of them formed a facsimile of a face, one with round glasses and a more robotic interpretation of the mouth. "Rogers, Izuku," A more robotic version of a familiar voice spoke. "Born 1918." The camera moved its green gaze toward Ochaco. "Romanoff, Ochaco Alianovna, born 1984."

Izuku's face paled drastically, the voice sounding painfully familiar. Nezu's knuckles cracked, his fur standing up straight.

"It's some kind of recording, " Ochaco tried to rationalize.

"I am not a recording, Fraeulein," The computer replied, Ochaco blinking, surprised. "I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945." Izuku's eyes began to widen, recognizing the voice and the meaning of its words. "But I am," The right screen turned on, showing the photo of Dr. Arnim Garaki.

"Garaki," Izuku gasped, his world shuddering as his memories took him back to when the doctor who called himself Tsubasa told him to give up on his dreams. That pain and trauma were superseded when he remembered the train his counterpart apprehended Arnim Garaki...the same train that Shoto fell from. Izuku didn't realize he was shaking until he felt hands all around him, Melissa holding his right arm, Setsuna his left, Ochaco gripping his left hand, Eri on his lap, hugging his chest, and Shoto's hand on his shoulder.

Izuku began to calm down, but the panic and trauma were only replaced with anger. And he wasn't alone in his rage.

The flames around Endeavor only greatened at the sight of the man who helped murder his son's counterpart. Todoroki gave a cold stare at the man who was responsible for his death and his friend's pain, accepting the hands of comfort from Momo and Pony, the latter taking his hand in hers, and he let her.

But the ones that arguably looked at the now-revealed doctor were Aizawa, Mic, Midnight, and Nezu. To the three teachers they saw the man that they believed responsible for the Nomu, responsible for aiding All For One all these years and harming U.A. and their students...the man responsible for turning their friend, Oboro Shirakumo, into the Warp Villain and High-End Nomu: Kurogiri. Veins bulged around Mic's forehead, signifying his sheer rage, Kayama looked at the man with burning hatred unlike anything she ever felt before, and Aizawa's cold stare hid an ocean of fury and promised vengeance underneath.

As for Nezu, as he realized the man in the computer was the very same counterpart to That doctor, his rage once more took center stage in his consciousness. Memories of his time in captivity, the experiments done to him, and the traumatizing, hazy memory of this man's silhouette, shadowed by the light above him, and those circular green goggles, that now the monitor with his digitized face shared a similar palette, it all flashed in his mind, and his fury burned ever hotter as ever.

"Wait, THAT computer is the same doctor from the first Captain America video?!" Kosei exclaimed, wide-eyed and alarmed.

"B-But how?!" Manga's text-bubble head was full of exclamation and question marks.

"You know this thing?" Ochaco questioned Rogers as he stared, bewildered, at the image.

"Arnim Garaki was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull," Rogers walked to check the back of the computer and around for any clues. "He's been dead for years."

"First correction, I am Swiss/Japanese," Garaki responded. "Second, look around you. I have never been more alive."

'Of course, someone as twisted as him would see a fate like this as alive,' Mic growled inside, knuckles cracking under his furious strength.

"In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis," Garaki explained, his camera for an eye gazing at the two while Izuku rejoined at Ochaco's side. "Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving, on 200,000 feet of databanks. You are standing in my brain."

"He must be the A.I. algorithm that was blocking Romanoff's hacking attempts," Melissa gasped.

"How did you get here?" Rogers questioned.

"Invited," Garaki informed.

"Invited?" Itsuka frowned, confused.

"It was Operation Paperclip after World War II," Ochaco remembered as Izuku looked at her shocked. "S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited German scientists with strategic value."

"Oh, yeah, that makes sense," Mount Lady exclaimed sarcastically, throwing her hands up. "Just recruit the scientists belonging to the very side that had Nazis in it just after WWII. That can't possibly go wrong at all!"

"Perhaps they saw their scientists as able to be redeemed," Toshinori weakly excused. "I suppose Garaki didn't take it fully."

"They thought I could help their cause," Arnim agreed. "I also helped my own."

