Chapter Text
Izuku skipped along the rooftops towards their destination, pausing when they reached the factory only to make extra sure they didn’t fall on the frankly precarious buildings as they dashed past. They quickly began searching, knowing that there was no way they’d have to go further than ten minutes past the factory before. There! Their eyes darted about until they locked onto the people they were looking for, shockingly easy to spot despite the slight crowd going on, they’d have to work on that.
Shinso was skulking down the street with Hatsume bouncing after him. Izuku paused, waiting for the pair to pass them before beginning to follow silently, counting the seconds in their mind as they assessed the situation. They tilted their head, Hatsume’s duffle bag seemed to be full, odd, she normally followed them to gather things for her ‘babies,’ but this time, she was bringing something. Something heavy if the number of times she kept having to readjust it to keep the bag from sliding off her shoulder was any indication.
About three minutes passed until Shinso suddenly froze, glancing around, it took him thirty more seconds to finally look up to the rooftops, at which point he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose half in amusement and half in irritation. Hatsume just grinned and waved hello, scrambling when the action almost made her drop her bag, she checked it over with a care that seemed unusual.
Izuku giggled, waving back at Hatsume before leaping down a trail of the nearest windowsills and landing next to the pair, “two minutes and thirty seconds, that’s about a minute better than last time!” They signed as they fell into step with the pair and headed back towards the factory. They’d taken to doing this regularly, not all the time obviously, but often enough to keep Shinso on his toes. If he wasn’t going to practice situational awareness without them prompting him, then he’d have to deal with them using their dad’s teaching method of letting his students fuck around and find out, in other words, hide in plain sight until they notice that you’ve been there the whole time.
Overall, it seemed to be doing wonders for Shinso’s skills, he’d even improved in training thanks to Hatsume providing a neat distraction for him to work around in the form of her rambling about support gear. In fact, Izuku had an idea they wanted to try today, if she was willing to cooperate, and if their hunch of what she had in that bag was correct, it would be the perfect time to bring it up.
As they walked the few minutes towards the factory, Izuku noticed with no small amount of sadistic glee that a certain group of people, aka Shinso’s old bullies, had started giving the trio a wide berth and throwing wary glances at Izuku and Hatsume. Was it right to get joy from their fear? Probably not. But the fact that the two of them had managed to successfully intimidate a bunch of other teenagers from tormenting Shinso, at least on the weekends, was definitely something to smile about. And the taunts calling them a ‘guard dog’ didn’t bother them in the slightest. After all, being a guard god just meant protecting the people you cared about so fiercely that others hated you for it, many people in their family had earned that nickname in their own childhoods, so really, as far as Izuku was concerned, it was a compliment.
They ducked as Hatsume leaned over them to playfully punch Shinso in the shoulder, “c’mon, just tell me what you think? It’s great right?”
Shinso grumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a veiled complement before he glared at her, “it’s insane is what it is.”
Izuku smiled, Hatsume had been chattering about her latest idea, a pair of boots that had propulsion technology inside them, allowing the user to fly around for short periods of time, “what are you talking about Shinso? It could work!”
He just huffed, “yeah, but nobody’s going to be nuts enough to test drive something like that.”
“I don’t need someone else!” Hatsume frowned, “I’d be doing it myself!”
That just caused Shinso to snort in amusement, “yeah, let me know how you deal with the broken bones afterwards.”
“I take precautions you know!”
“Could’ve fooled me, I swear I’ve heard at least five explosions this week.”
Hatsume crossed her arms indignantly, “it’s part of the process! I can’t improve if I don’t fail first!”
Izuku giggled, keeping their focus on their surroundings while their friends got absorbed in the argument that wouldn’t really go anywhere because neither of them were going to back down in the slightest. Izuku quietly tugged on Hatsume’s glove when they approached the factory, pausing her rambling on why exactly the mechanics of hover-boots could totally work, allowing the trio to duck behind the building and into their storage unit.
