Chapter Text
Kirishima sat on the edge of a cracked planter, elbows braced on his knees, hands locked together so tightly his fingers ached. His leg bounced despite himself, heel knocking a dull rhythm against the tile. He stopped it. It started again anyway.
Emergency lights swept the ruins in cycles of red and blue. Over and over. The colour bled across it all.
First responders hurried past with stretchers, radios crackling. Police roamed through the wreckage, boots crunching over degraded beams and powdered tile, blue and white and reflective tape. Navigating the rubble with the grim efficiency of ants dismantling something decaying.
Hawks moved in and out of Kirishima’s vision in a flash of red, wings spread wide as he coordinated rescues, feathers darting into gaps too small for anyone else to reach. Other heroes he recognised only vaguely dropped down from upper levels to report in, faces drawn, eyes scanning.
And blood marked the floor in places. Smears and darkened spots.
He pressed his hands harder into his thighs.
His classmates hovered nearby in loose, fractured clusters. Hero students who had been present in the primary incident, pulled apart and stitched together again by authority figures with clipboards. One by one, they were being questioned - gentle at first, then sharper, then careful again. Trying to piece together torrents of what exactly they did, what exactly they saw.
Kirishima felt oddly removed from it, like he was underwater. The noise reached him, but dulled. Everything important was happening somewhere else. Inside his head, where the moment kept replaying, over and over, refusing to settle. His knee bounced in a fast, relentless rhythm he couldn’t stop.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw it again - that instant before.
The sequence refused to stay linear. It tangled. Overlapped. He remembered the pressure of that stranger’s arm under his grip. The sudden, terrifying lightness as the world seemed to drop away. The sound of tile tearing itself apart. Screams blooming. He remembered the weight of the bodies he hauled out of danger, the heat of fear pressed into his chest. Bracing himself. Shouting until his throat burned. Being strong. Being useful.
He had acted, the way heroes were supposed to act when something felt wrong. He had reached out. He had interfered.
But then the floor had given way. And no amount of good intentions could change that.
If he hadn’t stepped in, would the mall still be standing?
He exhaled slowly, shakily, breath catching halfway out.
People could have died because of him.
The thought crept in insidiously, winding around his ribs until just breathing felt like work. It didn’t make him itch or pace. It settled, pressed in. A guilt that felt suffocating, taking up every space where certainty used to live.
His mind drifted unanchored, and found itself circling back to one thing no matter how hard he tried to push it away.
A kid who’d looked at him today like a trapped animal and still - still - had moved to protect him.
The shove. The dust. The scars.
He had pushed Kirishima back.
Not to escape. Not to run.
Kirishima swallowed hard and dragged a hand down his face. Grit scraped against his cheek. His chest compressed painfully, realisation encompassing it all.
He, the hero student, had hesitated.
The person in need of rescue, hadn’t.
A humourless breath left him. “You idiot,” he muttered, only to himself..
He wasn’t ready. That truth rang out, clear and unavoidable. Not strong enough. Not fast enough. Not sharp enough to see all the angles before they collapsed inward. Whatever that moment had been - whatever choice it had demanded - he hadn’t been capable of carrying it through without consequence.
And someone else had paid for that.
Again.
Someone else hadn’t hesitated.
Again.
He couldn’t keep doing this. Just sitting with that. Couldn’t let it turn into another thing he carried and reflected on and never fixed. If he didn’t do something now, it would rot into something worse than regret.
He needed to act.
He had to be more like that person.
His gaze lifted.
Aizawa Sensei stood near the perimeter, speaking with two officers and a hero from search and rescue. His posture was composed, but there was iron tension in the way his hands clasped a clipboard, the way his eyes tracked down the page as he listened.
Kirishima pushed himself to his feet.
He stepped around debris, past medics and officers, barely registering the startled looks his urgency earned him.
He stopped in front of his teacher.
“Sensei,” Kirishima said, voice tight but steady. “I need to talk to you.”
The officers paused. Aizawa turned fully toward him, eyes flicking over his student - dust-streaked, resolved - then back to them.
“Give us a minute,” Aizawa said.
—
Izuku forgot to lock his door again. It was left half-latched, an attempt at privacy not quite followed through with. Dabi noticed the second he tried the handle. The door nudged open with a soft click, giving easily.
