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On the last day of their first year at Yuuei, Aizawa tells all twenty of them that he’s proud of them. It sets the mood for the rest of the night.
Mina is put in charge of arranging the party a week before, and she tackles the task with nothing less than complete devotion. At eight o’clock that night, it comes together with streamers, a buffet table made mostly by Bakugou and Satou, and a banner reading ‘1 Down, 2 To Go’, hung across the back wall of the dorms by Sero and Hagakure. Jirou is in charge of music, and Mina can see her from where she stands, fussing over the speaker system with a glint in her eyes.
Mina grins over her soda and casts her eye over the room. Todoroki and Yaoyorozu, the resident wallflowers, are talking to each other over in a corner, sharing snacks; she’d think they were dating if they weren’t both so gay. Midoriya, Iida, and Uraraka are together as well, predictable – she might go and shake things up later; they all need more friends.
Bakugou, Sero, Kirishima, and Kaminari are all arguing about something, around the buffet table as Bakugou gestures emphatically at one of the spicier dishes he’d made. Tsuyu passes by, heading for Tokoyami and Shouji, and Mineta, lurking under the table, tries to leap at her legs, but Bakugou blasts him away without looking, and Tsuyu just frowns at him before moving on. Mina rolls her eyes, and Mineta ducks back under the table, giggling to himself.
Ojiro, Hagakure, and Kouda are all together too, Kouda mostly smiling and making slight gestures as the other two talk and sometimes flirt. Mina thinks she’ll leave them there for a while and then come and tease them later; they’re so easily flustered.
Aoyama goes to talk to Jirou, and, tilting her head, Mina finds that they’re discussing the idea of a karaoke night. Hm. Something to consider for next time. She grins a little and sweeps over to join in the discussion. As she passes by the buffet table, she kicks out, and sure enough, Mineta yelps, caught by surprise.
Little pervert. She rolls her eyes, exasperated.
It’s a fun night. An hour passes, then two, then three, and more. With school out for a while, even Iida isn’t making any moves to put a stop to it. Mina talks with everyone at least a bit – congratulating each other for their scores on the final exam, speculating about the coming year, making jokes about their families and their quirks and the villains they’d faced. Everyone compliments Mina on the party and she can’t stop smiling.
Groups break up and regroup and move around, even as a few stick together. Midoriya switches to talk with Todoroki and Yaoyorozu, Hagakure joins Tsuyu and Uraraka, Shouji and Tokoyami clash hilariously with Aoyama and Kaminari. Bakugou and Kirishima disappear for a bit and then reappear a while later, mysteriously disheveled.
Even Mineta makes his rounds, talking grades with Midoriya and Iida and computers with Shouji, who is surprisingly knowledgeable on the topic; Mina hadn’t known either of them was interested in programming. Once, Mineta takes Yaoyorozu a cup of soda with a joke about buying her a drink, and she rolls her eyes but takes it anyway.
(He tries the same line on Hagakure, but accidentally spills it all down her front instead. They all get a good laugh out of it, even Hagakure, who has to go change into a fresh shirt.)
At around one in the morning, Jirou stops mid-conversation and squints over Mina’s shoulder.
“Is something wrong with Momo?” she asks, voice layered with poorly disguised concern.
Mina frowns and twists around to look. After a moment of searching she finds Yaoyorozu, and her frown deepens.
Yaoyorozu is leaning against the wall behind her, on fisted hand pulled almost to her mouth and a vague grimace on her face. As Mina watches, Todoroki steps forward and catches her attention with a light touch on her elbow, and then says something. Yaoyorozu shrugs and shakes her head, and Todoroki pulls her over to a chair, where she sits down.
Mina straightens out, but Jirou’s attention hasn’t wavered from Yaoyorozu.
“Let’s go check on her,” Mina offers, and the sentence is only half out of her mouth before Jirou is up and making a beeline for her girlfriend. A moment later, Mina follows, also concerned.
“Momo!” Jirou calls when she’s closer. Yaoyorozu is leaning back still, eyes half-closed, but she opens them when Jirou approaches. Mina notices that she seems to be having trouble focusing, and an uneasy feeling brews in her chest.
“Kyouka,” she murmurs, and then continues, slightly slurred, “’M fine, don’t worry- just. Kinda. Sleepy.”
“Then let’s get you to bed,” Jirou says immediately, and then, as if to cover up her worry, “I can’t believe you’re ducking out on us this early. Ashido’s spent every spare minute for the last week planning this.”
Yaoyorozu grimaces again and tips her head vaguely toward Mina. “Sorry, Ashido,” she says, contrite. “I might’ve… gotten sick, or...”
Mina waves her hand carelessly. “Don’t worry about it,” she says. “Just take care of yourself, alright? You must’ve worn yourself out good, worrying about finals.”
Yaoyorozu nods, and then, as if summoned by the promise of seeing the inside of a girl’s room, Mineta appears, ignoring the matching scowls from Jirou, Mina, and Todoroki.
“I can take her!” he offers easily, eyes glittering and a big grin on his face, reaching up as if for her elbow – or her breast, probably. Jirou bats his hand away sharply, but he seems undeterred. “I was gonna go to bed soon anyway, and you should stay here! You want to, right?”
“I want to take care of my girlfriend,” Jirou says sharply, “and you’re not laying a hand on her in this state, Mineta.”
“I’d just be taking her to her room,” Mineta insists, reaching for Yaoyorozu again. Yaoyorozu herself responds this time, pushing his hand away with an irritated, if dazed, frown. “Really! It’s on my way and out of yours, it just makes sense-!”