Shinso barely got to set down his bag before Izuku started the training, but he dodged easily now, and Izuku could tell he was starting to get more confident in his abilities, hopefully he didn’t get too cocky or they were gonna have to knock him down a peg. But training went about as well as usual, with Shinso getting pinned every few minutes, though for some reason, they were lacking Hatsume’s usual talkativeness, which Shinso had definitely noticed seeing as he grinned partway through while ducking under one of Izuku’s punches and dashing past them.
After they caught up to him, they threw a few punches, a kick, and then they glanced to the left for a moment longer than they normally would, telegraphing a feint that caused him to dodge back and get tackled when the action caused him to unwittingly corner himself. At least he didn’t slide right this time, he must have caught onto the fact that such an obvious read was clearly a trap, unfortunately he also seemed to have forgotten just how much space was needed to make the kind of dodging move he was trying to pull off.
Izuku giggled as they helped him up, following him off the training area to grab some water, “you’re doing better, but again, you need to think about what’s going to happen if you make certain moves.”
Shinso grumbled, “I’ve seen you get out of corners like that, I thought I could manage.”
“That was by dodging under the guy! You tried to dodge to my side, of course you got caught!”
Izuku hopped onto one of the boxes, glancing at Hatsume who was fiddling with a ball of scrap about the size of her palm, Shinso peered over their shoulder, also staring at the thing that, for some reason, Hatsume was taking apart.
Shinso cleared his throat, catching her attention, she turned to the two of them, flipping up her goggles that Izuku had finally learned were supposed to turn her quirk, Zoom, from telescopic to magnifying, “oh, didn’t see you there, curious about my newest baby?” She asked, showing off the ball that, now that Izuku looked closer, was actually comprised of several panels screwed together, though that was easier to understand with half the panels laying on the box beside Hatsume.
“Uh,” Shinso looked between the ball and Hatsume, “well, Izuku wanted to know what you were making!”
Izuku gave him a sidelong glance, fine, if he wanted to play it like that they weren’t going to call him out, but they would let him know that he wasn’t nearly as slick as he thought he was being. He just gave them a tight-lipped smile that screamed ‘stop that, don’t embarrass me.’
Hatsume’s eyes lit up, either oblivious to Shinso’s obvious misdirection or humouring him, but most likely just excited to talk about her baby. “Well, you know how smoke bombs, glitter bombs, and stuff like that are usually one-use things? Like, the casing just won’t hold anything anymore? Well!” She held up the ball, turning it so that the other two could see the inside, and while Izuku wasn’t good at recognizing parts on sight like Bibi Higari, but they were fairly sure that was a fan of some kind, though it looked more like the blades at the bottom of a blender. “I thought I’d make a baby that could break apart and release whatever was stored inside like a normal stuff-bomb, but then you’d be able to put it back together and refill it again!”
Izuku’s eyes widened, that seemed, well, maybe about the same amount of useful in battle, but definitely more resource efficient; though, surely pressure would make a better dispersal mechanism than a fan like that? “So you’re working on that now?”
Shinso translated and Hatsume nodded, “yeah, it’s supposed to be able to disperse small particles, though I’m having trouble getting the release mechanism not to be too easy so that it doesn’t fall apart mid throw.”
“And I guess I should be thankful that probably can’t explode,” Shinso muttered, to which Hatsume laughed.
“I mean, it’s technically supposed to, I just can’t test it in the apartment because, well, we try not to drop stuff on the ground ‘cause of my ma,” she shook her head, “so I haven’t actually gotten to test it out yet.”
Izuku looked over at the open space that was the training area, it wouldn’t be that hard to clean, “you could test it here!”
Shinso’s eyes lit up a bit, he was definitely more interested in this than he’d admit, “yeah! Izuku’s right! You could test it here!”
Hatsume tilted her head, “are you sure, you two wouldn’t be able to train while I do the testing.”
Izuku shrugged and gestured to the fact that they and Shinso were seated on some boxes, and he seemed to get the sentiment, “we can wait a bit, this is our breaktime after all, you could test it while we’re resting.”
