Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It started out as a Saturday like any other. Everyone’s mail had been brought in in baskets sorted by recipient, and students were opening letters and boxes all over the dorms. Hitoshi, for example, was tucked into a corner of the kitchen, flipping through several flyers urging him to donate to charities. (He wouldn’t have minded if they got thrown out. He was as broke as it got.) Uraraka was sitting at the kitchen table reading letters from her elderly neighbors, and so was Midoriya - well, not the neighbors part, he actually had a lot of fanmail. (Hitoshi was not jealous. He wasn’t.)

Anyway.

It really had started out as a Saturday like any other.

Then:

“Oh hey, a present from Dad!” Midoriya grinned down at the box he’d pulled out from the bottom of the bin, opening the cardboard to get to a black wrapped package inside. He set it on the table. “Sweet!”

“What is it?” asked Hitoshi. “Hero merch?” What else did Midoriya even like? Notebooks? Red sneakers? It was a fair guess.

“Pfft. From Dad?” Midoriya rolled his eyes, still smiling, as he tore away the paper to reveal… a lockbox. Huh. Now Hitoshi was kind of curious. He watched Midoriya key in a code into a number pad on the front, and then put his thumb on a biometric scanner until the latch clicked open. “I can get merch on my own,” Midoriya said.

Todoroki, who’d been lugging his basket of mail upstairs, was now standing at the end of the table with a notepad, eyeing Midoriya and the lockbox intently. “This is important Midoriya lore,” he declared, pen at the ready, when Uraraka raised her eyebrows at him. “I can’t miss a single detail.”

Right, okay then, she muttered, pointedly ignoring Todoroki after that to focus in on Midoriya - whose grin, it should be noted, was showing a lot more teeth than it normally did. In fact, Hitoshi would go so far as to call it creepy. “So what’d you get, Deku?”

“I too am curious!” exclaimed Iida, who’d stuck his head in the doorway.

Midoriya’s gaze flickered over the rest of them, and back to the box, and then he began to chuckle. Like the smile, this wasn’t his usual shy laugh: it was… kind of creepy. He flipped the lid of the lockbox open: there was a layer of grey foam on top, and under that, at last, was-

“Holy shit Deku is that a gun-” Uraraka scrambled back from the table, wide-eyed-

Iida leapt into the room. “Midoriya no-”

“Midoriya yes,” Izuku cackled, raising the weapon from its case with both hands and turning it all around to look it over. “Oh, it’s beautiful, he even filed off the serial numbers, just for me!”

(That gleam in Midoriya’s eyes… it sent shivers down Hitoshi’s spine.)

“Deku, you can’t have that,” Uraraka cried, “that’s even more illegal-”

Midoriya returned the gun to its lockbox in a flash and closed it. “Have what?” he beamed, and it was less ‘sunshine’ and more ‘nuclear reactor core’. “A realistic airsoft toy? Wait, Uraraka, did you think this was real?” he held up the lockbox. “Are you feeling all right? Should I get Recovery Girl?”

Hitoshi narrowed his eyes. Was Midoriya… gaslighting them?

“Wha- Mido, that’s clearly a-”

Midoriya raised a derisive eyebrow. (Hitoshi didn’t know he could make that expression, it was so uncharacteristic of him.) “A collectible toy, Ochaco, and an expensive one. How could you think it was anything else?” He looked taken-aback, like he was offended Uraraka had doubted him.

What a savage.

Todoroki, Hitoshi noted, didn’t say a word about Midoriya’s strange behavior either; only watched his friend, calculating, as Midoriya shook his head and hefted up the rest of his mail to bring upstairs.

When he’d left, Hitoshi got up from his chair in the corner and approached the table. So did Iida. “Right,” Hitoshi addressed the other three, “that was obviously not a fake.”

Todoroki nodded, solemn. Iida was pale. Uraraka-

“I mean, wasn’t it, though?” she asked. “Deku - he wouldn’t lie to us-”

Holy shit, Midoriya had succeeded in twisting the narrative. “Think of it this way,” Hitoshi suggested, because arguing the details was going to take too long. “Even if it’s just airsoft, Midoriya shouldn’t be keeping it in the dorms where someone else could get ahold of it. Let’s tell Aizawa.”

Astoundingly, Todoroki and even Iida looked hesitant. Hitoshi could not believe this. “Is he blackmailing you two?” he hissed.

Todoroki blinked. “No,” he said, and didn’t elaborate.

“We- I owe Midoriya-kun for his help in the past,” Iida admitted, sheepish. “He stopped me from making a grave mistake…”

“So now you feel like you can’t report him to the authorities,” Hitoshi observed.

“Well-” Iida averted his eyes. “...Yes.”

“Even for something as minor as having contraband in the dorms?”

Iida stayed silent.

“He won’t even get in trouble,” Hitoshi was beginning to be concerned. “It’s not about punishment, it’s about responsible use of dorm resources.” There, that had to get Iida’s straight-laced brain in gear, right?

“...I suppose it is only fair to hold Midoriya to the same standards as everyone else,” Iida managed, eventually, but it looked like the conclusion had been dragged out of him unwillingly. Wild.

Hitoshi pulled out his phone and dialed Aizawa’s number.

Shouta burst into the staff room with furious, feral eyes, panting like he’d run from the other end of campus. (He had.)

“Who the fuck,” he snarled, “gave Midoriya a gun?”

Everyone looked at All Might, who had devolved into a coughing fit. “Young Midoriya has what?!”

Snipe shook his head, speechless, before Shouta even had to ask. Which left…

He turned his gaze upon the security camera in the corner of the room. “...Nedzu?” he asked, an unstated threat in his voice. “Did you give Problem Child firearms?”

“Definitely not!” chirruped the principal from the air vent, opening the grate and hopping down onto the sofa. “By Midoriya-kun’s own admission, the package was a gift from his father!”

“Young Midoriya doesn’t have a father,” All Might blurted out.

“Then we will need to speak to him directly!” Nedzu beamed.

“And,” Shouta wished he didn’t have to say this, but, “we’ll need to search his room.”