Idiot.
He stepped in, surveyed the mess, and snorted softly.
The room beyond was dim, lit only by the weak glow of a laptop screen that had long since gone idle.
Papers were spread everywhere, notes and half-finished paragraphs scattered across the mattress and floor. The bed was a mess of tangled blankets and pages ripped out of a notebook, and in the middle of it, Izuku lay curled on his side, knees drawn up.
Out cold.
The kid looked dead asleep. Properly gone. Mouth parted just slightly, lashes casting shadows against his cheeks. No tension in him at all.
He’d been working, feverishly. That much was obvious from the laptop warm at his side, and the state of the room alone. A pen had rolled under his arm, staining the edge of his sleeve. A crumpled page still clutched loosely in his fingers.
Dabi sighed under his breath and crossed the space anyway.
He nudged Izuku’s shoulder with his knuckles. Not gentle, exactly, but not rough either. A begrudging middle ground.
“Hey,” he murmured. “Need to borrow you for a second.”
Izuku startled, a small snort of a sound escaping him as his eyes cracked open just enough to register movement. He blinked, slow and unfocused, brain clearly several steps behind.
“Ah- hm…?” he hummed, rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his hand like he might erase the interruption if he tried hard enough.
“Mhm,” Dabi replied, entirely unhelpful, already reaching for him.
Before Izuku could gather another thought, hands were under his arms, hauling him upright. He swayed immediately, brain clearly still buffering, and Dabi adjusted his grip without comment, lifting him clean off the mattress.
Izuku made a small, startled noise, then gave up entirely.
Whatever unease might’ve come with being picked up by a villain didn’t seem to survive contact with sleep. The half-formed anxiety dissolved into nothing, smothered by exhaustion, and the vague reassurance that Dabi hadn’t dropped him yet, and therefore probably wouldn’t.
His head tipped against Dabi’s shoulder, as though that was simply the next logical step. The last of his resistance drained out of him in a slow exhale, eyes slipping shut again like this was familiar enough to be acceptable.
“Don’t get comfortable,” Dabi grumbled, and carried him into the hall anyway.
The hallway passed quietly.
The bar was louder. Not raucous - just more alive.
Lit low and warm, twilight spilling through windows. Dabi kept pace as he crossed the threshold, weaving toward a booth where a game was already well underway.
Cards and cash spread across the table in scattered piles.
Jin looked up first.
“Oh, come on,” he groaned immediately, slumping back in his seat. “No, that’s cheating. Put the kid away!”
Mr. Compress looked between them, eyebrows climbing toward his hairline. The visual was… something. For a moment, he looked genuinely unsure what he was witnessing.
A grown man had, by all appearances, stolen a child out of bed to use as an advantage in a card game.
And then the absurdity stacked further, because that child - rumpled, half-asleep - was technically his superior.
“…Good evening,” he said at last, voice smooth but unmistakably strained. “Boss.”
Izuku stirred. He looked at Compress, unfocused, then lifted a hand in a small, polite wave.
“Hello...”
Jin sputtered. “See?! He’s barely awake!”
Izuku turned his head toward Jin at the raised voice, blinking slowly. “Oh. Hi, Jin.”
Dabi ignored them both. He slid into the booth and deposited Izuku beside him, arm braced automatically as Izuku tipped sideways. Izuku’s eyes struggled valiantly to stay open.
Dabi fanned his cards out and tilted them toward Izuku.
“What d’you think?” he asked, tone casual, like this was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
Izuku blinked. He leaned forward a little, squinting as if that might coax the blur into focus. The shapes of numbers and patterns swam, refused to behave.
“…Uh,” he murmured, “…What game is this?”
Jin barked out a laugh. “HA! Your master plan is busted.”
Dabi clicked his tongue. “Shut up.”
Izuku blinked again, lips pursed in concentration as he leaned closer to the cards.
“…I can still help,” he offered quietly, like it was an apology.
Dabi glanced down at him again, then back at the table, cards tapping the grain once.
“Alright,” he said, “You know oicho-kabu?”
Izuku’s brow furrowed faintly. Thought about it. Lifted his head just enough to try and summon the answer - and then shook it, slow and small.
“Mm-mm.”
