Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"No! My baby! Zuku! My baby is on fire!" Mei screamed.

The sound of her feet scurrying back and forth across the cluttered lab in search of the fire extinguisher was almost enough to distract Izuku from his calculations. That was another tally for the chart.

"Hurry up and grab the— oh never mind! I'll do it!"

He didn't bother look up from his work, nor did he even flinch at the small explosion and overwhelming wave of heat that followed, the amber flames licking at the edges of Mei's latest failed invention. He was used to this—both the explosions and Mei's theatrics.

"It's next to your desk," he reminded the pink haired girl, "where we always keep it." He didn't need to add that Power Loader had practically forced it to remain there due to how often she was blowing up the lab.

"Right!" She called, running back to her desk. Moments later the lab was filled with the sharp hiss of foam dousing the flames. "Well," he heard her sigh, "that's that sorted. Onto baby eight hundred and twenty three."

Izuku could've sworn she was on number eight two four...perhaps he miscounted somewhere? He chose not to ask. If he asked, she'd start an entire side conversation about naming conventions, and he didn't have time to get derailed. His equations were already starting to blur in front of his eyes.

"No, I missed one. This is eight hundred and twenty four," Mei corrected herself. Ah, so he was right. "God, that woulda been embarrassing, wouldn't it Zuku?"

Mei continued talking out loud as if Izuku was offering her some kind of response. Something about fire hazards and why the fire alarm hadn't gone off, he wasn't really paying atttention. After nearly two years in the same class, they'd gotten used to each other's mannerisms. She enjoyed the cadence of his mutterings whenever he was deep in thought, while he enjoyed her constant narration of ideas as they formed in her mind.

Their classmates had learned long ago not to question it.

"Is everything alright in here?" A new voice cut through the hum of the lab.

"All good in here Power Loader, sir," Mei chirped, saluting with zero remorse for the wreckage she'd just created.

"Another one of your inventions gone wrong, Hatsume?" Their homeroom teacher asked dryly and Izuku decided that this was a good time to opt out of their conversation.

He already knew what it was about—Mei's latest attempt at a quirk-erasing net. It was a solid idea in theory, a potential game-changer for Pro Heroes if it ever worked...but he was pretty sure Mei had fucked up somewhere in her planning stages. This was her twenty seventh attempt at making the contraption this month alone. At this point, he was starting to think she was more determined to brute-force a miracle than actually refine the design.

Not to mention that the only kind of 'quirk erasing' that existed was in quirks like Eraser Head's. Even the big companies like Detnerat and GearTech hadn't cracked that one yet. If they couldn't figure it out with their billion-yen budgets and entire research teams, he was pretty sure Mei wasn't going to pull it off, even with all of Nedzu's funding.

Besides, if they wanted to crack it they would probably need to study the erasure based quirks themselves, which would fall more into biotech and bio-engineering. The kind of equipment and knowledge you needed for that was far beyond what U.A. could offer.

"And how's your project coming along, Midoriya?"

Izuku closed his eyes, inhaling a strained breath in an attempt to calm his irritation at having been interrupted once again. He kept reminding himself that he was just tired and there was absolutely no need for him to go off at his teacher for his harmless question. He really needed a nap.

"It's fine," Izuku said simply, dropping his pen into the centre of his notebook. He'd finish it later.

Too many distractions.

"Woah, someone's in a bad mood," Mei teased, his eyes landing on the girl who was now draped over his workbench. Her arms came to rest on top of the half-finished support suit for a first-year that he'd agreed to modify the day before. She tapped her fingers against the material in a familiar, plotting rhythm. "Not sleep well?"

He shot her a flat look, the kind that said, You already know the answer to that.

And she did.

Mei had been in his dorm room until the crack of dawn, ranting about her final year project—something that wasn't even relevant yet given that they were still in their second year. Heck, they hadn't even been given the official project outline or criteria, but trust Mei to be one step ahead at all times.