Chapter Text

The principal summoned Midoriya to his office for a ‘friendly chat’ after the end of the school day on Monday - the most opportune time to do a dorm search without alerting the other students. Shouta braced himself for alarm to cross Problem Child's face, when he relayed the message at homeroom, but no - Midoriya just smiled and nodded, like it happened often enough already.

Shouta decided not to think about how often, and under what pretext, Nedzu was meeting regularly with Midoriya - better to focus on something that did not fill him with dread for the future. Like the weight of the key in his pocket as he, Hizashi, and Snipe - local subject matter expert - making their way up to Problem Child's dorm.

He unlocked the door, and stepped inside.

“Ah- what the hell,” he hissed, recoiling at the dozens of figurines all turned toward the door. Staring at him. They were mostly All Might, too. It was fucking unsettling.

“Ain’t that a deterrent,” Snipe muttered with a wince.

The three of them began their search of the room. There was nothing in the ceiling - Shouta checked that first, after the debacle with Mineta - or, for that matter, under the mattress, under the bed, tucked behind books on the bookshelf, or stowed in a drawer of his desk. Midoriya, like Bakugou and Todoroki, kept his room very neat. Even his closet was clean and organized.

“Kinda cramped in here,” Snipe grumbled, leaning back against Midoriya’s desk and knocking his head against the wall.

…Wait.

“Snipe, knock on that wall again.” The man did.

Hizashi gasped. “That’s not what the other walls sound like!”

Thinking quickly, Shouta pulled up the floorplan for the dorms. The built-in closet on the desk-side of Midoriya’s room was - not on the floor plan.

He threw open the closet doors and shoved the clothes aside. Yes, that was a sturdy, locked door on the inner wall of the closet space. With a key-code lock, and a thumbprint scanner.

“Snipe,” Shouta called quietly. “What does this look like to you?”

Because to him, it looked like Midoriya had more than just one gun in his room. In fact, it looked like he had a collection.

“-so they haven’t really managed to improve on rebar in concrete construction, but Hatsume thinks-” Izuku paused mid-sentence, as a series of high-frequency beeps played from his phone. “Excuse me, sensei, I’m getting a security alert,” he blinked, and opened an app hidden several layers into his home screen.

“Security, you say?” Nedzu perked up, intrigued.

“Yeah, it’s for my dorm,” Izuku muttered, entering his gesture password twice. “I have a lot of collectibles, so I took out renter’s insurance-” He stopped, staring at the feed from his security cameras. “Oh, are they doing a room check? At least my room is clean…”

As he watched, however, the three pro heroes appeared to figure out the modification he’d made to his room. This might be a problem, Izuku thought distantly, feeling a faint urge to panic.

He was too well-trained to panic, though. “Principal Nedzu,” Izuku spoke, with controlled calm, “will Aizawa-sensei, Present Mic and Snipe be needing access to my storage room?”

The principal had abandoned any pretense of indifference, and was leaning forward in his chair. “It would be easier if they did,” he suggested. “Those locks seem quite sophisticated.”

“I would prefer a yes-or-no answer, sir,” Izuku clarified. He was recording their conversation now, after all.

The principal’s eyes sharpened. “Is that so? Then, citing the school handbook on reasonable investigation, I must say yes.”

Hm. Today was going to be more… interesting… than he’d planned for it to be.

Shouta nearly jumped out of his skin when the lock on the door lit up with an intercom. “Aizawa-sensei,” greeted Midoriya, voice distorted into something indistinguishable by the modulator. “Nedzu-sensei asked me to unlock the door for you guys. I don’t use remote-access for security reasons, so please enter the following sequence into the number pad twice, and then double-tap zero to bypass the biometrics.”

“Dang, kid, this here’s some high-end security,” Snipe contributed over his shoulder.

“It’s only reasonable, considering the value of the contents,” Midoriya replied. “You can take photos, but please don’t touch anything.”

“Why’s that, listener?” Hizashi asked, while Aizawa finished entering the codes.

“They’re expensive,” was Midoriya’s reply, before the intercom went out.

The door opened with the hiss of a hermetic seal, and rows of lights turned on, to show off-

“-what in the good goddamn,” Hitoshi heard from Midoriya’s room, on his way back to his dorm. Was that Snipe? So they’re finally going through his room, then, he thought. Cool.

Friend or not, Midoriya couldn’t be allowed to hide an actual gun in the dorm room; that was crossing a line. Hitoshi only hoped it wouldn’t strain their friendship too much when Midoriya found out who’d reported him.

“Where did he get all of these?” a different voice was wondering, astonished, and that sounded like Aizawa, so Hitoshi naturally snuck a little closer to the closed door to eavesdrop. “And when ?”

Wait, there were multiple?

His phone screen lit up with an incoming text. Hitoshi swiped to read it, and his stomach dropped.

[Izuku: +81-XXX-XXXX]

[Izuku, 15:48: Keep walking, Hitoshi.]

That… that was scary.

He was going to his room, now.

“So, Midoriya-kun, you have experience handling firearms?” asked Nedzu conversationally while he poured tea.

Izuku observed the glittering silver outlines of peonies on the set. Bravery and luck, huh. “I do,” he confirmed.

Nedzu waited for him to say more. Izuku didn’t elaborate. He got comfortable in his chair: if he tried to leave, he’d be detained officially, and then he’d miss out on his tea. So he stayed, and took a sip. “This is excellent tea, sir, thank you.”

The principal hummed, and sipped from his own cup.

Those were the last words they exchanged until the teachers arrived.

Chapter Text

Shouta had so many questions.

He knew he wasn’t going to get any answers yet, but he wanted it on record that he had questions.

Such as: what the fuck, Problem Child, and, how did nobody notice, and perhaps most pertinently,

“Your firearm training wasn’t on your UA application, why?”

It would have changed Shouta’s entire point of view on the kid if he’d known he had actual combat training to some degree prior to attending. All Might had already confessed to helping him with strength training, when Shouta assimilated him into the group headed for Nedzu’s office - the man had had no idea Midoriya actually knew how to fight.