“Figures.” Dabi shifted a little so Izuku could see the table spread more clearly. “It’s simple. You want the total closest to nine. Under that, you lose to whoever’s closer. Anything over wraps around.”
Izuku stared at the cards. Whatever gears were turning in his head were moving through syrup.
He nodded anyway, slow and earnest.
“Nine,” he repeated softly, anchoring the idea in place.
“That’s it,” Dabi snorted. “You got it, genius.”
The game rolled on.
At first, Izuku just sat there, eyes following hands as cards were drawn and laid down. He didn’t speak again - too busy trying to understand the game - but his gaze followed everything.
Jin was loud even when he wasn’t talking - every motion exaggerated, every loss taken as injustice. Mr Compress, by contrast, was all measured smooth confidence, movements perfect and all theatrical performance.
Dabi ducked his head each time it was his turn, angling his ear, and his cards toward Izuku.
“…Not that one,” Izuku murmured, barely audible.
Dabi glanced at it, then discarded without comment.
Izuku tapped another card in the line, then gestured to a stack.
Dabi won that round.
And the following one.
The rounds built up.
Izuku didn’t offer much - he gave his two cents when Dabi nudged him, but more than that, something else occupied his attention.
Mr. Compress’s gloved fingers kept lingering, just a fraction too long.
By the next round, like gears clicking together, a process was becoming clearer. The pauses before decisions. The way his fingers hovered before committing. Not out of uncertainty, there was no consideration about it. Just a purposeful pause.
Izuku watched him, more than anything else.
And then, there it was.
Compress reached for a card.. A card slipped, vanished beneath his sleeve, another taking its place without disruption.
Izuku blinked.
Then, softly, as if he were correcting a miscount rather than calling someone out-
“…Mr. Compress? I think that’s not the card you drew.”
Compress paused. He looked down at his hand. Then up at Izuku. For a long second, he said nothing. Then he gave a short, resigned huff and flipped the swapped card back where it belonged.
“…Quite the eyes you have, Boss,” he admitted, conceding the round.
Jin slammed his hands down on the table. “CHEATER!”
Compress waved him off, amused. “A performer adapts to the scene.”
“Yeah, well,” Jin grumbled, “adapt to losing.”
Dabi didn’t look at either of them. He looked at Izuku, something sharp and pleased glinting there.
The game continued around him - cards shuffling, money adding, Jin’s running commentary rising and falling as Dabi collected again and again.
Izuku nodded along when spoken to, offered his opinion when Dabi nudged him, already half-asleep again. He slumped fully against Dabi’s side, head knocking lightly into his shoulder.
Dabi didn’t move him away.
After all, the boss was clearly exhausted.
—
“And after the floor collapsed," Kirishima sighed, shoulders weighing heavy, "I lost them both.”
Aizawa wrote for another moment, finishing the line before he responded. He set the pen down, rubbed at his eyes once, then looked up.
“That covers the incident, and the suspect,” he said. “Your engagement was reckless, it escalated the situation. But given the volatility you described, I can’t say you did the wrong thing. You cleared civilians from the immediate collapse zone. That matters.”
It wasn’t praise. It wasn’t comfort.
Kirishima didn’t relax.
“There’s something else,” he said, quickly, before he could talk himself out of it. He rubbed his palms together. “The guy he was holding. I’ve seen him before.”
Aizawa waited.
“Months ago. There was a hero fight on my way home.” Kirishima exhaled. “I bumped into this kid. He was hurt, so I asked if he was okay. But he… he ran.”
Aizawa’s eyes narrowed. “What did he look like?”
“What he looked like? I dunno- better. A little healthier-”
Aizawa held up a hand. “Stick to facts.”
Kirishima hesitated, then nodded again. “Oh okay. Facts. He’s a little short. Messy dark green hair. Big eyes. Freckles. And he’s got a scar on his right cheek. Here.” He gestured to his own face, tapping his cheek. “Thats what made me recognise him.”
Aizawa paused.
“A scar?” he repeated.
“Yeah, left side, down his neck I think too,” Kirishima continued, confused. “It’s kind of jagged. Looks kind of like a- a burst pattern?”
Aizawa turned his head sharply. “Hold on.”
He looked to the nearest officer. “I need this logged as a supplemental witness report,” he said. “Possible connection to an active missing persons case. Have Tsukauchi informed. And pull all security footage - interior and exterior of the mall.”