Izuku began to catch what Garaki was saying, and he didn't like it. His eyes widened, expressing true horror, every hair on his body standing up in goosebumps.

"HYDRA died with the Red Skull," Rogers refuted.

"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place," Garaki replaced his face with the HYDRA logo, before returning and splitting into two faces.

Setsuna's insides burned with a fury. If what the doctor-turned-A.I. was saying was true, then everything her and Izuku's counterparts went through, all the pain and strife that led to Barnes's death, Rogers frozen in ice, and Carter living on believing the love of her life was dead, it might as well have been for nothing. And that enraged her.

"Prove it," Izuku dared.

"Accessing archive," Garaki turned on multiple computers around them, showing them archival footage and images, including footage of Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull, in his uniform and the Nazi flag waving behind him. "HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom." Another piece of footage showed when the Red Skull raised his glass toward his army of Cube-powered HYDRA soldiers. "What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist," Footage of American soldiers touching down on the banks of Normandy, of a poster and picture of the Red Skull, and footage of Captain America fighting HYDRA goons, generals signing deals, bombings, citizens burning Nazi propaganda. "The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly."

"H-He sounds insane," Pixie Bob shook her head, her ears disgusted by what that living computer was talking about.

Nezu blinked his eyes, looking around aimlessly as he thought. 'Yeah...if a mother tells a kid to pick up his clothes and toys, the child whines and doesn't want to, but ask him where they go, and the child will more than likely show them of their own accord,' Nezu began to see what Garaki was talking about. 'Free will is only free as long as people covet the freedom to think and do freely.'

"After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded," A shot of Captain America leading a group of surrendering Nazis, the logos of the S.S.R. and S.H.I.E.L.D., both of them having a similar eagle motif in their emblem, along with a photo of Masaru Stark, Setsuna Carter, and Colonel Phillips. "And I was recruited." A shot of the White House had the black rotating S.H.I.E.L.D. logo glitch to become the red HYDRA logo as the photo of Garaki took place. "The new HYDRA grew." A photo of a newspaper reading 'German Scientists Recruited by U.S.', zooming in on Garaki as the HYDRA logo was stamped over his face. "A beautiful Parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D."

"HYDRA," Izuku breathed out, horrified. "Rumlow, Sitwell, maybe Pierce, too. They're all HYDRA." Izuku's fists clenched and shook.

"For 70 years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war," Garaki continued, showing multiple rapid-fire images of politics, rioting, war, economy, and destruction. "And when history did not cooperate," A shot of the Winter Soldier's metal shoulder and red star showed, along with a captured image of him standing by a water tower, his Assassin Identity and subject unknown and unidentified, his name as the Winter Soldier censored. "History was changed."

'Just like the MLA and PLF,' Hawks gritted his teeth. Already he thought HYDRA being led under Red Skull, Shigaraki's counterpart, was as much a horrifying comparison to the radicalized group a thousand strong, but now, with all the PLF members revealed as counterparts to Sitwell, Rumlow, and Pierce, as hidden members of HYDRA, the realization was almost a slap to his face with how obvious it was. 'Even their goal is similar. Coerce the populace under their control by way of destruction and manipulation.' He remembered some of Shigaraki's plans as they were discussed among the generals, to cause devastation with their ranks across Japan, use their planted officials like Trumpet into positions of power to better convince the people of their ideology as a saving grace, and take over all of Japan. It made Hawks rage to his very core.

"So, the Winter Soldier is their pawn," Endeavor glared at the screen. "Their assassin to get rid of anything that stood in their way, discreetly."

Hawks saw Lady Nagant flash in his mind, the comparison only worsening his fury, his feathers shaking in his anger.

"That's impossible. S.H.I.E.L.D. would have stopped you," Romanoff denied the horrifying claims.

"Accidents will happen," Garaki showed a newspaper with Masaru Stark's face, the headline: 'Masaru and Mitsuki Stark Die in Car Accident', and a crime scene photo of a dead, bloodied, Masaru slumped on the wheel of his car, the name of the deceased circled in red and tracing to Masaru, the cause of death and date classified. Another photo of Stark, along with a branching list of names associated with them, including S. Carter and Colonel Phillips had both the man's eyes, his name, and several other names censored off, as well as a photo of Shouta Aizawa labeled deceased.