Granted, All Might was incredibly oblivious to a lot of things, so Shouta wasn’t entirely surprised.

(To be honest, if he’d known Midoriya knew how to handle weapons, he would probably not have pushed back as hard on letting him into the Shie Hassaikai raid-

No. He’d still have opposed it on principle. Problem Child was sixteen, and had only just gotten his provisional license. He shouldn’t have had to be involved in the first place.)

Midoriya smiled shyly, averting his eyes to the principal’s desk; he turned his teacup over in his hands. “It wouldn’t have been relevant at the time, since the entrance exam only covers quirks.” Fair. They barely even let people use medically-necessary support items, so unless his quirk created guns, it wouldn’t have affected his score. “I was going to disclose it when we got to that part of the curriculum.”

Which wouldn’t have been until at least his second year, naturally. Shouta opened his mouth to say as much, but Nedzu interrupted: “Midoriya-kun, as we will need to ask you a few questions with a parent or guardian present, I have taken the liberty of calling your mother.”

Midoriya, who’d been relatively calm throughout this investigation, went pale. “Um,” he said. “I-I guess, if you have to…”

Somehow, in planning for all the eventualities of being caught with his presents from Dad, Izuku had not accounted for one, rather important thing.

"His father? Izuku never told me he was in contact with his father." Mom's expression went from shocked, to very stern, and all Nedzu had asked her so far was if she knew Midoriya Hisashi was involved in his son's life - she didn’t even know what he was in trouble for yet.

Izuku swallowed, and met his mother's gaze evenly when she turned to look at him. What was the best thing he could say to get out of this? What would Dad suggest?

"I thought you knew," Izuku lied, blandly, to Inko's face. "You know everything."

He didn’t expect Mom’s reaction, either; barely kept a neutral expression as she gasped and drew back, eyes welling with tears. “Did - he teach you that?” she demanded. “Izuku, how dare you try to manipulate your own mother!”

Huh. Somehow, he’d never expected revulsion. It kind of stung, actually, that angry glint to her eyes - he’d trusted that she would never look at him like that…

…and yet, another part of him had always expected it to happen, someday, albeit for different reasons, and was - quietly vindicated. He’d been trusting, sure, but not naive.

"None of that now, Midoriya-kun, Detective Tsukauchi is here to observe for the rest of the questioning." Nedzu crossed his paws in front of him on his desk. "Everything will be resolved much more easily if you answer truthfully."

Well obviously, Izuku thought, compartmentalizing away that other train of thought for later. What did they think he would have gained from lying? Never mind that he’d been perfectly honest - he had wondered if Inko knew about his time with Dad or not. He would have to ask her directly when the detective was here to check the answer. For now, Izuku did the expedient thing, and didn’t look at her at all.

Of course, Nedzu wouldn’t be Nedzu if he didn’t leave out an important detail to catch people off-guard. Izuku should’ve predicted it, though, when he heard Detective Tsukauchi was arriving.

All Might was never far behind.

Naomasa had gotten the call about twenty minutes ago from the principal of UA. Nedzu had been… ominously chipper, when asking for his presence in a school investigation, and frankly, Naomasa had considered declining on grounds of that alone - until Nedzu explained they were questioning Midoriya.

“All Might has asked for some reassurance,” elaborated the principal, and well, that was that.

He’d been escorted into the administrative wing by a harried-looking Present Mic and asked to wait outside Nedzu’s office until he was called in - and was shortly joined there by Yagi, who explained something of the situation in an undertone.

Midoriya had been caught with ‘contraband’, in the dorms.

Okay, so why do I have to be here? Naomasa couldn’t help but wonder. If it’s a school matter, not a criminal one-

“...Not the kind of stuff Mineta-kun had in his dorm,” Yagi added, sensing his confusion. (Naomasa needed no clarification on that incident; he’d heard about it from Yagi before. Ugh.) “Actual, illegal - weapons. That shouldn’t be in Japan, much less UA.” (Truth.)

Naomasa eyed him. “Not… preparations for dealing with that man?”

Yagi shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.” (Truth.) “If it was for a good reason like that, though, don’t you think he would have told me?”

Probably not, to a straight-laced limelight hero like you, he thought to himself, but before he could answer out loud the door was opening, Nedzu beckoning them from within. 

Naomasa had met Midoriya Izuku before, and understood the boy as an earnest limelight hero of the new generation: motivated, full of conviction, and rather anxious off the field. So having multiple teachers, the principal, and the boy's mother all present in the room? That was a bit excessive, at first glance.

Then he looked closer, and found his expectations subverted. The most nervous person in the room was not Midoriya Izuku, but his mother, and the one she was glaring at with such a defensive expression was not the principal - as would have made sense for any protective parent - but her own son.

A son who was wearing the cultivated, blank calm Naomasa associated with individuals of a certain background in organized crime. "Hello, Detective," he said, a polite smile plastered on his face that only made that comparison stronger. "Yagi-sensei."

“Izuku, my boy,” Yagi started forward, but faltered at Nedzu’s sharp shake of the head before he could give his successor a hug. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”

Izuku's smile dropped into flat neutrality. His gaze flickered ever-so-briefly to Naomasa, before he answered. “I could be better.” (Truth.)

“Midoriya-kun is here,” Nedzu informed them, “to be questioned on his possession of a weapons cache including, among other things, more than twenty different black-market firearms, in an undisclosed safe in his dorm.”

Wait, what?

“Detective Tsukauchi, if you’ll do the honors?”

Chapter Text

Izuku interlaced his fingers on the desk in front of him, listening to Tsukauchi go through the procedures of beginning a formal interrogation. He allowed his face to settle into a comfortable blankness while the detective turned on a recorder and spoke to start the record. “Detective Tsukauchi Naomasa of Musutafu PD, present as consultant to a team of UA staff and as lead to the interrogation…”

Inko, when prompted, confirmed her presence and gave her consent for Izuku to be questioned. She was sitting next to All Might, he noticed, going by the sounds of their voices; he didn’t turn to look, because the sting had not faded, his disappointment remained - though he could acknowledge that redirecting the blame might not have been his best opening move.

