Chapter Text
Vines grow around the street lamps and signposts, covering every surface they could reach. The villain stands at the epicenter of the overgrowth, monologuing about…something or other. Tenko doesn't really care about what his motivations are, his attention focused on the little girl wrapped in his vines as a hostage.
But just as he was about to reach out, to use his quirk on the villain's vines, a blast of blue fire eats through the base of the growth. The villain yelps, startled, and the girl shrieks as she falls. Tenko darts forward, but a hooded figure gets there first, catching the girl before she can become a splatter on the pavement.
Momentarily stunned, Tenko shakes out of his stupor, taking the villain's distraction as an opportunity.
“Wh-” the villain turns, his shout cut off by Tenko's fist to his face. He quickly restrains the man, cuffing him with quirk suppressors, and leaves him under a lamppost for retrieval once he can call this in. Tenko scans the street quickly, noting with relief that the little girl has reunited with her mother, and the two are leaving the area. He hopes they go to a clinic to get checked over, but he can't focus on that right now. He straightens, turning towards the strange interloper.
The hooded figure stands before him, face obscured by an ominous, grinning mask. White hair pokes out in unruly tufts beneath the hood. The only visible skin is the person's hands, everything else is wrapped in dark blue or purple fabric. The two stare at each other for a moment before the masked figure tilts their head.
“You’re welcome for the assist,” A deep, rough voice says with a mocking tone. Tenko huffs angrily, subconsciously puffing up.
“That was reckless and dangerous,” Tenko says, crossing his arms, a pinky raised on each hand. “That girl could have been burned by your flames, or if you were slower, could have hit the pavement. Are you even licensed for public quirk use?” he lectures, staring down the empty, black eye holes. The masked head tilts the other way. Tenko feels a little like he's being judged.
“Does it matter? The girl is okay and you stopped the villain and saved the day, like a good little hero,” the voice rasps, somewhat mockingly. Tenko narrows his eyes. “Gonna arrest me now? For my unforgivable crime of saving a little girl?” The figure spreads their arms out, challenging Tenko. He scrunches his nose beneath his mask.
“For the crime of unauthorized quirk use, could maybe technically get you for obstruction of hero work,” he says, uncrossing his arms, preparing himself.
“Shame. I thought you might be one of the good ones, being the kid of the number one hero and all.” Tenko's blood runs cold, eyes widening. How…
“How do you…” he starts, but the figure turns to dart down a dark alleyway.
“Well, see you around, Duster,” they call, Tenko shouting after them as he gives chase.
“Hey, wait! Just who are you?” Tenko sprints after them. The vigilante may have longer legs, but they're slow, and Tenko has always been fast. But just when Tenko is almost in reach, the vigilante takes a sudden turn down another alley.
He turns the corner and stops short when he realizes it's a dead end, a brick wall behind his target. He tenses, glancing around to make sure he didn't just get lured into a trap.
“Relax, dollface,” the figure teases, and Tenko glares. They chuckle, tilting their head again. “I’m a vigilante, not a villain.”
“Vigilantism is illegal, actually,” he says pointedly, though the vigilante in question just shrugs.
“Didn't say I wasn't technically a criminal, just not a villain,” they say, before giving a little salute. “See you ‘round, princess.”
And then the vigilante is launching themself straight up to the roof with their fire. They lean over the edge and shout, “name’s Blue Dragon, by the way. Nice to meet you!” And then they're gone.
Tenko groans, which turns into a shout of frustration, annoyed at the entire situation. He stares at the empty roof’s edge for a minute, before deciding to just get on with the rest of his patrol.
Though even as he patrols, and apprehends criminals, and even when he's done and he's filled out his paperwork, and when he's leaving the agency, and returning to his empty apartment, he can't seem to stop thinking about what the vigilante had said.
“Shame. I thought you might be one of the good ones, being the kid of the number one hero and all.”
How did he know that Tenko was All Might's son, when that information has been under lock and key since he was adopted? He had never even appeared publicly with his dad until the injury that left him unable to hold his muscle form, and it's not like anyone knows that the skeletal man Toshinori is actually All Might. It's not even well known among heroes.
He decides he'll need to keep an eye on this vigilante, Blue Dragon. So he supposes he'll be paying a visit to the most nosy people he's ever known, soon.
Unfortunately, it's about a week before he manages to stop by the Rooftop Agency, his patrol schedule leaving him without enough free time.
“Eraser,” Tenko greets, walking into the agency office break room. He stands for a moment, waiting.
Sure enough, a head of dark hair slowly raises to peek over the back of one of the couches.
“Tenko,” he replies, voice rough with sleep. “Something wrong?”