The room grew cold, eyes drifting over toward the one individual in particular. Ibara gasped, hand clasped over her mouth, horrified, turning to the man beside her.

Bakugo stared at the screen frozen, eyes widening as the revelation went through the stages of grief rapidly in his mind. Since the first movie, Iron Man 1, Bakugo had to accept that in this world, his parents were gone, from a simple car accident, a random act of fate. It hurt, but he accepted it. When Iron Man 2 came along and showed Bakugo how much both versions of Masaru cared for both versions of himself, the pain hurt worse but at least it was soothed by the love of his parents.

Now, all this time, it turned out that it was no random accident that took his parents away from this world, it was HYDRA. HYDRA killed his parents. HYDRA sent the Winter Soldier to kill them and frame it like an accident. HYDRA poured salt in the wound and assassinated his teacher's counterpart, too.

Red. That was all the Bakugo could see and feel, boiling, hot, unintelligible, red rage. More than Yubi and Stane betraying him and trying to kill him, more than Higari's death, more than Touya Todoroki as the Mandarin, and nearly killing Ibara. More than anything in his own life. In this fury, Bakugo didn't register standing up and walking until he was stopped.

A certain scarf, hair made of veins, and strands of black tendrils wrapped themselves around the raging Bakugou, a pair of red eyes ceased his Quirk before he could retaliate with it. He raged and thrashed against the bonds binding him down looking to those responsible. Aizawa looked furious himself, but he shook his head at him, wordlessly telling him that what he was doing wasn't helping. He looked at Deku, who still stared at the screen, but before he could rage at the nerd to at least look at him, he noticed that the green-haired teen glared at the screen with nearly as much fury, rage coming from a man who found out his friend and his wife from another world, and the Bakugou parents' surrogate nephew, were murdered by the very organization he tried to destroy.

Finally, a pair of hands came to his cheek, turning his full raging expression toward. He was met with the tearful eyes of Ibara Shiozaki, looking at him with only love, sadness, and comfort. Hers was the comfort that calmed the fire inside him down, the strength of his legs failing him as he fell to his knees. Bakugo did his best to keep his tears in his eyes, but the choking sounds of his sobs wormed their way out his mouth. Ibara plunged his head onto her chest, bearing her heartbeat to him, and wrapping her arms and veins around him.

When he was fully calmed, Izuku and Aizawa ceased their restraints, too, while Ibara led him back to the couch, where they were met by Eri and her tearful hug that the two accepted. But even with the little princess's hug, Bakugou still glared at the screen with burning hatred, promising to himself that this wasn't over.

"Hydra created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security," Izuku and Ochaco could only watch in growing horror at the revelations, while more images of destruction, terrorism, espionage, surveillance, and the Project Insight satellite surveying the globe. "Once a purification process is complete," More images show Project Insight and the three Helicarriers, and their locked-on gun turrets activating, a red glow behind them as their green scopes alit. "HYDRA's new world order will arise."

"Project Insight," Momo gasped out, her body shaking under the horror she was feeling. "They're going to enact a final tragedy through the Helicarriers, killing perhaps thousands, if not millions."

"Then after the world's most strategic and defensive agency on the planet finishes killing millions, HYDRA will swoop in, convince the traumatized, tired people to give up their freedom to get the safety and peace they want," Todoroki glared venomously at the screen, at the doctor and organization that not only was responsible for his counterpart's demise but hinted at causing or influencing perhaps every major war and incident since WWII.

"We won, Captain," Garaki taunted his adversary with newspapers and articles of his disappearance, as the 'Hero who Sacrificed Everything'. "Your death amounts to the same as your life: A Zero Sum."

"Sorry, kid, it's not gonna happen." The doctor's words repeated tauntingly inside his head, all of Captain America's hardships, battles, and sacrifices replayed in his mind while splattered in paint with Garaki's taunt.