“I want Kyouka to take me,” Yaoyorozu says sharply, and then she winces and reaches up to cover her mouth. After a moment, though, she adds, “Not you, Mineta.”
“Lay off, Mineta,” Mina says, exasperated. “Go to bed on your own, for God’s sake.”
“Fine,” Mineta whines, dropping back, crossing his arms, and sulking. “But you’re coming back to the party afterward, right? You don’t need to hog her to yourself all night.”
Jirou scowls at him and doesn’t dignify that with an answer, tugging on Yaoyorozu’s arm to get her to stand. But Mina stiffens; something feels off about that last sentence. Todoroki thinks so, too, and he reaches out and catches Mineta by the arm, with his right hand.
“Dude, don’t touch me!” Mineta protests, tugging ineffectually at his arm. “That’s gay!”
Todoroki doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he stares at Mineta, colder than he’d been even at the beginning of the school year, face carved from stone.
“Ashido,” he says, and his voice is as cold as his expression, “What are the signs that someone’s been drugged?”
Mina freezes. So does Jirou. Even Yaoyorozu, as out of it as she is, shifts and twists a little and struggles to focus, and then, three moments too late, stiffens, eyes widening in uncharacteristic panic.
Mina is panicking, too.
“Sleepiness,” she rattles off, because she knows by heart, she hasn’t attended a college party or gone to a bar but she’s seen the websites, “Lack of coordination, confusion, nausea, blurred vision. Slurred speech, dizziness.”
Jirou is so tense she’s shaking, eyes almost as wide as Yaoyorozu’s.
“You little rat bastard,” she hisses.
“I didn’t do anything!” Mineta insists, pulling harder now.
“You gave her a soda earlier,” Todoroki says, without moving or loosening his grip. “It was already open. She didn’t think anything of it, because you’re our classmate, and you are training to be a hero.”
They’re starting to attract attention now. Aoyama wanders over, his usual smile dimmed to almost nothing, and then Midoriya, Iida and Uraraka following in moments.
“Exactly!” Mineta yelped, voice pitching up. “Why would I-!”
Mina has had enough, and she reaches forward and pats at his pockets. One of them has his phone; the other has a packet in it, and when she pulls it out she finds a sheet of pills, with two blisters popped.
“Oh my God,” she whispers, shaken and furious. “Mineta, you- You’re the worst, I can’t-”
By this time, the rest of the class has arrived, and the room is silent; Tokoyami had gone to turn the music off as soon as he realized what was happening. Iida is shaking with fury, and Uraraka has clapped a hand over her mouth, trembling.
“I didn’t-” Mineta’s voice cracks, eyes wide and bloodshot. Todoroki squeezes his hand, and ice spreads down from his shoulder to the ground, trapping him. As soon as possible, Todoroki lets go and steps back, crossing his arms stiffly.
Jirou takes Yaoyorozu to sit down again, and is quietly murmuring to her, voice wavering only a little in her anger. Mina doesn’t listen. With the packet of pills clutched tightly in one hand, she reaches into her pocket with the other and scrambles for her phone, then unlocks it.
She doesn’t call the police; it doesn’t occur to her, because her first thought was-
“Hello?”
The sleepy English word makes her flinch, surprise taking her in a bad way. At another time she might’ve been delighted to make the discovery that Present Mic and Aizawa slept together, sometimes if not always, but now was just really, really not the time.
A yawn over the phone as she fails to respond.
“Give your poor teacher one night’s rest!” Present Mic scolds playfully, blissfully unaware. “I know you’re all excited, but Aizawa is tired, and you know how little sleep he gets-”
Mina takes a breath. “Please put Mr. Aizawa on the phone,” she says, as steadily as she can manage.
Present Mic pauses, and when he speaks again, all playfulness has dropped from his voice. “Ashido, is something the matter?”
“Please put Mr. Aizawa on the phone,” she repeats, her voice pitching up with stress.
Her classmates are shifting around her, some of them restless, some of them furious, some anxious. Tsuyu, Uraraka, and Jirou all conduct a quiet conversation, and Tsuyu and Uraraka leave and come back a few moments later with one glass of water between them, which is given to Yaoyorozu. Aside, Kirishima appears to be talking Bakugou out of murder. Spitefully, Mina wishes he wouldn’t.
They trained for villains. They trained for purse snatchers and mass murderers and perpetrators of mass destruction, set on destroying either the hero industry or the city, whichever was most convenient.
Belatedly, she realizes that they had never trained for this.
Another moment passes, and then Aizawa is on the phone. “What is it, Ashido?” he asked curtly.
Irritated and tired though it was, Mina instantly relaxes a little, tears springing to her eyes at the sound of his voice. One moment passes, then two, and it’s only when Aizawa sighs impatiently that she realizes she hasn’t spoken yet.
“Mineta gave Yaoyorozu a roofie,” she blurts out, some of her panic sliding into her voice. A different kind of quiet settles on the other side of the line, but it only lasts half a second.
“Don’t put her to bed, keep her sitting up, give her some water if you haven’t already,” Aizawa rattles off, suddenly all business. “We’ll need to take her to the ER for observation, Recovery Girl is out. Keep Mineta from going anywhere. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Thank you,” Mina breathes out, unspeakably relieved, and within moments the line is dead. Louder, in case anyone missed the conversation, she says to the room, “Mr. Aizawa is on his way.”