Well. Hindsight was flawless, foresight was blind. And Dad had advised him on the laws - and loopholes - he was dealing with, when he confessed his plans to keep his collection on campus.

He would figure something out.

“Please state your name, age, and status for the record,” Tsukauchi prompted.

“Midoriya Izuku, age sixteen, UA student and provisionally-licensed hero Deku.” (True.)

Under normal circumstances, Naomasa would have pressed a suspect for their quirk status - but in this case he knew better, and so did Nedzu. One For All remained a state secret, and he didn’t know who in the room was briefed and who wasn’t. “Any aliases?” he asked instead, more to fill the silence than anything while he mentally reviewed what questions he’d need to be asking-

Midoriya didn’t hesitate. “None that I would like to disclose at this time.” (True.)

…What?

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Yagi twitch, and Midoriya’s mother lean into his side, staring holes into the back of Midoriya’s head. If the boy could feel how intensely he was being watched, he didn’t show it. “...Noted,” Naomasa said at length, and then: “Let’s discuss the items in your dorm. I am told Aizawa-sensei found an inventory list on the wall?” The printed photo of that list was passed into Naomasa’s hands: he scanned it, eyebrows climbing with every line. “Where did you even get half these things,” he muttered under his breath, before he composed himself. “Ahem. Where did you acquire the weapons stored in your dorm?”

“About a third were confiscated from criminals I’ve fought, like the Shie Hassaikai.” (True.)

Q.E. bullets, secured in biometric safe, read one line under ‘Ammo’. Knives - Stain, 2, weighed heavily on Naomasa’s mind under ‘Non-Firearm Weapons’, where Aizawa’s note in the margin had described them in a plexiglass display case, like a trophy.

Hadn’t those been processed as evidence from Hosu-?

“Was anything purchased?” Naomasa asked, to interrupt that more concerning train of thought.

Midoriya took a moment to think about it. “All maintenance supplies, tools, and handling equipment like gloves and goggles,” he listed off - (true) - “and then… nothing illegal to buy in Japan, besides.”

“False,” Naomasa blurted out, surprised. “Please elaborate.”

“Oh. Well - they’re legal for a quirkless person to own, and I was still quirkless when I bought them.” (True.) “I have written receipts for those items stored in a lockbox inside the safe.” (True.)

Aizawa’s brow furrowed, confused, at the ‘still quirkless’ tidbit. So he hadn’t been read into the One For All situation - Naomasa filed that detail away for now.

“Right, then. Legally, you can be cited and fined for not registering or relinquishing some of those items into police custody; but that is a matter for your guardians to handle.” A pause, and a glance at Midoriya’s mother, who looked a mix of furious and out of her depth. “What of the remaining items? The ones not confiscated or purchased as you have already described?”

“Those are gifts from my dad.” (True.) Midoriya allowed himself a small, unconscious smile. “Midoriya Hisashi, age unknown, quirk: Fire Breath.” (True.) “I don’t know his citizenship status for certain, but he lives and works in America.” (True.) “He and my mom are still married, but she hasn’t seen him in years.” (True.)

Naomasa took note of the omission: Midoriya’s mother may not have seen her husband in years, but that said nothing of Midoriya himself, and he wasn’t about to let that detail go. “When was the last time you were in contact with Midoriya Hisashi?”

“A few days ago, by phone.” (True.)

“You have his phone number?” Inko hissed, paling several shades. “Izuku-”

Midoriya’s face went blank again, clasped hands twitching on the desk, at the interruption. He stared pointedly at Naomasa, waiting for the next question, with nary any indication in his body language that he’d heard his mother at all.

If he was reading the boy correctly, and Naomasa was quite good at reading people, the slight twist to his expression was annoyance, not fear.

He… was not going to comment on that. “On the subject of your father,” and his substantially greater part in this matter than anyone else, to put it lightly, “how long have you been in regular contact with Midoriya Hisashi? And why exactly is he giving you deadly weapons, of all things, as gifts?”

“Well,” Midoriya began, “it’s… kind of a long story. You see-”

Ten years ago, Midoriya Hisashi left Japan - and his family - behind. Besides regular contributions of money to the household accounts, he ceased all contact with Inko and their son for the next five years - until, when Izuku was eleven, he got a smartphone in the mail, with one number already saved in the contacts.

‘Dad.’

Izuku had immediately turned the phone off and hidden it in his room for the next two months.

"Is that the same phone you have now?" Naomasa prompted.

"Oh, no, this one is much better encrypted," Midoriya told him - (True) - which only raised more questions.

How was he supposed to feel about his absentee father trying to walk right back into his life? Izuku mulled it over, quietly stewing, until circumstances aligned and his curiosity finally got the better of him - just before his twelfth birthday.

"I'd been - hit pretty hard by a bully earlier in the day," Midoriya confessed, averting his eyes briefly to the desk, "who hated me for being quirkless. Of course, by then I knew it had to be my dad's fault, genetically speaking. I… wanted to call him and yell at him about it."

"Did you?" Yagi asked from behind him.

Midoriya smiled a little to himself. "A little. But in the end, we reconciled."

Izuku’s father confessed that he had not left willingly, an important detail his mother had left out. An extended hospitalization overseas had eventually led Inko to file for a divorce, which Hisashi had agreed not to contest - except then she had demanded the cessation of all contact between Hisashi and Izuku, well after the divorce papers had been signed and notarized. As if she had any such right.

“So obviously he wasn’t going to listen to that demand for very long,” Midoriya scoffed. “Family was - is - very important to Dad. Everything, if you ask him. Being away from us, especially me, for so long… it wasn’t something he’d ever wanted, or something he could really handle.” (True.)

Naomasa glanced at Midoriya Inko over her son’s shoulder: she was working her jaw, and her grip on Toshinori’s hand might very well bruise. When she caught his eye, though, and he raised a prompting eyebrow, she stiffly shook her head. Not now, she mouthed.

Back to questioning Midoriya, then. “Hearing this sort of one-sided account of things after years of radio silence didn’t… raise any alarm bells?” The boy’s father might have been wronged by his ex-wife, or he might have been lying, hoping to drive a wedge between mother and son. “Off the record, he sounds more than a little obsessive.”