Hatsume grinned, “sure, I don’t have to do the dispersal test immediately anyway! Let me just,” she put the ball back together at a speed that said she’d done this a hundred times before, and then scurried to the centre of the training area and tossed it as hard as she could, causing it to bounce upon landing on the mats, but unfortunately not breaking open. She huffed in frustration and picked it up, muttering about too much friction as she pulled the screwdriver from her pocket and loosened something, then trying again. This time, the ball fell apart mid-flight, breaking into three equal pieces that, from the brief glance that Izuku got, seemed to be connected via interlocking bits, like a puzzle piece. Again, Hatsume huffed, adjusting whatever she was adjusting as she kept trying again and again until finally, the ball opened exactly as it hit the ground.
She let out an excited squeal as she clicked it back together and skipped back to the pair waiting on the bench, “It works!” She exclaimed, “my baby works!”
Izuku hummed, narrowing their eyes before signing, “aren’t you supposed to do that with different variables, to make sure it’s a consistent result?”
Hatsume chuckled, “well duh, but it’s a proof of concept! And it works! I can do proper testing next time!”
Shinso held out his hand silently, when met with a look of confusion he just said, “I wouldn’t be able to throw it as strongly as you, I’m pretty sure that counts as changing a variable.”
Hatsume shrugged, “not exactly a controlled change,” she muttered, turning the ball in her hands as if she could figure out a better way to test it before going, “oh what the hell, go for it! Worst that happens is it doesn’t work!”
Shinso chuckled, “yeah, I, uh, definitely wouldn’t be offering if this was full of something.” He stood in roughly the same spot that Hatsume was earlier as he tossed the ball, and as expected, it didn’t break on impact.
“Damn it!” Hatsume yelled as she rushed to her baby, physically forcing open the interlocking mechanism and beginning to fiddle with it again.
Izuku watched for a moment, before remembering a piece of advice Bibi Higari once gave to one of xyr students, they whistled sharply, catching everyone’s attention, “Hatsume! Just keep it calibrated to yourself! It’s always better to make sure the whole thing works one way before you go messing with it to try and make it work for different situations.”
Shinso translated it, before turning to Izuku, “I guess that’s your engineer relative’s advice?”
Izuku nodded, scampering up to the pair and staring at the ball, “yep! Xe also says that ‘first drafts exist for one reason, and that is to make sure your invention works, everything else comes later.’”
After translating, Hatsume laughed, “yeah, my mama says something similar,” she then made her voice a bit deeper, presumably trying to mimic her mama, “first drafts are for proving your theories, the rest are for making it practical.”
Izuku giggled, as Shinso tilted his head with a tiny smile, “it must be common knowledge among professionals then.”
Hatsume shrugged, “no idea, but probably, whatever it is, it’s good advice,” she said as she pocketed her baby, “you two can get back to training, I’ll be fine tuning this.”
“Wait!” Izuku signed, hoping the franticness would make her pause, “I’ve noticed you talk when you’re working, why’d you stop?”
Hatsume sighed, “I thought it was distracting you two?”
“No no, keep doing that,” Izuku grinned, “I was thinking of asking Shinso to try and listen to what you’re saying while he fights me.”
To Shinso’s credit, he translated the sentence fully before rounding on Izuku with, “you little bastard! I swear you’re trying to torture me!!”
Izuku burst into laughter “I’m not asking you to understand! Just, be able to recite a few words!”
Shinso just sputtered, “Hatsume! Don’t do this to me!”
Hatsume shook her head with a wild grin on her face, “sorry Shinso! I’m not disobeying the kid who can toss me into the ground!” They all knew full well that Izuku would have let her refuse.
“Evil, you’re both utterly horrible and evil!”
“Too bad!” Izuku giggled, matching the light-hearted tone, “better get punching if you don’t want to get thrown like a sack of potatoes!”
Shinso laughed as he got into a fighting stance, “oh shut up.”