The room settles a little. Shouji stalks over to loom over Mineta irately, and a moment later, Tokoyami follows, along with darkness-braced Dark Shadow. Quietly, Aoyama gathers Satou and Sero, and they start to take apart the party, pulling down decorations and putting away leftovers. Kaminari is with Hagakure, and Mina flinches as she remembers that Mineta tried to give Hagakure a drink first.
Mina thinks she might throw up. Later.
It’s a long ten minutes. The idle members of the class drift off to the walls, unwilling to leave but unable to help. Yaoyorozu is dozing on Kyouka’s shoulder, and Jirou still looks ready to kill a man. Namely Mineta, who is still being guarded by Todoroki, Shouji, Tokoyami, Iida, and Midoriya, the latter two looking almost as betrayed as they did angry.
Finally, Aizawa arrives. Dimly, Mina thinks that this is the most furious she has ever seen him. Present Mic and All Might, both a few steps behind him, almost pale in comparison at this moment.
Aizawa doesn’t speak at first, stopping before the cluster of students surrounding Mineta. He looks just short of using his quirk, and he’s disheveled, still in his pajamas but with his scarves thrown on top of them, now shifting and settling dangerously. And his gaze settles on Mineta.
Behind him, subtle, Present Mic murmurs to Jirou and Yaoyorozu, and both of them are pulled to their feet and guided out the door – to the hospital, Mina assumes. All Might just steps back, face stony, waiting.
“I didn’t do it!” Mineta wails, waving his arms frantically with tears spilling down his cheeks. “I didn’t do it, Mr. Aizawa, they’re making it up! I’ve been framed!”
“He’s lying!” Mina was quick to counter, irrational fear gripping her heart. “I found these in his pocket!” She brandishes the sheet at Aizawa, who takes them with a nod and stuffs them away with only a glance, never changing expression.
“They must have been planted!” Mineta whimpers. “I didn’t do it!”
Aizawa studies him for a long moment, and then huffs out a long and irate sigh. His fist clenches; it’s easy to imagine him crushing metal in his grip. His eyes are bloodshot and wide open, and he’s scowling.
“You are a hero student,” Aizawa hisses at last. “At best, you are expected to push progress above and beyond current norms. At worst, you must have, at least, a modicum of decency and human compassion.” His eyes flash, still not quite his quirk. “I have tolerated your perversions until now because I believed that you were young and would eventually grow out of them. However, now you have gone too far.” He leans down, and his expression darkens further. “I will not teach a student who will so take advantage of his classmates.”
Mineta lets out a terrified whimper, shrinking away the best he can. He doesn’t deny his actions again.
Aizawa straightens up again, nothing more or less than pure disgust in his eyes.
“Pack your things,” he says coldly. The room is silent. “You cannot stay in the dorms tonight. We will speak with Principal Nedzu in the morning.” He glances at Todoroki, who leans down to release Mineta without further prompting.
All Might takes this as his cue to begin making his rounds, and the room begins to settle further as All Might’s confidence and reassuring presence does its work. Half an hour after Aizawa has taken Mineta and left, they begin going to bed in twos and threes. In the morning, Yaoyorozu and Jirou return, rattled but unhurt, and relieved that Mineta was gone.
At the beginning of the next school year, they have a new student, Shinsou Hitoshi, and life goes on.
That is the end of the first part, the irritating part where tiny, hero-in-training Mineta looks up their skirts and tries to grope them and puts them in strange outfits.
The second part begins with calls.
Mina is alone the first time, waiting for the microwave to finish running so she can eat dinner. It’s ten at night and she’s fresh off a patrol, tired and impatient. The apartment is already locked up, and the blinds on her window are closed. She is twenty-one years old.
Her phone rings, the generic tone she uses for calls that aren’t from a close friend, and she picks it up without checking the number. “Hello?”
A moment passes.
“Ashido!” the voice on the other end calls after a moment, sounding delighted. She frowns, failing to place it, and he continues, “It’s been so long, but you haven’t changed your number at all!”
Mina scowls a little, shifting back to lean against the counter. “Who is this?” she asks, tilting her head slightly and reaching up to rub absently at one of her horns.
“It’s Mineta, Mineta!” the voice protests, and Mina starts, surprised. Without waiting for a response, Mineta continues, voice dropping a register, “I’ve been watching you on television, Ashido! You’re so hot in your new costume! There’ve been so many panty shots, it’s awesome, I’ve saved every one of them. And your boobies, Ashido!”
“You’re still such a little pervert,” Ashido says flatly, grimacing. God, he’s exactly the same, why? “You got expelled for a reason, Mineta. Shut up and don’t call me again.”
“Calm your tits, it’s a compliment!” Mineta giggles. “You’re just such a hottie, I can’t control myself! Watching you on screen, man, it’s practically porn!”
“You’re disgusting,” she snaps, and then she hangs up. In the next couple minutes, she blocks his number and assumes that that will be the end of it.
The next day, she meets with Yaoyorozu in a café and mentions the incident to her, and Yaoyorozu grimaces.
“You too?” she asks, which is not what Mina was expecting. “The little creep’s been calling me and Kyouka for the last week. And he keeps using different numbers, so we can’t even block him.”
Mina’s stomach drops.
“What are you going to do?” Mina asks after a moment, because Yaoyorozu didn’t go to the grocery store without having planning it out step by step, and Mina has no idea.
Yaoyorozu shrugs. “Kyouka and I are going to change numbers soon. I’ve reported it to the police, but, well-” Another flash of a grimace, and she continues, “You know how far it has to go before people do anything.”
Mina winces and nods; the incident at the end of their first year is probably close to the front of Yaoyorozu’s mind.