The officer nodded and moved without question.
Kirishima blinked. “Missing-?”
Aizawa’s attention returned to him. “You didn’t get his name.”
“No?”
“Age.”
“Same as me? Maybe younger?”
Aizawa nodded once. Decision made. “That’s enough,” He gestured toward the officers. “You’ll go with them and write a formal statement. Include everything you just told me. Don’t be editorial.”
Kirishima nodded, then hesitated. “Sensei, I feel like I need to-”
“You did what you were supposed to,” Aizawa cut in. Then, after a beat, “And you noticed what others didn’t.”
Kirishima’s shoulders sank, just a little.
Aizawa was already turning away. “You did the right thing coming forward.”
Kirishima shook his head. “I didn’t do enough.”
His teacher paused, just long enough.
“...This person, it sounds like you want to see him saved.” Aizawa added, voice softening if only a little. “That’s what I want too.”
He moved then, already pulling his phone free, attention elsewhere, elsewhere entirely.
Kirishima watched him go, the guilt still sitting heavy in his chest - but now threaded with something else.
--
By the end of it, Dabi was laughing under his breath, low and unrestrained, sweeping the cash toward himself in an untidy pile.
Jin had gone limp across the booth, face smooshed into the leather dramatically.
“Nooo,” he groaned. “My drink money...”
Mr. Compress gathered his cards with slow care, humming softly as he squared the deck. His attention lingered - not on the lost money, but on Izuku. A renewed interest.
“…Next time,” Compress said lightly, chin settling into his palm, “perhaps you’ll lend me your insight.”
Izuku nodded immediately, the decision costing him nothing at all. He rubbed at one eye with his sleeve, barely stifling a yawn. “Mm. Okay.”
“Hey,” Dabi jabbed at Izuku’s head. “Don’t betray me so easily, bunny.”
“Bunny?” Compress echoed, amused. “Ah- your lucky rabbit, then?”
Dabi stared at him for a beat.
Then he broke - barked out a laugh, genuine in a way that startled even him.
“There’s nothin’ lucky about this little shit.”
He stood, laugh petering out into snickers, stuffing the cash into his pockets like it was already old news. Izuku swayed slightly when Dabi rose, the borrowed warmth at his side disappearing all at once.
“C’mon,” Dabi said, nudging Izuku’s shoulder with the side of his knee. “You’re done.”
Izuku blinked up at him, momentarily lost. “Huh…?”
“Bed,” Dabi clarified.
That registered. Izuku nodded and pushed himself to his feet. He let himself be steered away from the bar, down the dim corridor where the noise dulled and the lights softened.
Dabi stopped outside Izuku’s door and nudged it open with his foot, glancing inside out of habit. Quick, sharp, checking for anything out of place.
“Lock it this time,” he muttered.
Izuku nodded, already halfway drifting. “I will.”
Dabi lingered a second longer, eyes narrowing faintly. Then he stepped back, already turning away with a huff and a whistle. “Night, bunny.”
Izuku shut the door and leaned against it, exhaling softly. When he pushed away and looked around, he was greeted by the exact same mess he’d left behind.
Papers littered the floor, bed and desk alike - profiles half-annotated, background reports spread open where he’d dropped them. His laptop sat open on the desk, screen dimmed but still awake, cursor blinking patiently in a document that wasn’t finished and didn’t intend to finish itself.
Izuku rubbed at his forehead, fingers pressing into the ache that had taken up residence there.
For a moment, he considered crawling straight back into bed and letting it all wait. It felt like a very inviting option.
The moment passed.
He sighed quietly, yawning a little, stepping around papers. He sat down and pulled the laptop closer, shoulders curling in.
Back to work.
—
Aizawa found Hawks near the temporary command point they’d set up just outside the cordon, speaking to a rescue coordinator. He waited until Hawks finished, then stepped in close enough that the noise of sirens and radios dropped to a dull backdrop.
“I’ve got a development,” Aizawa said. “On the Midoriya case.”
Hawks glanced sideways, reading the tone before the words. “Bad or complicated?”
“Both,” Aizawa replied. “One of my student’s witness report.”
That got Hawks’ full attention.