Midoriya laughed. “Of course it did! The way he went on about it sounded like the big boss in a mob film. I was twelve, not an idiot.” He leaned in, gaze sharpening. “But that didn’t mean he wasn’t sincere.”

Having kept to his ex-wife’s wishes and stayed away for so many years, Hisashi was now desperate to reconnect with his son - and Izuku found he… was not as mad at the man as he’d expected to be, by the end of the conversation. Not once he’d heard his father’s explanation - and his offer.

“...Offer?”

“He wanted me to come to America and visit him, which I obviously wasn’t going to just up and go along with out of nowhere.” Midoriya rolled his eyes, the corner of his mouth curving up in a fond half-smile. “No matter how unhappy I was.

“I gave him until the next school break to convince me it was a good idea,” he continued, “and, well.” Midoriya’s smile turned sheepish. He had steadily become more animated the longer his story went on, Naomasa noticed, coaxed out from behind his stone facade by a topic he clearly liked.

“Well?” someone - Midoriya’s mother - prompted, and with that one sharp word, the walls went back up. Naomasa was beginning to lose his patience with Midoriya Inko.

“The next day,” Midoriya recited, cold again, “there was a lockbox on my desk with one million yen and a set of documents naming me Akatani Mikumo, sixteen, with a nondescript analysis quirk.”

(True.)

Chapter Text

What the hell , Problem Child. Shouta’s jaw ached with how hard he was clenching his teeth to keep from yelling this thought out loud: if he started screaming now, he didn’t know when he would stop.

At least he wasn’t the only one in the room who wasn’t liking the picture this was painting - least of all Yagi, and Midoriya’s mother, the latter of whom in particular should have known this was going on. Shouta did not want to make assumptions, but. It was beginning to sound like this Midoriya Hisashi guy was very much in the middle of some serious organized crime.

One might wonder, then, why not report him? But Shouta was unfortunately quite familiar with the usual outcome of such actions. She had probably intended to protect Problem Child from the consequences of being outed as a villain’s son.

“And you were - convinced by this?” the detective managed to ask, when he at last regained his composure.

Midoriya huffed a laugh. “Oh hell no. I called him back to remind him that I was actually quirkless. Somehow that was kid-me’s top priority.” A pause, a self-deprecating smile. “Obviously, he knew that and had arranged things on purpose. Just like he knew that Aldera was trying to crush my dreams based on my lack of a quirk.”

...Okay, wait. "Midoriya," Shouta cut in, because that and something he'd said earlier were confusing him the more he thought about it. "You were - twelve, you said? When this conversation happened?" A nod. "How long - until when were you considered quirkless?"

“The day of the entrance exam,” Midoriya replied, and went to continue his story, as if that weren’t a detail that shifted Shouta’s entire worldview sideways.

He glanced at Tsukauchi. The detective blinked twice at him. Truth.

Holy shit.

"Dad is... the only person I've ever met who told me I didn't need a quirk to be a hero," said Young Midoriya, and Toshinori felt his heart break just a little, because that was present tense. His own words to the boy only hours before choosing him as his successor came back to him, daggers piercing through his spirit in a whole new way. "Even I didn't completely believe it, before I went to America and saw for myself-"

"You left the country without telling me?" Inko could be very loud when she wanted to be, Toshinori discovered, and hoped that wasn’t permanent hearing damage. “Izuku, when-?”

Her son didn’t even glance her way; Toshinori wondered if that was a defense mechanism, or just plain spite. His successor had proven surprisingly capable of spite, in the past hour or so, for someone with such a forgiving heart, and it concerned him a little to see Izuku that way. At Naomasa’s prompting, Young Midoriya picked up where he left off. “I visited my father about ten times before UA, under the pretense of overnight field trips for school, in order to train with experts in different weapons. He paid for someone with a time dilation quirk to extend the days into months, so I had time to really learn.” A pause, thoughtful. “Between the documented aging under the time quirk, and the actual years that passed, Akatani Mikumo had turned eighteen and received a gun license not long before I met All Might. I have copies of the documents in the safe.”

It was strange to think that the scrawny middle-schooler Toshinori had saved from the slime villain that day had already been capable of using lethal weapons. He honestly couldn’t reconcile the two ideas into one image; even now, when he knew Izuku owned multiple of said weapons.

The look on Naomasa’s face said he was thinking the same thing. “And what has Midoriya Hisashi asked for in return for all of this?” he wondered.

“Nothing,” Young Midoriya told him with an easy smile. “All he wants is for me to be happy, healthy, and whole - his words, not mine. When I started training for the UA entrance exam, he sent me specialized medicine to enhance my gains and reinforce my bones and joints - I would’ve probably overtrained my body and gotten injured, otherwise.”

Was that what had been in those protein shakes Toshinori remembered him drinking sometimes, at the beach? He had always been impressed by his successor’s mental and physical fortitude, even in the face of such hard work; Izuku was always worn out by the end of the day, like anyone would be. In hindsight, medicine was the best explanation for how he managed to wear himself out and then come back the next day like it had never happened. For all that it had technically been a violation of the Supersoldier Prevention Laws, Toshinori was glad for Mr. Midoriya’s contribution to Izuku’s training.

"Do you still take that medicine now?" Naomasa wondered. He shared a glance with Nedzu and added, "Off the record."

"No," Izuku sighed. “It interacts with the pain medicine for my hands. He said he had people working on reformulating it, but it’d be better to reconstruct the hands entirely - that was a few months ago, though. So I don’t know how that project is going.”

Well that was… something.

“I believe we’ve gotten a bit off-topic,” Naomasa admitted after a beat, leaving out that he had been too intrigued by the story until now to redirect it, and interrupting the contemplative silence that had descended on the room after that bit of testimony. “I have a few more questions, and then we can wrap up my part in this discussion.”

“Alright.”

“You said you last spoke to Midoriya Hisashi by phone several days ago?”

“Yes.” (True.)

“Are you able to contact him by phone right now?”