“I can’t believe he didn’t just vanish off the face of the earth,” she says, reaching up to rub her cheek ruefully. “I’d almost forgotten he existed outside of an annoyance in our first year.”
“Yeah,” Yaoyorozu says, and it’s quiet enough that Mina decides to change the subject.
Over the next week, Tooru, Uraraka, and Tsuyu receive calls as well, and Mina receives two more, all from different numbers. By the end of three weeks, Tooru and Uraraka have changed their numbers as well, and Tsuyu and Mina have stopped picking up for unrecognized numbers.
“I almost feel fifteen again,” Uraraka says, and the rest of them laugh.
At three weeks, the situation shifts.
Mina is with the police, following up on a villain with a vine quirk, when she receives a text. Without missing a beat in her conversation with the officer, she checks it.
I think about you girls all the time. You think you’re big time heroes, but one day I’ll sweep in to save the day and bring you home wi…
Mina puts her phone away, looks back at the officer, and continues to explain the specifics of the villain’s quirk. Her phone buzzes twice more during the conversation. She doesn’t take it out again.
Later, alone at home, she takes her phone out again. There is one text from Tooru, one from Kirishima, one from Yaoyorozu, and three from an unknown number. The first three, it pans out, concern the last three.
From Yaoyorozu: Mineta found Kyouka’s new number and sent her a few graphic texts. I reported it again, but I’m worried about you. Have you gotten any?
From Tooru: Momo says that Kyouka got some gross messages. Mina, I think you should think about changing your number.
From Kirishima: Hey, I heard Mineta’s still calling you and stuff. You alright?
And from the unknown number…
I think about you girls all the time. You think you’re big time heroes, but one day I’ll sweep in to save the day and bring you home wi…
I want you to be mine forever. I could look at your hot body every day and it would never get old or boring, and I could go and look at…
I can picture it, you know. Sometimes I draw or write about it – people like that sort of thing. You all stretched out on my bed, ready…
Mina shudders and doesn’t read the rest of Mineta’s texts. After a few minutes, she replies to Yaoyorozu and admits that she has, then to Tooru insisting she won’t let the rat win, and to Kirishima assuring him she’s fine, just grossed out.
She considers for a while, and then opens the least offensive of Mineta’s texts (creepily long) and replies, Curl into a ball and fuck yourself, Mineta.
Then she blocks the number. It won’t help, but it makes her feel better.
Annoying little rat bastard.
The texts are harder to ignore; she turns the previews on her phone off but still catches glimpses in the app. Jirou changes her number again, Tsuyu gives in and does the same, and Yaoyorozu bothers the police for a bit before reluctantly letting it drop – Mina didn’t hear it from Jirou (not that Yaoyorozu would hear, anyway) but the police seemed to believe that a collection of top twenty heroes should be able to handle the situation themselves.
Mina supposes they aren’t wrong. It still leaves a bad taste in her mouth.
By now, their entire class is aware of the situation. Shinsou, who has only heard stories about Mineta but hates him almost as much as any of them, offers to track him down and do a little off-the-books hero work, as he puts it. (Iida scolds him, but it’s halfhearted.)
With clear reluctance, Yaoyorozu shoots it down. They need to handle it through official channels, she says. On principle, Mina agrees, but she can’t say she dislikes the idea.
Midoriya makes them promise to let them know if it gets too bad, Bakugou mutters threats to Mineta’s life and limb, and Kirishima offers to trade phone numbers for a while. Mina loves her classmates.
Ultimately, however, no action is taken. Mina ignores the texts, but they keep coming.
Sometime during their third year, Present Mic took a shine to Jirou, and Jirou, surprisingly, took a shine to him in return. Mina isn’t privy to the details, really, much to her consternation, but once they’d overcome the whole making-Jirou’s-ears-bleed issue, they’d gotten along quite well.
Now, a few years later, Jirou is carefully building up her radio show. It’s nowhere near as successful as Present Mic’s, not yet, but she enjoys it.
Mina listens to it, when she has time; most of their class does, and Yaoyorozu, for one, calls in regularly. Jirou gets a little note of delight in her voice whenever she does. Mina thinks that’s why Yaoyorozu does it so often.
It’s a small radio show, so far, so Jirou hasn’t hired anyone to filter the calls. There aren’t enough of them – not yet, Jirou insists, and it’s one of the few things she gets truly optimistic about.
Jirou is taking song requests when the little rat bastard strikes again. It has been six weeks since his calls began.
“Hello, listener.” Jirou’s host voice isn’t chipper like Present Mic’s, but it’s friendlier than her usual drawl. “Got a song in mind for us?”
“Just the sound of your pretty voice, Jirou,” Mineta wheedles, voice deeper than Mina had previously realized, and Mina sits up straight, dark eyes going wide in alarm. “Sing for me, sexy lady, I want to hear you when you c-”
His voice cuts off; Jirou has hung up on him. For a few moments, there is silence. Mina waits, holding her breath, heart beating too fast in her chest.
It’s a surprise, that’s all. Jirou must be mortified. Mineta doesn’t usually do stuff in public.
Finally, Jirou speaks again, voice carefully measured in a way Mina recognizes as only just hiding how shaken she is. “Sorry about that, listeners. But let’s take a moment, hm? Set the songs aside for a bit. Let’s talk about sexual harassment.”
Mina listens. She thinks that Jirou has been doing her research. Or perhaps just listening to Yaoyorozu ramble; she was not quite as bad as Midoriya but sometimes close, especially when she was truly nervous.
She texts Yaoyorozu, on the off-chance she wasn’t listening, and deletes another text from an unknown number.