“One of the individuals involved in this. Not a participant, but restrained by the primary assailant.” Aizawa spoke quietly, controlled. “Green hair. Freckles. Scar.”
Hawks’ expression shifted - not dramatic, but immediate, like a lens pulling into focus.
“…You’re kidding.”
“I’m not,” Aizawa said.
Hawks’ jaw tightened.
Then an officer approached them at a jog.
“Eraserhead,” he said, breathless but controlled. “Sir- we’ve got the building’s internal security footage up.”
They moved a few steps away from the cluster of responders, closer to a patrol car where a portable monitor had been set up. Security feeds were already cycling through angles: escalators, storefronts, the central atrium, time-stamped and grainy.
The image flickered. A wide overhead angle of the upper level. Civilians moving. A green-haired figure. A taller hooded one beside him.
Hawks leaned closer to the screen, eyes narrowing as the two passed by a better angle. That was definitely him, Izuku. Looking a little disoriented, stunned, though otherwise okay. But the one next to him...
“...Wait,” he said quietly. “…I know that guy.”
Aizawa turned to him. “You’re certain?”
Hawks nodded once. “I’d bet my wings on it.” He straightened slowly. “He’s one of the unidentified figures photographed on the Hosu rooftops.” His jaw tightened. “The Commission’s had him flagged as a priority target ever since.”
The footage continued, Kirishima jogging up to them, the floor collapsing, panic erupting.
Aizawa watched without blinking.
Hawks exhaled through his nose. “So let’s tally this up.”
He ticked it off with his fingers, slow and controlled.
“Stain.”
“Dabi.”
“Toga.”
“And now-” his mouth tightened, “-this guy with the monsters- the Nomu- from Hosu.”
Four people that didn’t belong anywhere near a quirkless teenager.
Hawks scrubbed a hand through his hair, feathers shifting with the motion. His expression wasn’t casual now. No smile. No lightness.
“A coalition of violent criminals,” he said quietly. “High-tier threats. Serial killers. Terror-level actors.”
His eyes flicked back to the screen.
“And somehow,” he finished, “a quirkless kid is in the middle of it.”
Not as a bystander or collateral. Not an unfortunate loss.
In the middle, alive.
Aizawa grimaced.
“Get in contact with Dabi again,” Aizawa said. “And this time, be sure to apprehend him.”
Hawks nodded immediately, wincing a little. “Yeah. I’m on it.”
–
The pen kept stuttering against the paper, a nervous tap where his thoughts refused to settle. Ink bled slightly into the fibres, darkening the page where he’d pressed too hard without noticing. His other hand stayed tangled in his hair, fingers knotted tight at the roots as if holding himself in place might keep the room from slipping sideways.
He couldn’t concentrate.
It had felt good, to be useful for Dabi, helpful.
But it made something else ache in his chest, unfulfilled.
Stain still hadn’t come.
The absence gnawed at him. Not anger - never that - but a hollow, waiting ache.
Izuku tried to reason it out, turning the possibilities over and over until they lost their edges. Maybe Stain was injured. Maybe he was being careful. Maybe - worse - he had decided Izuku was no longer worth retrieving.
Each thought circled back to the same quiet panic: that he had been weighed, measured, and found lacking.
He didn’t regret what he’d done. He would make that choice again. He knew that. And yet the cost of it pressed in on him now, an unbearable limbo. Conviction didn’t soften consequences. It didn’t make the waiting any easier to endure.
He hadn’t seen Stain in weeks. Weeks. He’d studied every trace he could find, referenced every recent pattern of killings, every rumor, every scrap of news. He knew where Stain would be tonight. He knew it down to the road, the timing.
But how could he just… go? How could he disturb him, interrupt him, without proof that he was worth Stain’s attention? He wasn’t enough as he was. Not now.
What could he bring? What could he say? He tapped his pen again, faster, desperate. Nothing was right. Nothing was good enough.
The bones of his reports spread out in disarray before him. There would be no mercy for his spiraling thoughts. Chisaki would not tolerate errors. Every line had to be exact, every observation precise and relevant. He couldn’t afford distraction. If he wanted to stay alive, if he wanted to keep his head down - keep it attached - if he wanted to keep learning about Trigger…
The thought caught.
…Hadn’t Stain been interested in that?