"I'm sorry, Izuku. I wish things were different." His mom's words joined in as green bioelectricity began sparking around him.

"Pray that'll be born with a Quirk in your next life and take a swan dive off the roof of the building."

Izuku reared his eyes back up the screen, eyes like tiny pinpricks that held an ocean of rage, black inklings of Black Whip covering parts of his face like a virus. His hair stood on straight while green lightning sparked off of him like a storm, Black Whip continued oozing down his arms, tendrils poking out like writhing snakes. His body lifted off his seat by an inch without his feet touching the ground. Izuku looked at Garaki's digitized face and wanted nothing more than to punch it and the whole bunker out of existence.

Aizawa's eyes trained on Deku this time and the flow of One For All, Black Whip, and Float all ceased, planting Izuku's butt back in his seat. With his strength gone, Setsuna and Melissa wrapped in a hug, whispering words of comfort to calm down, to not believe Garaki's taunts. But for once, Izuku couldn't take it.

Carefully removing himself from the two, ensuring not to look at their surprised, even hurt faces, Izuku marched his way out of the gym/makeshift theater, no one daring to stop his path till he slammed the doors open and marched outside to cool off.

Seconds rolled down and nothing could be heard inside or out. Aizawa sighed and chose to cancel his Quirk, believing Midoriya to have already calmed down enough. He was wrong.

Just as he canceled his Quirk, they heard a roar of rage come from outside, and the sounds of the nearby trees breaking apart, over and over. Toshinori and Aizawa made to get up, before a final, louder roar, one the students took to compare to a beast, and a massive shockwave was felt shaking the building, the blast of wind being felt through the doors.

Immediately, Toshinori and Aizawa ran out, the latter carrying Recovery Girl, the two all but knowing what Midoriya just did to himself. Setsuna and Melissa ran out with them, with only David making any sound of protest toward his daughter, but the girl was outside before he could even finish his sentence. A few more minutes rolled down with obvious unease and worry until the six came back inside. Setsuna and Melissa walked close to him, with Midoriya wordlessly nodding to their words while rubbing his right arm, the students guessing accurately that he went 100% and broke the arm in his anger, only for Recovery Girl to heal it.

As they were getting back to their seats, Miruko stared at Midoriya with a hard stare, as Eri went up and hugged her angry Papa. 'Kid's definitely got an anger issue under all that fanboy and nerdy energy. Maybe even worse than that Bakugo guy,' The Rabbit Hero analyzed, remembering when Midoriya admitted to having suffered 11 straight years of non-stop bullying. Anger like that didn't come from nowhere and it was clear that those years have clearly bottled up inside of him. 'Anger can be a good tool in a fight, but a detriment if he lets it loose without control.' Rumi blinked and looked at her hand, before clenching it. 'Guess I know what my first lesson's going to be.'

Having enough, Izuku Rogers punched and destroyed the screen with Garaki's computerized face (just as normal Izuku wanted to do).

Izuku let out a bitter scoff. 'At least one of us got to do it,' He thought.

Another computer booted up with Garaki's face. "As I was saying," Garaki tauntingly chided him.

Setsuna wrapped her arms around Izuku just the fellow green-haired teen was about to fume once more. "Don't listen to him," Setsuna whispered, comfortingly. "He's nothing but a dead man. Nothing he said was true. You're a Hero, both here and there."

Melissa joined Setsuna's efforts and hugged and whispered to Deku, too. "She's right, Izuku," Melissa said. "If you really were worthless, you wouldn't have saved me and my father on I-Island or helped save Eri, and Kouta, or do any of the things you did. You're not worthless, far from it."

A hand with beads on the fingertips landed softly on his kneecaps. Izuku turned to see Ochaco, her eyes slightly watered, and with a soft smile. "You're not the worthless Deku that can't do anything," Ochaco softly said. "You're the Deku who can do it. My Deku. My Hero. Please don't ever question it or listen to anyone who says otherwise. They aren't half the man you are or ever will be."

A tear rolled down Izuku's eye. "...Okay," Izuku simply said, unable to say anything else lest he fall to pieces. Instead, he lowered his hand to Ochaco's. "Thank you. All of you. For everything."