“No, not really,” he answers, rounding the couch to sit on the one across from the other man. He's wrapped up in his bright yellow sleeping bag. “But I wanted to ask if you know or know of a particular vigilante.”
The man raises an eyebrow, flopping back down onto the cushions, waiting for a response.
Tenko sighs and leans back. “He called himself Blue Dragon.”
Eraser repeats the name quietly to himself, thinking. “Doesn't ring any bells for me off hand, but I can ask Mic or Cloud if they know anything.”
“Ask if I know what?” Loud Cloud asks, walking into the room and plopping himself unceremoniously on top of where Eraser is lying.
“Ow.” The man says pointedly. He's ignored.
“A vigilante named Blue Dragon. Do you know anything?” Tenko asks the elder hero, leaning forward.
He hums, cupping his chin with one hand. He snaps his fingers suddenly, gasping.
“Actually, I think I remember Mic saying something about a new vigilante being spotted around here, hold on,” he rushes out of the room, shouting over his shoulder as he goes. Eraser grunts as he sits up properly, likely hoping he won't get sat on again if he moves.
“So are you ready for school this year? How many do you think you'll expel?” Tenko asks, leaning on the armrest, a cheek resting on his fist.
Eraser huffs. “Mostly. And if they're good, I won't expel anybody,” he says, wiggling out of his sleeping bag and letting it crumple at his feet. Tenko snorts.
“How are the cats?”
“They're just as fine as they were when you saw them in person last week. You're shit at small talk, kid.”
“Bite me, sensei.”
“Okay, kids, stop fighting,” Present Mic says as he enters the break room, Cloud on his heels, giggling. Like he's not a grown ass man. “You're in luck, my dear Tenko, because I have, in fact, heard of one Blue Dragon.”
Mic sits on Eraser's left, close enough that their thighs are touching, and Cloud to his right with an arm slung across the back of the couch behind Eraser's shoulders, just slightly leaning into him.
For a moment, Tenko feels the hot pang of envy shoot through him - (he wants that easy intimacy, the affection that comes naturally, like second nature) - before it passes as quickly as it came. He sits up straight, attentive.
“Word on the street is that Blue Dragon is a new vigilante on the scene. Only been spotted a handful of times, but all eyewitnesses agree on one thing: he has crazy form and precision. The kind that you can only really get from being taught and trained, not from learning on your own,” Mic explains, letting that interesting tidbit sink in.
“The name Blue Dragon comes from his quirk, which is blue fire. There's no results when you search the quirk registries for that, so his identity is a total mystery. The closest result is Endeavor’s Hellflame, but it's obviously not him, nevermind being the wrong color fire.”
“Why do you ask, Tenko?” Eraser cuts in, probably seeing how the rookie hero has begun to fidget.
“He crashed my patrol the other night,” he says, scratching absently at his neck. He makes himself stop when he sees Eraser's eyes zero in on the action. “He…he knew who I was. He knows I'm All Might's son.”
A sharp inhale of breath echoes between the three men on the couch.
“That's not even common knowledge among heroes, let alone anyone else,” he mumbles, staring down at his hands. The three older pros know this, of course, but Tenko's at such a loss for what to do that he's babbling. “I think I can count the number of civilians that know on one hand, and the pro heroes on the other.”
Mic drums his fingers on the arm of the couch, humming thoughtfully.
“With almost no information to go by, there's not really anything we can do,” Eraser says, but he's obviously unhappy with his own conclusion. Tenko hums. It's kind of what he figured.
“Keep us posted if anything happens with him, okay, kid?” Mic says softly, leaning forward. “You can call us anytime if you need help, you know that. Hell, even just anytime. We love to hear from you!”
“Yeah,” he responds quietly, biting his thumbnail, because he needs to do something with the nervous energy he has building up. “Thanks, anyway. At least he's a vigilante and not a villain. So I'm probably okay. Maybe,” he says drily.
Eraser huffs, cracking a smile. Cloud and Mic chuckle quietly.
“I should get going,” Tenko says after a few moments of the four of them just sitting in comfortable silence.
“Can I have a hug?” Cloud asks, holding the arm he hasn't wrapped around Eraser out in invitation. Mic whines about wanting one, too.
Tenko laughs quietly, already standing and moving towards the three men on the other couch. “Yeah.”
He wraps his arms around Cloud's neck and lets himself get squeezed by the muscular arm around his shoulders. He moves to Mic next, getting another squeeze. He looks at Eraser, who didn't ask for one, but rolls his eyes and holds his arms out anyway. Tenko bends down to squeeze his favorite former mentor close. “See you three later,” he says, giving a little salute with a gloved hand.
A chorus of goodbyes in varying volumes follow him out of the agency break room.