The word surfaced again, this time sharper, refusing to sink back into the murk.
Izuku’s heart gave a sudden, violent lurch, hope flaring so fast it almost hurt. He had information now - real information. Not speculation, not scraps overheard in passing, but proximity. Access. He was embedded with the group responsible for its production, its spread. It was something he could offer.
The idea settled into him slowly, glowing faintly in the hollow of his chest like a stubborn ember. Stain believed in purpose. In conviction honed into action. He was working with the group that made Trigger now - he had knowledge, insight, news. Surely Stain would want to know this. Surely this was something worth returning for.
Izuku gathered the papers closer, straightening their edges with trembling care. If Stain hadn’t come yet, then maybe this was why. Maybe he needed something more.
Izuku swallowed, resolve tightening in his chest like a thread pulled taut. Hope and desperation tangling until he couldn’t tell them apart.
He could bring Stain this.
Not an apology. Not a plea. Something tangible.
He didn’t know if it would be enough. He didn’t know if Stain still wanted him - if he ever truly had. But this was something real, not begged for.
He grabbed his coat, yanked it over his shoulders and shoved papers in the pockets. He was out the door before he could second-guess himself, down the hall.
He almost collided with Jin just as the bar’s kitchen door opened. The man’s eyes blinked slowly, taking in the coat half adjusted over Izuku’s shoulders, the taut tension in his posture.
“Hey… Where’re you running off to?” His voice carried that soft, teasing lilt, but there was worry in it too. “Gonna spend all your winnings?”
Izuku’s chest caught. “I’m… going for a walk?”
Jin’s head tilted. “It’s dark out. You could get snatched by- uh, creepers. Or worse.”
Izuku looked to the floor. “I’m… just going to try and find Stain…” The words sounded small and pitiful, even to him, exposed in the open air like a confession he didn’t want to make.
Jin studied him for a moment, then looked away. “Huh. Thought he always came to you,” he said softly, almost like a statement, not a question. Then he added, rubbing at his forehead, embarrassed heat creeping up his neck, “Oh… well, uh… want some company while you look?”
Izuku blinked, surprise wide in his eyes. “Really?”
Jin rubbed at the back of his neck, face heating, turning a shade of pink that stood out in the dim light. “Agh… I mean- yeah. I can come with you, I guess. So you don’t get yourself lost, huh? Let's get lost together!”
A warmth spread through Izuku, fragile but steady. “Thank you…” he whispered, voice soft, shaking slightly. “I-I’d like that, I mean. Please.”
Jin’s face warmed further, and he shook it off like he was trying to hide it, humming a little nonsensical tune as he stepped outside.
The night outside was quiet. Their steps echoed softly on the pavement, a muted rhythm in the dark. Twice hummed quietly to himself, an odd, nonsensical rhythm that seemed more like a placeholder for thoughts too complicated to voice.
Izuku listened, watching his own breath puff out in small clouds.
For a while, neither spoke, and it was enough just to move alongside someone. The small mercy of having someone there.
Finally, Izuku broke the silence, unable to hold it together with the nerves spiralling in his chest. “Giran said… you’re allocated to the Shie Hassaikai?”
Jin looked down at him.
“Mm? Oh, yeah. I guess… working with them, sure. I’d like to say it’s impressive, being mixed up in yakuza business, but honestly… whatever you’ve got going on with them is way cooler. It's scary as hell!”
Izuku’s chest warmed, his shoulders curling slightly as he shook his head, cheeks pink. “No, I just… To know that you’ll be there too… It's a big relief. That’s what I mean to say…”
Jin froze. For a moment, just stared at him, absorbed the earnest weight of the words. Then his chest loosened in a small, visible exhale. The boy trusted him enough to admit that small, fragile thing, and that was… Even someone as weathered and scarred as Jin felt it tug at the edges of him.
Of all people, Izuku trusted him. Of all people, Jin mattered enough to make him feel even a little safer.
And then, Izuku’s neck was caught in an arm, pulled gently but insistently close. He stumbled a little.
“Aww, kid,” Jin murmured, voice soft, almost tender, rough with years of missteps and misfortune. “You let me know if any of those big yakuza guys start giving you trouble. I’ll… I’ll take care of ‘em for you.”