"Anytime, Greenie," Setsuna rubbed her head on the crook of his neck.

"Always, Izu," Melissa hugged him tighter.

Ochaco blinked away the tears, keeping in how much that thanks meant to her, and nodded, satisfied.

"What's on this drive?" Rogers demanded out of the computerized consciousness.

"Project Insight requires insight," Garaki disclosed. "So, I wrote an algorithm."

"An algorithm?" David questioned.

"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" Romanoff quickly questioned.

"The answer to your question is fascinating," Garaki admitted. "Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."

The doors to the elevator were closing, shuttered by bunker doors. Cap tossed his shield too late to stop it, the shield bouncing off the fully closed bunker doors, ricocheting back to Rogers.

"He's trapped them inside!" Mineta shouted, gripping at his head.

Ochaco's phone beeped, the Russian agent checking it, eyes widening. "Izuku, we got a bogey," Ochaco warned, the phone showing an incoming missile closing in. "Short-range ballistic. 30 seconds tops."

"WHAT?!" The group exclaimed.

"Who fired it?" Izuku questioned.

"S.H.I.E.L.D.," Romanoff answered.

"Correction, HYDRA," Aizawa said, frowning murderously.

"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain," Garaki divulged.

"He deliberately revealed everything and goaded and taunted Rogers in time for HYDRA to launch a missile at them, destroying them and removing all traces of Garaki and the facility in the process," Endeavor growled.

Ochaco removed the drive from the port while Izuku looked around. "Admit it. It's better this way," Garaki confessed. Izuku's gaze lasered onto the floor grates, rushing over to it and ripping it out, tossing it away. "We are, both of us, Out of Time."

The missile zoomed toward its target. As the flames of destruction destroyed the computers and Garaki, Izuku and Ochaco dived into the hole in the floor, the former's shield raised against falling debris that threatened to bury them, Izuku roaring against the destruction.

"NO!" The students yelled in shock.

"No, no, no, no, no," Momo repeated, hands over her mouth and her eyes watering in fear. "Please be okay."

"They hid underneath the explosion and Rogers raised the shield to block the debris," Kyoka said. "I'm sure they're alright." Despite her words, Kyoka still fiddled nervously with her jacks.

As the screen was pitch black, and the debris settled, Izuku groaned and grunts could be heard, pushing away some debris. The light of the flames revealed a smoking and destroyed background, and Rogers and Romanoff's conditions. Both were covered in dust and soot, Izuku panting and looking around while Ochaco's barely conscious body slumped against the wall.

"Oh, thank god!" Nejire gasped, clutching at her heart to slow it down. "They're alive."

"They survived a missile strike," Shoji scoffed in disbelief. "I don't know whether to be amazed or skeptical."

"Just be amazed and don't question it," Shinsou muttered. "Unless you want to see them get blown up again."

Seeing no visible danger, Izuku grabbed Ochaco, lifting her up, while her arm was around his shoulders, and taking her out of the debris. Hearing noises coming from the distance, Izuku saw S.H.I.E.L.D. Quinjets heading toward them. The Super Soldier ran with his partner.

While S.H.I.E.L.D. and S.T.R.I.K.E. searched all over the area for survivors, Rumlow climbed down to find Izuku's and Ochaco's hiding place. Rumlow shined the light attached to his fun at the ground, finding a footprint.

"Shit. I thought they could have managed to give them the slip and make them think they were dead," Ojiro cursed.

"Now, that's asking for too much," Nirengeki shook his head.

Climbing out, the now-revealed HYDRA agent pressed a finger to his earpiece. "Call in the asset," Rumlow radioed.

"He means the Winter Soldier," Todoroki narrowed his eyes, his worry for his friends and their survival only rising from here on out.


AAAAAAAANNNNNNDDDD SCENE! Oh Jesus Christ, finally! I honestly didn't expect this chapter to take this long and be this long, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

Anyway, hope you guys liked this chapter and all the action, especially some of Cap's greatest hits, like the elevator scene and taking down the Quinjet, and I hope that I did the reactions for those scenes justice.