Midoriya paused, considering. The moment stretched out, such that Midoriya’s mother seemed about to speak up again, until he blinked and answered at last: “I can call Dad, if you want to talk to him, but only through my own phone.”

(True.)

“Please do!” Nedzu beamed from the corner of the room. “I believe we could use his perspective!”

(False, said Naomasa’s quirk, but far be it from him to demand the principal’s actual motivations.)

Midoriya nodded, and took out his phone.

Chapter Text

That is a suspiciously long phone number, was Shouta’s first thought watching Problem Child dial. Was it a password to an encrypted call service? It couldn’t be an extension, after all - the call hadn’t even connected yet. And most high-security phone apps had a different interface: Midoriya’s was, for all appearances, just the regular program.

It was strange.

But not nearly as strange as the voice that answered within two rings.

“Izu!” Midoriya Hisashi greeted his son brightly, the identifying markers of his voice obfuscated by a deliberate distortion filter. “Did you like your present?”

“Yeah, it’s great,” Midoriya smiled, a warmth in his tone that Shouta tried and failed to remember hearing him use with his mother in the past. Clearly, the favorite has always been Problem Parent. Go figure.

“I do believe it’s earlier than your usual call, though,” Hisashi went on, tone light but curious. “What’s wrong? You know you can tell me anything.”

(Emphasis, Shouta heard, on anything.)

The color in Midoriya’s cheeks would normally be accompanied by him ducking his head in embarrassment - but this time, at least, he remained upright, straight-backed, unashamed of the emotion. “Well, I’m being questioned about the guns right now,” he admitted, with a certain dry humor that Shouta could appreciate.

“Oh, I see…” Hisashi paused for dramatic effect - “...plural.”

“...I may have carelessly waved around the newest one in front of some friends, and gotten my room searched.”

“They told on you? Some friends,” the man scoffed.

Problem Child sighed, the tilt of his head a reluctant acknowledgement of his father’s veiled criticism. “Hitoshi is Aizawa-sensei’s adoptive son. I underestimated his filial piety. It won’t happen again.”

The cold way he spoke of it rose hairs on the back of Shouta’s neck. He remembered how hesitant the other children had been to confirm Hitoshi’s report - how his son had had to glare at them, and demand they speak up, and how Shouta himself had assured them all they wouldn’t get in trouble, and they had still looked uncomfortable.

(“It’s not me that I’m worried about, sensei,” Iida - Iida Tenya of all people - had so anxiously explained, refusing to testify unless Shouta promised he’d defend Midoriya.

“Of course he will,” Uraraka had chimed in then. “Deku-kun saved him at the USJ! And he saved Eri, and she wouldn’t want Deku to be in trouble either-”

What the fuck kind of loyalty, Shouta wondered, was Problem Child inspiring in his friends?)

“Good,” was all Hisashi said about the matter. “So tell me. Are they questioning you without a guardian present?”

“No, Inko is here,” Midoriya clarified immediately. His mother flinched, eyes going wide like she’d been slapped by his use of her first name, when the boy had always called her ‘Mom’ before. Was Midoriya speaking like that because he was begrudging his mother’s part in the events today, or was he catering to Problem Parent’s resentment of the woman?

The latter would explain the frost in Hisashi’s words when he spoke again. “I see. Inko ,” his voice hardened, sharpened, until it was several times as biting as Midoriya-san’s had been before, “you let them question our son?”

“My son,” Inko corrected, uncharitably. (Shouta was not going to touch that divorce with a ten foot pole. Or a twenty foot. Or a twenty meter.)

"Is he really yours ," the man asked, and holy shit he could not sound more like a villain if he tried, who was this guy, "when the one he comes to help for in his darkest hours, his safe haven against all manner of harm and heartbreak - the only one to unconditionally support his dream - has always been me ?”

Faintly, Shouta decided that this absolutely explained why Midoriya Inko was so uncomfortable being reminded of her ex-husband.

“Are you always like this?” All Might interrupted suddenly. “Do you care about Inko at all? Or is it just in her capacity as the mother of your son?”

“What-”

“What are you, Endeavor?”

The line went very quiet. A sense of foreboding settled over Shouta like a shroud; everyone in the room realized that Yagi had gone too far. When Hisashi spoke again, his tone had become ice-cold and menacing. “All Might,” he hissed. “How dare you speak to me as if you have the right .”

Shouta glanced at Problem Child, deeply concerned. He found his student watching the exchange with a bored expression, elbow on the desk to prop his chin up in his hand. Midoriya caught his eye, sent him an apologetic grimace, and loudly interrupted the brewing argument with, “Dad’s right.” Over Yagi’s shocked sputtering, he continued, “Can we go back to the actual topic of this call?”

Hisashi’s tone shifted completely back to his earlier friendliness, which creeped Shouta the hell out. “You’re right, Izu,” he smiled, “I got distracted for a moment. I suppose it’s my fault that you’ve been held up over all this, isn’t it? Well here, let me get a couple of things and come over properly; I never like conference calls.”

“Aren’t you in America?” Yagi wondered aloud.

This time, Midoriya’s father ignored him. “I’ll be at UA in ten minutes.”

In the tense silence that followed, Shouta saw Midoriya relax into his chair, and eat a cookie.

The so-declared ten minutes proved a nerve-wracking interval for everyone. Naomasa personally likened it to a municipal taskforce waiting for detectives from higher up the food chain to take over the case: the sullen silence, the tense atmosphere, the weight of anticipation, the cooling cups of concentrated coffee. That some of them had tea did not have much bearing on the comparison.

(Or should he say, nerve-wracking for almost everyone. Midoriya Izuku had settled back into his chair with a certain quiet relief the moment his father announced he was coming to the school.)

Still, the room had relaxed just enough that they all jumped a little when Nedzu’s desk console buzzed with an alert for someone at the campus’ secondary gate - the one for important visitors, like law enforcement and pro heroes, which students’ parents generally were not.

But if the gate activated at all, then the correct code must have been entered into the system - which meant Midoriya’s father was on the VIP list.