It says something about her pretty mouth. She doesn’t look too closely, but her stomach still turns.
Yaoyorozu reports it to the police, again, with Jirou and Mina both in tow. This time Mina is there to see the response herself, and the lines of tightly restrained anger in both Yaoyorozu and Jirou’s expressions.
Because the policemen are smirking. One of them mutters something about compliments, and another something snide about female heroes and knights in shining armor. A third gives both of them sharp looks, but neither is quelled. The third assures Yaoyorozu with an air of weariness that it will be added to the file, but nothing can be done, he says.
Yaoyorozu accepts this stiffly, and they leave. Mina is frustrated; Yaoyorozu and Jirou appear even more so.
Somehow, Aizawa and Toshinori hear about it. Mina suspects that one of them told the other, but is unsure of which found out first; it is equally likely that Shinsou or Midoriya let it slip in a fit of worry. Both of them spend half a day at the police station, attempting to push for action – a restraining order, a no-contact order, something. Nothing is done.
Mina wonders if the word of All Might simply doesn’t mean much anymore. From Toshinori’s frustrated expression, she suspects he is thinking something similar.
The calls have been coming for three months, but they are almost an aside, an afterthought on most days. Even the other girls have stopped talking about them, most of them having changed their numbers successfully.
Mina is with Kirishima, Kaminari, Sero, and Bakugou, sitting in a restaurant booth with a few fans staring not-so-subtly from another. She’s relaxed and laughing, and Kirishima is grinning big; he hasn’t lost his sense of humor since high school, and Kaminari is pouting while Sero pats his hand consolingly. Bakugou is rolling his eyes, looking ready to wash his hands of all of them.
Mina isn’t fooled. If he hasn’t already, he never will. He’s stuck with them.
Mina thinks that it is because of this mood – lighthearted, affectionate, easygoing – that she answers her ringing phone without checking the ID. “Hello?”
Bakugou shoots her an almost offended look, and Kirishima swings his arm around his shoulders, grinning. Sero laughs at both of them, and Bakugou lazily flicks his palms in Sero’s direction and triggers an explosion too small to do any harm. Mina smiles, and then realizes what she’s hearing from her phone. Her smile freezes on her face.
It’s moaning – low and hoarse and distinctly, undeniably sexual. She hears half of her name and a little gasp before she regains enough of herself to hang up and stuff her phone back into her pocket, fumbling with it before she managed to put it away. Her face burns with sudden humiliation and she tastes bile in her throat.
“Ashido?” Kaminari is the first one to notice her expression, leaning forward a little with his brow furrowing. She hides her hands under the table, and hopes they can’t see how shaky she suddenly feels.
“Wrong number,” she says, and forces a grin, not looking at any of them. Her ears feel stuffed with cotton, and her palms itch with repressed acid. “Shows me not to answer the phone during Bakusquad time, huh?”
“Don’t have a fucking squad,” Bakugou grumbles, but the sharp look her throws her shows he isn’t fooled. “I’m gonna blow his shitty face off if he doesn’t let up soon. He still can’t take a goddamn hint, can he?”
Kirishima’s expression darkens, a rare occurrence, and Kaminari’s eyes widen as he processes the implication just a moment late. Sero’s fingers tap restlessly against the table as he studies her, clearly concerned.
“Be my guest,” Mina says wearily, running one hand through her hair and up one of her horns to fidget briefly with the tip, head tilting slightly as her mouth pulls into a worried grimace.
She does not feel threatened by Mineta Minoru’s perverted behavior. She is a professional hero, and she’s dealt with far worse than an immature and persistent brat.
After that, though, she can’t quite relax again.
The calls have been coming for four months. Mina looks Mineta up online.
He hasn’t graduated yet, but he attends a university nearby. Computer science degree. He uses social media regularly, with a public profile, but doesn’t interact much with others; it’s mostly pictures of women he sees while out. Some political posts. It’s… surprisingly innocuous.
Mina closes the webpage without looking too closely. A few days later, she regrets it.
These days she has custom ringtones for everyone she wants to talk to; the default is silent and the voicemail box is down, because Mineta took to leaving messages two weeks ago. She’s on edge most of the time, these days, but she pretends it’s because of a slight upswing in crime. She’s a hero, after all. She’s expected to be on edge.
Her phone rings with Jirou’s tone, and Mina glances at the screen before she answers. “What’s up, Jirou?”
“I hate that little pervert so fucking much, Ashido.”
For a moment, Mina is taken aback, and then her chest tightens. Involuntarily, she tenses, crossing the room to press her back to a wall, and one of her hands drifts up to settle in the crook of her elbow. A chill settles in her stomach, and her mouth flattens into a thin line. “What did he do this time?”
“He sent Momo a letter.” Jirou’s voice trembles with rage, and a little worry that a more distant friend wouldn’t recognize. “Ashido, he’s been stalking her! He had pictures of her from when she’s walking around, or on patrol. She had no idea he was there! And he…” A short, sharp breath, and when she speaks again, her voice is only slightly steadier. “He wrote out his fantasies again. Like the texts from before.”
Mina makes a sound, dismayed and frustrated and unsettled. “Is Yaomomo okay?”
Jirou exhales. “She locked herself in the bathroom for a bit, but now she’s gone back to the police station again. Aizawa’s with her, and he thinks that this together with what happened at Yuuei might be enough for a restraining order. Fucking finally.”
“Yeah,” Mina agrees with a wince, “finally.”
Mineta had always perved on all of them a little bit, but he was worst to Yaoyorozu.