Also, I hope most of you bared with me on the scenes with Izuku's and Bakugo's anger. To answer why Deku had to go clear his head by breaking his arm while Bakugo didn't, one) Bakugou already did march out and blow up a bunch of holes outside already in the prior day, two) not only did he find out HYDRA killed the counterparts to his surrogate aunt and uncle, one of them being friends with Cap, but also was Garaki's taunt about all of Cap's efforts being worthless isn't exactly old news to Izuku being told that he was worthless all the time, so it just compounded one after the other, and three) to show the forwarding progression of his and Miruko's arcs going forward for now, but I'll leave what will happen with those two for the future.

Anyway, the one new counterpart for this chapter was Melissa as Sharon Carter, or I guess in this world, Melissa Carter. Technically, I already gave this away at the end notes of the first part of Captain America: The First Avenger, but only because so many were expecting Melissa to be Peggy instead of Sharon, so I caved and gave you guys a freebie. Regardless, the reasons why Melissa fits Sharon more than Peggy include, for starters, blonder hair, and Sharon Carter, aka Agent 13, has been more of a well-known love interest to Captain America, even in some continuities being the mother of his children, which fits well with Melissa, one of the girls that Izuku is shipped with the most, almost as much as Ochaco. We see Sharon as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. more than Peggy, and Melissa SHIELD, of course, I was going to make Melissa at least one female S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and it might as well be Sharon. As for Sharon's future in becoming the Power Broker, while Melissa hasn't done anything villainous or morally ambiguous as Sharon, it sort of references and ties with Melissa's father, David, and his deal with Wolfram to steal the Quirk Amplification device, and you can even see Sharon as the Power Broker as a version of Melissa who went into the dark side of selling Support Items.

Also, I haven't had F.R.I.D.A.Y. reveal Melissa Carter's last name for a reason and that's to hold the suspense of this version of Melissa being related to Setsuna Carter. Might reveal it in the final part of The Winter Soldier, or I might save it further down the road for Civil War. Depends.

I now also hope some of you guys who have been skeptical of me for this realize why I made so many comparisons between the PLF and HYDRA with this chapter, as I find both the plot of HYDRA in this movie similar to the PLF's grand plan before they were surprised attacked by the Heroes. Also, Arnim showed more of his comparisons with Garaki with both men living far beyond their time, one through a secret Quirk and the other through technology. And we finally had Bakugo learn about his parents getting assassinated by the Winter Soldier, something that is going to cook up oh so deliciously for the next chapters and Civil War.

And yes, if it wasn't already obvious, the next person for Izuku to talk with is going to be Ochaco, which you could say is about time, since I've had her as the third person to get with Midoriya instead of the first. More on this development in the next few chapters, but the actual talk will likely not happen until the interlude chapter after the last two parts of Winter Soldiers and the four parts for Guardians of the Galaxy, which is next, don't you worry.

With all that said, hope you guys liked the chapter, and I doubly hoped I pissed off all those guys that keep whining about the harem even though I clearly labeled it in pairings this time, check out my other stories here and on AO3 if you haven't already, comment your counterpart predictions, and remember to stay safe and sane in this otherwise infuriating and confusing time we live in.

This has been Zayden StormVoid and I hope to see you soo-

*WINTER SOLDIER THEME BLASTS SUPER LOUD*

ZS: GAH! What the-WADE! WHAT THE HELL?! AND WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING HERE?!"

DP: Oh, come on, you Two-Face, emo, wannabe! I'm just here to get people hyped about me and Wolvie's new movie coming out soon. Oh, and to make sure you finish that Deadpool vs Deathstroke fight. Have you seen all the comments talking about me and my meetup with All Might?

ZS: But did you have to blare that music super loudly to do that?

DP: Nope, that's just for funsies.

ZS: *snaps finger, opens a wormhole, and kicks Wade into it*

DP: YOU DIDN'T SAY THIS IS SPARTA! *wormhole closes*

ZS: Urgh, gotta remember to block any teleportation access for Wade in that universe. Until next time, peace.