“Good afternoon, Principal Nedzu,” smiled the voice of Midoriya Hisashi through the intercom. “I have a new block of pu-erh for you.”

Nedzu stiffened, fluffing up with surprise, in a way that could be the bribery, but felt to Naomasa’s instincts like something else. He hit the buttons to open the gates within seconds of the words reaching his ears. “Welcome!” he chirruped.

(Or was that more of a squeak?)

Chapter Text

Shouta’s mental image of Midoriya Hisashi as a mob boss turned out to be fairly in-line with reality. He was tall - taller even than All Might in his prime - and broad-shouldered, and had a trained combatant’s steady bearing.

He also looked a lot like his son, which Shouta somehow hadn’t expected: his luminous white hair was undeniably as fluffy as Midoriya’s virid green, and he had the same diamond arrangement of freckles on his cheeks, below glinting red eyes.

Which was about where the superficial similarities ended. “Good afternoon, everyone,” the man offered a polite smile to the room, only the barest facade of friendliness in it - one notch above a tiger baring its teeth. It was an expression as unlike Midoriya as Shouta could conceive of, sending a shiver of apprehension down his spine.

Someone who didn’t know UA’s principal very well would not have noticed, but Shouta had been both Nedzu’s student and his employee. He’d caught Nedzu’s flinch when Hisashi spoke through the gate intercom, minutes before, and he caught it again now, the faintest tell of his boss’s apprehension, as Hisashi laid a ribboned box down before him on the desk and opened it with a flourish to reveal the so-called tea. “This is a lovely tea, Akatani-san, thank you.”

Midoriya - Akatani? - Hisashi smiled with his eyes now, satisfied. “I had it earmarked for the next society meeting, but this is just as opportune a time, and much sooner.” He took his seat in the armchair that had been set out for him, beside Izuku, after moving it so that he could face everyone in the room. Unprompted, Problem Child moved his seat, too, so they were all in a wide circle, and he was next to his father.

“Society?” That was Tsukauchi, asking the question that was on Shouta’s - everyone’s, really - mind.

“As it happens,” the principal said cheerfully, having recovered from whatever momentary startle he’d just experienced, “Akatani-san is my senior in an international group of legal experts concerning the rights of quirked people. I daresay I hadn’t expected to encounter you in your elusive civilian identity,” he added, “but the world is smaller than we think, isn’t it?”

“Allow me to reintroduce myself,” Hisashi offered another foreboding smile. “Akatani Hisashi, of the United Nations Commission for Metahuman Rights. Midoriya is my family name.”

Ah, that made a terrible amount of sense. Shouta resisted the urge to facepalm: Problem Child would have a UN diplomat for a secret father. And the notoriously powerful Metahuman Rights Commission - also known as the group responsible for making Japan’s government recognize Nedzu as a legal person…

“I take it Midoriya is about to receive permission for his weapons cache,” Shouta observed.

“He is,” Nedzu nodded. “Thank you for your time, Detective, but a record of this incident will no longer be necessary.”

“Now wait just one minute,” Yagi spoke up, holding a hand out to keep Tsukauchi from leaving - though the recording device had already been deactivated and its contents erased.

Yagi, you idiot, groaned Shouta despairingly in the confines of his own head, can you please get with the program?

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t be leaving,” Hisashi said. “This is the first opportunity I’ve had in a while to advocate directly on Izuku’s behalf.” He crossed one leg over the other, and interlaced his fingers in his lap. “Let us discuss my son’s education.”

Izuku was torn between relief - at getting out of trouble with his dad’s connections, a classic solution he hadn’t even considered - and unfathomable embarrassment, as Hisashi proceeded to tear into UA’s grossly insufficient training methods, wherein he referred to the current state of his hands as blatant medical malpractice resulting from borderline educational neglect. He didn’t raise his voice, or make threats against the school; no, Izuku’s father led by example, and his example was to give clear criticism and then describe the ways to fix what was wrong.

“-will be pulling Izu from classes this week to undergo the necessary reconstructive surgery for his hands, hitherto painfully overdue-”

Izuku gasped. “Really? I thought you said that specialist wasn’t going to be available until winter break!” He’d heard all about the team of highly-sought-after professionals from Hisashi ages ago, right after the sports festival - their publications in tissue regeneration had been a fascinating read, and his dad had promised him a tour of the facilities before the procedure to see some of the current experiments.

A heavy hand ruffled his hair, stopping him before he vibrated out of his seat. “I did,” Hisashi said dryly, “and then you went after Overhaul. I deemed it necessary to have you moved up the list.”

At the same time, from across the room: “You can’t do that. I have sole custody, Hisashi!”

Oh, dear. She’d really stepped right into that argument, Izuku thought, glancing at Aizawa-sensei. “Do I need to be here for this?” he interrupted, because he didn’t want to be if he didn’t.

“You can go, Midoriya-kun,” Nedzu smiled at him.

Izuku hefted up his bag and made to leave. “See you tomorrow, senseis,” he said at the door. “Bye, Tsukauchi-san.”

He wasn’t ashamed to call this fleeing the scene. He was just being a dutiful son: if he left now, his father wouldn’t have to apologize for losing his temper in front of him.

The temperature of the room dropped ten degrees the minute the door closed. Midoriya Hisashi frowned for the first time in this entire conversation, and for once, Shouta could vividly imagine the snarling dragon in the background of the man's darkening glare.

“It would be much wiser of you, Inko, to stop trying to keep me from Izuku.”

Midoriya’s mother bit back her reply, evidently sensing the danger in this argument, and squeezed Yagi’s hand in hers, hard enough to make him wince.

Shouta saw Hisashi’s eyes follow the motion and settle, heavier, on the former Number One Hero. “And you,” he growled, standing from the chair. “It’s about time we had a talk, All Might, about exactly what kind of help you decided to give my sweet-” 

A step forward, a crackle of red lightning from gleaming red eyes-

“-brilliant-”

Looming over Yagi, who had gone pale with some kind of realization-

“-quirkless son.”