(A week later, Mina opens a letter without a return address and finds a three-page wall of writing and a dozen photos – photos of her at the grocery store, out with her friends, taking a break after a patrol, grinning at a fan. Before she can think about it, her acid bubbles up in her hands and the letter dissolves. She doesn’t tell anyone.)
(She looks around when she goes outside, but she doesn’t see anything. There are too many crowds. At home, she closes her blinds and hopes that’s enough. It doesn’t feel like it.)
Yaoyorozu doesn’t get a restraining order. She’s a hero, the police say. If she wants someone away from her, she can handle it herself.
How is she supposed to keep Mineta from sending letters? Jirou demands wrathfully, when she calls to tell Mina. Mina thinks she’s crying but isn’t sure. How are we supposed to stop him from following her when he isn’t doing anything violent? Heroes aren’t for this kind of crime, Mina!
I know, Mina says, the words heavy in her mouth.
It’s been five months since the first call.
Mina isn’t watching when it happens; she’s on patrol, handling a bank robber with a disintegration quirk not nearly as scary as Shigaraki’s. She’s telling him that, laughing and ducking his flailing hands, when Yaoyorozu takes down a purse thief with a superspeed quirk halfway across the city.
She doesn’t hear about it from Jirou this time, or from Yaoyorozu herself. She hears it from Midoriya, so quietly furious he’s sort of crying with it, and Midoriya tells her to be careful. She thinks that he suspects Mineta’s escalated with her, too, but he doesn’t say so and she’s grateful.
The incident is televised. Twelve versions go up on YouTube and aren’t taken down for nearly four hours. Mina watches it before then, transfixed and horrified.
Yaoyorozu takes down the villain easily; though her quirk isn’t a good matchup, speed quirks are common and they’ve all trained against Iida for hundreds of hours besides. She’s handcuffed him and is waiting for the police, both hands keeping the villain in place, expression neutral as she scans the street, when someone runs out from the crowd.
Mina almost doesn’t recognize him at first; he doesn’t look like a child anymore. He’s taller than Yaoyorozu, and almost broad, still fit despite his ruined dreams of heroism. But the stupid balls on his head and the lecherous grin are unmistakable – it’s Mineta, running across the open space with his hands outstretched.
Preoccupied, with both hands busy, Yaoyorozu reacts a split second too late. Mineta’s hands land fully on her breasts in easy view of the camera, and Mina can hear that same perverted cackle from their school days, clear through the speakers. The camera’s holder gasps, the view shaking a little. Yaoyorozu flinches back, and her face twists in anger before she frees one hand and pushes him away roughly, and a few members of the crowd drag him back while the entire area mutters with discontent and alarm.
Yaoyorozu’s face is pink, with clear humiliation in the lines of her expression. When the police arrive, she shoves the villains at them and mutters something before making her escape, and the clip ends.
Mina can feel a tremble in her arms and tears pricking at her eyes, and she hates Mineta more than she has since the party five years ago. The closed blinds do not feel like enough to keep him out.
There is one good thing out of the incident. The story goes viral in under a week, and voices from all corners speak out – against the forgiveness of harassment, against victim blaming, against the dismissal of the problems of heroes. Yaoyorozu is a popular hero, number eleven at the moment. Midoriya takes advantage of his spot at number four and speaks as well, and Bakugou, number five, goes on a public rant. They aren’t the only ones – Tsuyu, Uraraka, and Jirou all do so as well – but they have the most impact.
In the end, the police have no choice but to grant Yaoyorozu her restraining order, and her relief is clear.
(The group chat gets spammed with ‘The Evil Is Defeated’ gifs, and Mina laughs and laughs even as her anxiety sticks in her chest and makes it hollow.)
Within a week, Mina starts seeing Mineta around her patrol route. She decides to practice travelling on the rooftops, and doesn’t let her guard down when she takes down villains. She sees him lurking, but though he smirks at her when she makes eye contact he never approaches.
She’s always tense and jumpy now, even in her home. It’s exhausting, and sometimes she wants to cry, but she still doesn’t tell anyone. She doesn’t want to admit that it’s gotten out of control, and she definitely doesn’t want to admit that she can’t handle it, because she can.
She dissolves the letters in acid but they keep coming, and she stops opening fan mail.
But she doesn’t tell anyone, and it’s not Tooru’s fault that she finds out; it’s an accident. They’re both sitting on the couch, close enough that Mina can feel Tooru’s arm pressed against hers, and Mina is clicking through Netflix looking for the series they were planning on watching.
And then Tooru starts, a little motion in her whole body, and says with a laugh, “Hey, you haven’t opened your mail.”
Tooru’s body shifts again, and Mina glances over and freezes; Tooru is reaching for the mail on the side table.
Tooru grabs a letter and holds it out in front of her, and in a few indecipherable motions it’s open; it’s thick enough that Mina already knows what it is, but Tooru doesn’t. Mina can’t make herself speak – her throat feels too thick, and her eyes sting.
“They’re a big fan, huh?” Tooru crows in clear delight, and she takes out the contents of the envelope.
This one is just pictures, it turns out, no writing. It’s enough. It’s too much.
Tooru freezes, too, and Mina lunges forward, heart suddenly racing. She doesn’t want Tooru to see this. She doesn’t want anyone to see this. Acid comes to her fingertips, and she snatches the photographs from Tooru’s limp hands and burns them away, letting the remnants drip onto her already-pockmarked couch and sizzle.
It’s too late. Tooru has turned to face her, and she’s too still and too quiet.
