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Shouta looked around as he landed on a now familiar rooftop, it had been a month since that awkward first step and the two of them had been meeting on this rooftop every day before and after their patrols. Shouta usually showed up first with Wraith joining him a few minutes after, they’d chat and then head off on their own patrol routes, or, what counted as a patrol route for Wraith, as they apparently just went wherever they felt like. Seeing that the vigilante had yet to show up, Shouta sat down and waited.
After a few minutes he heard a familiar thud from behind him, Wraith walked up to the edge of the rooftop and sat down next to him ”hey Eraser, hope I didn’t keep you waiting”.
”Don’t worry about it, we have other things to worry about, it seems like there’s been more criminal activity near the south end”.
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Izuku hummed to themself, that matched up with what they’d been experiencing on patrols, but those were always drug rings, not always the same ones either. They should probably leave whatever that was to the heroes ” Nothing too serious?”
”Probably not, but Detective Tsukauchi asked me to keep an eye on that area just in case” Eraserhead said with a sigh “just great, more work for me”. Izuku knew that he didn’t actually mind, from tagging along with the hero’s patrols Izuku had learnt more of his personality, and melodramatic was certainly not a trait they had expected Eraserhead of all people to have, and yet here they are.
”Well, I could always tag along, it would be more efficient, and we could cover more ground, right?” honestly Izuku barely had any idea what they were talking about, but they were planning on going towards the south end anyway, and they didn’t really want to deal with all that fighting alone.
”Just keep up”, Eraserhead parkoured away, leaving Izuku to try and catch up. They smiled under their mask.
Over the last month Izuku found that having someone to talk to, someone who didn’t immediately avoid their presence, was one of the best feelings they’d ever felt. They still hadn’t told the hero about their analysis, they didn’t need to ruin the peace between them with their creepy notes, and Eraserhead definitely didn’t need to know about the entry that he had in their notebook. Despite all of that they smiled underneath their mask, soon catching up to the hero as the two of them jumped between the buildings of Musutafu.
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Shouta should have known something would happen. Though, to be fair, nothing had happened almost all night, but just before the two of them were about to head back to their rooftop, trouble struck.
Wraith had been fighting some mugger with an enhancement quirk when she yanked the metal staff out of the vigilante’s hands. At which point they had immediately backed off, desperately dodging the woman’s powered strikes. It was like someone else had begun fighting, since Wraith had suddenly become much more erratic in their movements. The mugger managed to get a good hit on the vigilante before Shouta could restrain her.
He had immediately dragged Wraith out of the alleyway they’d been fighting in, despite the fact that they insisted that they were completely fine. Shouta was concerned, it was like they had lost all confidence the second that they were weaponless, not to mention their hand-to-hand skills could use, a lot, of work. “Are you okay?” he asked them, and his voice was definitely not concerned.
”I’m fine, plus I managed to get my staff back so let’s get going” Wraith tried to jump away only to be entangled in a length of capture scarf.
Shouta glared at them, erasure activating on instinct, it really was like trying to deal with his students, the reckless brats. “Alright, now that I know you’re okay, what the hell”.
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Izuku braced themself for whatever would get yelled at them, what happened, how did they mess up, was it because they couldn’t defeat that mugger? They knew it was dangerous to get their hopes up, of course this wouldn’t last, why would anyone want them around.
”You could have gotten seriously hurt”
Huh? That’s it? No yelling? Nothing about how much of a waste of space they were? Izuku looked up at Eraserhead, head tilting in confusion. The hero sighed “you clearly don’t know how to fight without that staff of yours, did you ever try and learn hand-to-hand combat!?” he looked more concerned than angry, although there was some of that too. Izuku silently shook their head and tried to sign something before realizing that their hands were pinned to their side, Eraserhead seemed to notice that too and untangled them, only enough that their hands were free, they were still unable to move.
If the hero could see their face right now, he’d see the most sheepish look someone could possibly have. ”I never really got the chance to learn any hand-to-hand” Izuku signed, looking down at their shoes in shame.
”What.”
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Shouta stared at the vigilante in pure disbelief, what on earth, how the hell does someone ‘not get the chance’ to learn a basic combat skill, honestly, it’s like they didn’t even try, and the irritation in the back of his mind grew, did they think that they could just get by with whatever quirk they had? Unlikely, from what Shouta’s seen their quirk was most likely non-combative, in which case any sensible person would train their fighting skills to compensate.