Chapter Text

A certain sinking feeling had lurked in Hitoshi's stomach for days now, ever since his report to Aizawa. It had started with the looks Midoriya's friends gave him when he picked up the phone, and remained even while he avoided his classmate over the weekend - he'd hidden in his adoptive fathers' apartment on campus, in the room that was always there for him, and struggled to sleep even more than before.

"I don't know why," he whispered to Aizawa, "something just - doesn't feel right."

Even the promise that the whole issue would be brought before Principal Nedzu on Monday afternoon didn’t do much to lessen his anxiety - though Hitoshi knew, instinctually, that he would feel at least a little better once the meeting was over. Once Midoriya faced whatever consequences were fated to come his way.

(Given how the Mineta issue had been handled, Hitoshi had anticipated a room search Monday afternoon, and lurked in the halls to eavesdrop - at least until Midoriya sent him that terrifying text. That had made his stomach twist, and seen him flee downstairs to the dorm kitchen, where he remained.)

It was then, huddled under a cat-print blanket at the kitchen table, that Hitoshi at last recognized what he was feeling as guilt. Which, what the fuck? This wasn’t a betrayal - and he’d thought he was stronger than that, able to put duty over camaraderie, less vulnerable to psychological manipulation with the self-awareness needed for a mental quirk-

And yet.

The new understanding comforted him as much as it disturbed him, though. Hitoshi took it in stride, braced himself for the looks he was bound to get from the others soon, when Midoriya came back with a staff escort and the news of whatever his punishment would be.

He was not braced for the bright smiling Midoriya that opened the front door a few hours later, when everyone else in 1-A had returned to the dorms and several people were starting dinner. (Hitoshi’d fled to the living room, lest he invoke Bakugo’s wrath.) “I’m back!” Hitoshi’s slightly-scary classmate announced, so cheerful he may as well have glitter in the background, and was promptly swarmed by the others who’d been there for the Saturday incident.

“What did they keep you after classes for?” Yaoyorozu asked from the corner of the kitchen table where she was rereading her notes from the day. She hadn’t been present for the original incident; and like the rest of the class, she hadn’t been told about it.

Hitoshi hadn’t expected Midoriya to tell the truth, but it was still unsettling to watch him lie. “Oh, it was just a logistics thing. But we got it taken care of real quick - my dad came to campus!”

“All Might-” Todoroki started-

“Has nothing to do with it!” Midoriya beamed. “No, get this - my dad’s bringing me for reconstructive surgery over winter break!”

“What?”

“Oh my gosh Deku congratulations-”

“Thank you!” Midoriya’s nuclear-bright smile was back. “I’m so excited, the Prometheus Institute has done so much work in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, it’s been months and I still haven’t read everything they’ve published-”

Yaoyorozu gasped. “The Prometheus Institute? Their waiting list is supposed to be years long-”

“I know! But Dad got me moved up the list after, well, Overhaul and all that-”

Hitoshi tuned out the rest of their conversation (though he was still reeling from the reminder that Midoriya had gone up against that monster and not just lived, but won) because it occurred to him then that his dad had said he would text him when the meeting with Nedzu was over. Except, Midoriya had already been cleared.

So if Aizawa was still in the meeting about Midoriya, what else was going on?

Shouta would have preferred to never fear for his life this acutely again.

“In all the short time I’ve been able to have with him,” Hisashi began in a low, menacing voice, “Izuku has always been honest with me. For years I was the only adult he trusted enough to speak candidly with - to ask for help, when he needed it. That trust means everything to me.

“So imagine my surprise when I found out the ‘Yagi-sensei’ encouraging my son to start a reckless strength training plan - something he consulted me about immediately, lest he overtrain and end up in a hospital - had asked him to keep secrets from his parents? A stranger, who I had never met and certainly hadn’t vetted, spending hours alone with him in a deserted area.”

Yagi choked. “What- no, don’t be misleading-”

“Misleading? You want misleading? Because of course you turned out to be All Might,” Hisashi sneered, “the sainted Symbol of Peace with that movie-magic quirk able to beat anything, the inspiration to a generation of flashy, fist-first heroes that equated brute strength to justice, and popularity to virtue!"

Suddenly, faster than Shouta or anyone could stop him, Hisashi had seized Yagi’s neck in one hand. He tried to get up and stop him, flared Erasure even, to no avail - the weight of the man’s presence was suffocating, so frightening, and almost familiar, if only he could put his finger on it. He could only watch as the retired Number One Hero glared back at his Problem Child’s father with hatred of his own, except it was mixed with a healthy dose of fear.

“Was it not enough for you to poison my brother with the concept of self-sacrifice?” Hisashi roared. “No, you had to perpetuate blind faith in this flawed system - this new world order built on the backs of the ones born different - on the very idea that anyone is worth more than another because of some pathetic twist of genetics!” The grip on All Might’s neck squeezed tighter, unaffected by the scrabbling of Yagi’s nails against his wrist. “The one time I let you live in eight generations, One For All, and you gave that accursed quirk to my son?”

Shouta thought his heart might have stopped. “You-” he whispered-

Hisashi was crying, he realized. Not the notorious floodwaters of Problem Child and his mother, but a single shining streak down each fury-flushed cheek. It was startlingly poignant, upon the face of what he at last understood was Japan’s greatest supervillain. “My son is an irreplaceable treasure,” All For One snarled. “All I want is for him to be happy, for him to live. I will give him anything he wants to make that happen - no matter how much it pains me to see him bash himself apart with the power that you put in his hands.

“Know this, All Might,” he flung the man back into his seat, “it is only because Izuku wants you to live, that I do not strike you down where you stand. And you have no idea,” Shouta saw how the villain’s fists clenched at his sides, “how narrowly, how barely, that one request stays my hand.”

Hisashi stepped back. Crossed the room in two strides, to the doors. Turned back to look at them all over his shoulder - Cabanel’s Fallen Angel in a dark suit. “I am sure you understand now,” he murmured, gaze baleful, “that no force exists that can stop me; no chains have been forged that can hold me. Not forever.

“But neither,” a pointed stare at Nedzu, “am I bound only to destroy.”

The silence echoed in the room when he was gone.