Mina tries not to cry.
“Those were pictures of you,” Tooru says, blank.
Mina doesn’t reply.
“Those were candid pictures,” Tooru says. “You didn’t know they were being taken.”
Mina shakes her head.
Tooru is quiet for another moment.
“Mina,” Tooru says at last, and her voice is edged with fear now. “Was that from Mineta?”
Mina’s breath hitches, and she jerks her head away, not wanting to look at her friend. Her arms cross against her chest.
“I hate him,” she chokes out, feeling her muscles quiver with emotion. “I really hate him, Tooru.”
Tooru drops the envelope and scoots over to throw one arm around Mina, and Mina leans into her with a low, pained noise, throwing both arms around her best friend. She tucks her face against Tooru’s shoulder and shuts her eyes.
“We should tell someone, Mina,” Tooru says quietly, after a few minutes have passed.
“I’m not scared of Mineta,” Mina says defiantly, into Tooru’s shoulder and half-muffled.
“I think I am,” Tooru says, and Mina deflates.
They report it to the police. Nothing happens. No prior record with Mina, they say, and Mina tries not to spit her anger because hadn’t they been listening to Yaoyorozu?
Mina was glad that Tooru had found out anyway. Mina was too proud; Tooru had always been the sensible one, of the two of them.
The calls keep coming, the texts keep coming, and the letters keep coming, and Mina ignores all of them and hopes they go away.
The calls have been coming for six months. For no particular reason save her own battle-honed instinct, Mina wakes up in the middle of the night.
Mina lives in an apartment on the fourth floor, with no balcony and two windows. She shares an apartment building with a few other heroes, but mostly old people who don’t follow the news much and care little that they share a building with several famous faces.
Still half-asleep, Mina yawns and covers her mouth and rolls over, glancing at her bedroom window.
Mina screams.
Mineta’s face, leering and wide-eyed, stares back at her from outside her window, and while one hand is pressed to the window, held there with a sticky ball, the other is out of sight.
For half a moment, they’re locked in a staring contest. Then Mina lunges up, easily breaking free of her blankets, and launches herself across the room. Her first instinct, faced with a threat, has always been ‘fight’.
Her hand, already coated with thick acid, slams against the window, and she hears a muffled scream in the moment before the acid eats through the glass, and her hand barely misses Mineta’s face as he ducks down, scrambling down the makeshift climbing wall he’d made.
Mind still fuzzy and ringing with alarm, Mina crooks her arm and lowers the viscosity, and her acid drips from her fingers and hits the wall, leaving pockmarks and gouging away some of the balls. Some of it hits Mineta’s face, and he screams again and falls the remaining two stories before getting up and scrambling away, apparently unharmed.
Mina is left panting with something other than exertion, with a warped and open window and a cold feeling all through her, and a chill on her cheeks where the incoming wind is freezing the tears on her face.
She withdraws her arm from the window.
Someone bangs on her door, and she jumps a mile, rounding on it with acid already coming back to her palm. Then she hears Kaminari shout her name, and she half-relaxes, letting out something between a gasp and a sob.
Mina crosses out of her bedroom and towards the door, and hesitates just a moment before unlocking and opening the door with her free hand. Kaminari is bouncing impatiently on her doorstep, eyes wide and worried.
“What happened, Ashido?” he fairly demands, eyes fixing to hers and one hand making a false motion toward her face.
Wordlessly, she gestures back to her bedroom, and without further prompting he takes off to go and look, while she goes for her sink and shakes some baking soda onto her hand, neutralizing her acid before she washes it down the drain. She’s heard enough about it being bad for the pipes.
“Holy shit, Ashido,” Kaminari says, and pops back out of the bedroom, mouth twisted. “What the hell?”
“He’s a maniac,” Mina says, with a hateful twist to her voice and a hitch in her breath. It takes some will, but seeing Mineta in her bedroom shook her, and her pride is one of her lesser concerns tonight. “C-Can you stay over tonight, Kaminari?”
“Obviously,” Kaminari says, and they both sleep on the couch.
Mina wakes up later than normal the next morning, and it’s to the sound of Kaminari’s voice.
He’s picked up her phone, she realizes after a moment, and he’s hissing.
“Leave her alone, you disgusting little creep,” Kaminari says, voice low and brimming with unmistakable anger. “She hates you, I hate you, and no one wants you around, and if you keep doing this we’re going to have you arrested, Mineta, this isn’t even legal. Haven’t you learned one little thing in your whole damn life?”
There’s a beat, and Mina’s lifting her head, reaching up to rub at one of her eyes, when Kaminari suddenly goes pale.
Without another word, he hangs up, and he says, “Fuck.”
Mina says, “You’re spending too much time around Bakugou.”
Kaminari’s eyes linger on her for a moment, and he shifts to sit closer while she pushes herself upright. Kaminari hesitates, and then he says, “What do you want to do now?”
“I… guess I should probably let the others know, huh?” Mina asks reluctantly, moving her gaze from Kaminari’s. She felt bad for keeping it from them this long, but she didn’t need looked after, and they all worried about each other anyway. But enough was enough, and Mineta had been outside her window. “And I’ll call Aizawa. We can go to the police station again, try and kick them into action. This is their job.”
“I guess they’re so used to us taking care of things, they think it’s just their job to clean up,” Kaminari suggests lightly, and it’s awful but Mina laughs.
Her fear sifts away, and anger and determination takes its place.
She is a hero, and heroes don’t run away from their problems. They run toward them.