Izuku’s chest tightened. He felt the faint press of Jin’s body beside him. The gesture was bumbling, clumsy even - but it carried something far greater than anything spoken. His heart was still worried, the knot of anxiousness tight in his chest, and yet… he let himself lean into it, however slightly, however briefly.
Jin let go of him with a huff, fingers ruffling through Izuku’s curls in a way that was meant to be casual and landed somewhere between fond and awkward.
“So,” he said, drawing the word out, trying to reset the moment back to something lighter. “Where’re we going, huh?”
Izuku blinked, then visibly gathered himself, posture straightening as though someone had flipped a switch inside him.
“Oh-! Uhm, so Stain usually doesn’t stay in one prefecture longer than five days,” he began, words tumbling over each other at first before finding their rhythm. “He works in sounders - three heroes per area, sometimes four if something interferes with the pattern. But three is objectively consistent.”
Jin blinked.
Izuku kept going.
“His last two confirmed kills were in Yamanashi. Southwest side, near the Shizuoka border. The timing looked random at first, but it’s actually constrained by patrol rotations.”
Jin slowed without realising it, steps dragging a fraction behind as he stared at the back of Izuku’s head.
“…Uh-huh,” he murmured.
Izuku hadn’t noticed. He was already halfway gone, hands lifting as he talked, fingers sketching invisible diagrams in the air. He spoke softly, but there was no uncertainty in him now.
“Tonight should be the last strike in that set,” Izuku continued. “After this, he’ll relocate. And if you look at the current patrol timesheets…” He hesitated, brow furrowing, then nodded to himself. “There’s really only one viable target.”
Jin felt a strange, creeping sort of chill.
“The mountainous hero,” Izuku glanced up at him, eyes bright despite the dark. “Shiroiwa. His patrol overlaps the northern ridge, and his track record shows consistent laziness during late shifts - missed check-ins, incomplete sweeps. In a recent landslide, he abandoned search efforts early. Supposedly, the terrain and weather made it ‘too inconvenient’ for him.”
There it was. The same thing Stain had seen. The same thing Jin kept forgetting existed because it was wrapped in freckles and politeness and a voice that still whimpered when it got nervous.
Jin stared at him for a beat too long.
“Right, right, right,” Jin cut in, laughing a little too loudly, waving a hand as if he could physically shoo the words away. “So- Yamanashi.”
Izuku blinked, pulled out of his thoughts, looking up at him again. “Y-yes?”
Jin scratched at his cheek, grin crooked, eyes flicking back to those wide green ones that made it far too easy to forget what he was listening to.
Instead, he nodded once, slow and thoughtful. “Yamanashi’s a hike,” he said. “Not exactly a stroll- but I could do it in my sleep!”
“I know,” Izuku replied. Then, smaller, “I’m sorry.”
“Huh? For what?”
“For dragging you into it.”
Jin snorted. “I volunteered. Besides-” He shrugged, bumping Izuku lightly with his shoulder. “I’ve chased worse ideas across longer distances- and better ideas over shorter ones!”
Izuku smiled at that, faint but real. The night felt less heavy for it. Jin huffed.
“Y’know,” he said, tone light, almost fond, “I keep forgetting you’re a hunter.”
Izuku flushed instantly, shoulders curling in on themselves. “I-I'm not- I just uh- obsess over things,” he said quickly. “Anyone could, if they-”
“Mm-hmm,” Jin hummed, unconvinced, watching him with something like awe bleeding through the cracks of his humor. He’d seen plenty of planners. Strategists. Big-talk villains who liked to think they were clever.
None of them looked like this.
Those big green eyes were deceptive as hell.
Easy to forget what they’d helped accomplish. Easy to forget that this was exactly why the Hero Killer had taken him in - not as a mascot, not as dead weight, but as something frighteningly effective.
They turned down a narrower road, the city now mostly behind them. Somewhere in the distance, a train horn sounded, low and mournful.
“Alright, bloodhound,” he said, voice slipping back into that easy, teasing cadence. “Lead the way. Show me where the Hero Killer is hiding.”
“B-bloodhound?”
“Yeah. well Dabi kept calling you ‘Stain’s Doggy’, but I thought you deserved something much cooler!”
Izuku ducked his head, a small noise slipping through the flush. Embarrassment and warmth, all entangled into something ridiculous.