Wraith seemed to shrink in on themselves as they hesitantly started signing again ”well, running away from bullies every day only does so much…” something about that sentence rang alarm bells in Shouta’s mind. “Bullies? That’s how a kid would describe their mean classmates, not a grown adult talking about other people, why would Wraith… oh, shit”.
Shouta didn’t quite know how to approach this situation, if his suspicions were correct (and he really hoped they weren’t) Wraith was probably a kid, maybe high school age, or younger. “Wraith…” Shouta took a quiet breath “how old are you?”. He’d asked the question before of course, but every time Wraith would deflect by changing the topic, he’d thought that it was to preserve their identity, but, if they were a kid, a lot of things were starting to make sense.
Wraith immediately tensed at his question. Shouta could see the gears turning in their head ”why do you ask?” they looked ready to run, and they had started struggling against the capture weapon.
”Calm down, I only asked because, well you said that you were being bullied, adults don’t usually call people bullies” Shouta saw the moment that they froze and looked like they desperately wanted to curl in on themselves, that was basically all the conformation Shouta needed. “You’re a kid, aren’t you.” it was less of a question and more of a statement, his mind already looking through past behavior and noting all the signs that were there from the beginning. Fuck. This was a kid, with barely any fighting experience, running around and being a vigilante.
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Izuku stared at the hero next to them, knowing that he’d probably realized by now, this was bad, they couldn’t escape and Eraserhead was probably going to yell at them, or hurt them. They should have thought about what they were saying, how did they let that slip? It wasn’t like they had let their guard down, right? Izuku realized that was exactly what had happened, they’d gotten too comfortable and forgotten that they were supposed to be pretending. Not that they were that good at it in the first place, but this was the worst slip up they could have possibly made aside from telling him that they were quirkless.
“Hey, kid, can you hear me?”
Izuku realized that they’d zoned out and looked back at Eraserhead, and took a step back, wait what, wasn’t the capture weapon. With a start they realized that the hero had freed them sometime during their spiral. ”Yeah, I can hear you, sorry”
”Don’t apologize kid, you didn’t do anything wrong” Izuku would have disagreed, but, if he thought they didn’t do anything wrong, maybe they didn’t? The hero sat down a little bit away from them, giving them space.
The silence stretched for a good minute before Eraserhead spoke “so is there any way I could convince you to quit being a vigilante?” Izuku thought about it, would they be willing to quit? They knew they should say yes, but, really, being Wraith was all they really had, it meant that they could make a difference. Izuku shook their head, there was no way they’d ever give up not being useless, even if it was pretend.
Eraserhead sighed “I thought so, in that case I can’t have you running around without at least knowing how to fight properly”. Izuku had to do a double take, did that mean he was just going to let them continue to be a vigilante!? Eraserhead must have seen their confusion “I’ll let you keep doing this, as long as you follow some rules, first, you’re not going to patrol alone, I’ll take you with me during my patrols. Second, you listen to me, if I say you’re not getting involved, listen. Lastly, we need to work on your hand-to-hand skills, so I’ll be training you, and until I say you’re ready you’re not going to fight anyone, got it?” Izuku nodded rapidly. “Good, how about we start your first lesson now?”. Izuku barely had time to react before they were being pinned to the ground by the hero “lesson one, never let your guard down, always be ready to dodge an attack. Try again.” Izuku got up, ready to dodge another punch, and was almost immediately tangled in capture scarf “what did I just say? Be ready for anything”. Shaking their head Izuku focused on Eraserhead’s movements, this time they dodged a punch, but was then taken out by the next one. The next few attempts went roughly the same way, with Izuku being taken out in seconds. At some point they managed to dodge a few attacks, but they still got pinned within a minute. After what was likely an hour but felt much longer to Izuku, Eraserhead stood back and didn’t seem to be attacking the second they got up again.
“It’s getting late for both of us, we should get back to our homes” a pause “I’m guessing your parents aren’t worried about you?” Izuku almost laughed, their parents didn’t even know where they were, still, there was no point in messing up again.
”They’re probably asleep right now, I can get back to my house easily enough” and before the hero could ask more questions, they jumped down the fire escape and ducked into an alleyway that they knew was practically invisible from above.
Sure enough they got home easily. Flopping into their blanket nest they found that they could fall asleep much easier than most days, they knew they’d probably be sore in the morning but honestly? They couldn’t find it in them to care, not when they were smiling giddily from the realization that they were actually cared about, at least by one person.
Their sleep was blissfully nightmare free.