When Tenko returns to his apartment, he leans against the door and just takes a moment to breathe.
He's still not used to the silence, if he's being honest. Even when he was a kid and his dad would be away for long periods of time, there would always be someone with him. It's a little unsettling, to be surrounded by so much quiet.
And it's so lonely. While he enjoys the freedom and privacy of having his own apartment, it's so empty and lifeless. Maybe he should get a cat. Or a dog, but he probably wouldn't have enough free time to take it for walks or anything, and the idea of him losing even a bit of his carefully honed control on something helpless makes him nauseous, anyway.
He heaves a sigh, pushing himself off of the door and trudging to his room. He promptly flops face first onto his bed.
He can't wallow or attempt to suffocate himself for long, as his phone begins buzzing away in his pocket to the rhythm of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme.
He doesn't particularly bother to lift his face from his covers, setting the phone on speaker beside him.
“Hey,” he mumbles into the bed.
“Are you being buried alive? Why do you sound like that, man,” Shuichi laughs instead of giving a proper greeting.
“Sad. Trying to suffocate in my blankets,” Tenko replies through several layers of cotton.
“Don't be sad! Open your door, my hands are full,” he says cheekily, and Tenko lifts his head to squint at his phone.
“Dude,” he sputters, and Shuichi laughs. Sure enough, when he drags himself to the front door and opens it, Shuichi is standing there grinning at him.
Tenko rolls his eyes, but he can't help the fond smile that curls across his lips.
He steps aside so Shuichi can come in, his arms laden with video games and junk food.
“What's the occasion?” Tenko asks, eyeing the heavy bags.
“I just aced an exam I was worried about, and we haven't hung out in a while, yeah? I don't have work or class this weekend and you don't have any patrols, right?” He says as they lay the bags out on Tenko's kitchen counter. He hums absently to confirm Shuichi’s question. The heteromorph continues, “so I thought: weekend spent playing video games and eating like teenagers.”
Tenko laughs. Shuichi looks so proud of himself. “We're both still teenagers, though?”
Shuichi just shrugs, rolling his eyes. “High schoolers, then, if you wanna be nitpicky about it,” he gripes, and elbows Tenko just to be an ass. Tenko elbows him back twice as hard, which does nothing because of the man's built in scale armor.
“So whatcha wanna play first? I brought my switch, too,” Shuichi asks, heading into the bedroom to set up his games while Tenko goes through the bags of snacks and sugary drinks.
He puts the drinks in his fridge and grabs some already cold ones, picks out a few bags of cookies and chips, and returns to his room where Shuichi has already made himself comfortable on his bed.
“I don't care, really. Whatever you want to play is fine,” he says, setting his snack bounty on his nightstand. He flops back down onto the bed, getting pulled into the heteromorph’s thigh by the power of gravity. Shuichi looks down at him.
“Why sad, man?” He asks, poking Tenko's cheek with a clipped claw. Tenko swats him away.
“Just got lonely, I guess,” he says, because that's really it, at the core. He can't exactly tell Shuichi that he craves intimacy and affection from someone that isn't family or a friend. Shuichi pets his hair absently, consoling, and Tenko leans into it. Because despite wanting a romantic connection with someone, he's still hungry for any affection he can get.
“Well, I'm here now, so at least you won't be lonely for the weekend, yeah?” Shuichi says quietly, and Tenko just hums in response. They lapse into silence while Shuichi fiddles with the gaming systems, before he speaks up again. “So really, what have you been up to?”
“I got my patrol crashed by a vigilante last week,” Tenko says, picking absently at his nails. “He knew who I was. That I'm All Might's son.”
He can feel Shuichi tense next to him. He sits up so he can face the heteromorph properly.
“Dude,” he says, jaw slack. “That's like. Dude! Are you in danger?”
Tenko shakes his head. “I don't think so. Nothing else has come up, yet.” He pulls his legs up to cross them on the bed. “Right before you called, I had just got back from Rooftop to ask Eraser, Mic, and Cloud if they knew anything, but the vigilante is a mystery.”
“Should I try to keep an eye out? Listen around?” Shuichi asks, looking back at his game.
“His name is Blue Dragon. If you hear about a vigilante with a blue fire quirk, I guess let me know?” Tenko suggests, absently scratching at his cheek a little, but he figures the chances of Shuichi hearing anything are low. The other man almost never leaves his apartment when he doesn't have to. He generally only has two destinations: his university or Tenko's apartment. “Scoot over so I can get comfortable,” he says, shoving Shuichi out of his way and making him game over.
“Hey, asshole!” The heteromorph barks, but he's laughing anyway.
Tenko picks up his controller, a smile tugging at his scarred lips.