Later, she and Kaminari go to visit Bakugou and Kirishima and explains what happened. Bakugou yells and stomps around for a while, and Kirishima fumes much more quietly and calls Sero and Sero comes over. It’s the most comfortable Mina has felt in a month, but she still glances at the windows every few moments until Kirishima goes and pulls the curtains with an expression like jagged stone, and Bakugou snarls and stomps around harder, little explosions blowing up in his palms.
In the afternoon, she and Aizawa meet outside the station. Aizawa looks older now, not by a lot but at least a little. Wrinkles have begun to line his face, and he looks more tired every time Mina sees him, but he’s as reassuring a presence as ever.
All Might was Midoriya’s mentor and guardian, but Aizawa had always been there for each of them as much as the next, and she had never met anyone more reliable.
“I can’t believe I signed up for father duty for the rest of your lives,” Aizawa mutters, but he lifts his hand and rests it on Mina’s shoulder for a split second before pushing off to lead the way into the police building. Mina hides a smile and follows him in.
The man at the front sighs at the sight of them, but they’re waved in without much interrogation; he knows what they’re here for.
The policeman they talk to sighs, too. “About Mineta Minoru?” he asks, with an unspoken again?
Aizawa straightens, and this, Mina knows, is why they all trust him without a second thought, why they all feel as safe around Eraserhead as they do with All Might. “Yes, about Mineta Minoru,” he says sharply, fixing the officer with a glower. “The man who has been stalking Ashido for six months.”
“It isn’t on record,” the policeman says, but it’s too weary to be entirely honest. “We only have records for a few weeks.
“Put it on record,” Aizawa snaps. “This is unacceptable and you know it full well.”
“I can answer any questions you have,” Mina tacks on, fixing her eyes on the officer, because she was an adult and a pro hero and she wasn’t going to cower behind her teacher like an abused puppy. “My incidents only trailed Yaoyorozu’s by a week or two.”
The police officer grimaces and shrugs. “What happened this time?” he asks, and Mina’s temper flares at the clear doubt in his tone while guilt and mortification burn in her chest, unseen.
“He stood outside my window and looked in while I was sleeping,” she snaps, the memory of the incident still far too vivid in her mind. “I live on the fourth floor.”
“Unauthorized quirk use,” Aizawa adds in a tone like ice. “Is that enough for you, officer?”
“Is there evidence?” the officer asks, lifting both eyebrows. Mina would commend him for keeping face in front of two disapproving heroes if she weren’t so frustrated. “Yaoyorozu had a public incident to back her up. You have no such thing.”
Aizawa leans forward, just subtly enough to loom. “One eyewitness account, one corroborating account, and no fewer than twenty-one character witnesses,” he says, clipped and clear. “Is that enough?”
It isn’t.
Tooru and Kaminari start sleeping in Mina’s apartment. The three of them make a blanket fort on the ground of the living room, and none of them sleep in the bedroom.
But she does replace the window.
Six months and two weeks after the calls start coming, they’re watching a movie and dozing together. One of Mina’s hands is twisted in Tooru’s shirt, and Kaminari is pressed against her other side. They’re buried in blankets, and Mina can hear the dialogue in the movie but is too close to sleep to register the words.
Tooru shifts beside her and murmurs something to Kaminari, and Kaminari laughs and replies back, and Tooru giggles. Mina shifts closer and hums, and Tooru pats her head and giggles again and then prods her so Mina’s horn isn’t digging into her shoulder.
Onscreen, someone yells something dramatic, and several characters gasp.
The doorknob rattles.
Mina’s eyes pop open and she shoves herself up before she can think, head lifting to fix her eyes on the door. Both Kaminari and Tooru flinch in surprise. Mina’s heart races, and the darkness around them seems to conceal too much. There’s a gap in the curtains and it seems threatening. It’s wide enough to see through.
The doorknob rattles again, and then someone bangs on the door very hard, impatient. She thinks that the wood is too fragile. It wouldn’t take too much to break it, if you really wanted too.
Kaminari looks at Mina, and so does Tooru. Mina takes a deep breath and stands up. She clenches her fists. This is her home. She will not be afraid.
The crashing increases in volume. The door rattles in its frame, and she hears an insistent call. “Mina! I know you’re there!”
She crosses the room and hesitates at the doorknob, fingers hovering an inch away. Tooru is a step behind her, and Kaminari two, hands already crackling with electricity.
She grasps the knob and opens the door, and Mineta is grinning at her. His pants are undone.
“Mina!” he exclaims with too much joy, and then he launches himself at her.
Caught by surprise, she’s tackled backward. One of his hands is on her breast, and the other has a sticky ball in it, and as soon as they hit the ground he slams it into her elbow. The ball sticks to her, and then to the ground, and she is stuck.
“I’ve been waiting so lo-” Mineta is already bragging and he has no situational awareness, none at all.
Neither does Mina, at the moment; her ears are ringing and her breath comes in gasps, once, twice, and then she slams her knee into Mineta’s stomach, twisting slightly to make the hit land despite being stuck. Caught by surprise, Mineta reels back and wheezes, clutching his stomach.
In the next moment, Tooru lands a kick against his chest that sends him tumbling, and Kaminari, hands full of electricity, shoves both of them forward into Mineta’s back and the resulting shock sends Mineta flying away and into the wall outside. He slumps to the ground, unconscious.
There’s silence. Mina’s breath is still coming in gasps.
It’s enough.
Two years after the first call arrives, Mina sits down as a guest star for Jirou’s radio show and talks about stalking and harassment.
The first thing she says is, “If you feel unsafe, then don’t be afraid to ask for help.”