That was the last time he let her 'study' with him for an English test the night before—which was the actual reason she'd come to him last night, to learn English. He was practically fluent, but still felt like he'd failed the test Present Mic had given them that morning. The voice hero was a pure sadist sometimes.

"Bummer," she pursed her lips, continuing to tap her fingers on his desk. He narrowed his eyes, leaning back in his chair as he watched the way she lingered, waiting for an opening. Tap. Tap. Tap. She wanted something.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

She always did this when she wanted something.

Tap. Tap—

"Can I ask a small favour?"

He arched an eyebrow. "And by 'small' you mean...?"

"Can you look over my calculations?" She asked almost shyly, the words sounding like they were painful to say.

In her hands she now held out her notebook, #34. Her fingers tightened around the cover like it physically pained her to give it up and admit defeat. Mei was usually so confident in her work and was able to troubleshoot any and all issues herself. She rarely asked Izuku to double-check her work unless she was completely stuck. Which meant...

She was completely stuck.

His eyes widened in surprise, but he was quick to school his features. "Sure thing," he agreed, taking the notes from her. "It'll take me a few days though, I still have to finish my work—"

"Thank you so much!" She practically jumped over his desk to force him into a hug, arms wrapping tightly around his neck. "Get it back to me whenever you can! I owe you one!"

"It's honestly fine," he chuckled, awkwardly raising a hand to pat her on the back in a subtle attempt to get her off of him. While he was used to Mei and her lack of understanding of personal space, he still wasn't entirely used to so much...contact.

"Not at all," she denied, releasing the embrace to beam at him. "I'll take you for smoothies this weekend, yeah?"

Izuku rolled his eyes, but his lips twitched at the corners. "Fine," he muttered, "but you're filling out the application."

Even though all the students in dorms were permitted to leave campus whenever it suited them outside of school hours, they still had to fill out these long applications for their homeroom teacher to approve. Izuku hated doing it and found any and every reason to get Mei to fill it out for him.

Mei didn't protest as she began to pull off her gloves and retied her jumpsuit around her waist. "Alright, food. Let's go."

Izuku sighed, looking back down at the notebook of calculations he still needed to finish before he could continue his work that afternoon. "You go ahead. I just need—"

"Nope." Mei pulled his notebook away from him and grabbed the sleeve of his shirt, dragging him out his seat before he could argue. "C'mon, Zuku. If I have to shower daily, you have to eat lunch."

Izuku didn't bother fighting it. He was used to this. Besides, she wasn't wrong, he had skipped breakfast. He hated eating first thing in the morning, it always made him feel queasy for the rest of the day.

They made their way toward the cafeteria, weaving through the halls as students filtered out of their classrooms and crowded the corridors. Izuku always hated how busy it got, the first years all so eager to finally be at U.A. that they barged their way through, while the third years acted like they owned the place and shoved everyone aside. God, it was always a battle of egos at this school, wasn't it?

They descended the stairs, Mei already on another one of her spiels about a new idea of hers—something about integrating kinetic energy absorption into impact-resistant hero gear.

Izuku hummed absentmindedly, half-listening as they waited in line and bought their food from Lunch Rush. When Mei got into one of her long rants about a project, it was almost impossible to silence her. There also wasn't much point in him offering suggestions at this stage since she was jumping from one project to another so quickly that he was sure a single idea from him would lead to the creation of 'baby #825' before the hour was up.

He wasn't in any position to judge her workaholic nature, he was well aware of that, but perhaps she did need to slow down...or maybe he just needed to not encourage how quickly she breezed through ideas. Either, or.

They sat at their usual table, a few of their fellow classmates filling the other chairs as they ate. It wasn't until Mei stopped talking that Izuku realised she was actually waiting for a response.

Well...shit.

"Sorry, what?" he blinked, looking up from his half eaten lunch.

Mei sighed, rolling her eyes fondly. "I said, what do you think? You're better at the numbers, so I figured you'd have an idea if it's feasible."

Izuku frowned, attempting to remember what he could about the project she was talking about. She'd mentioned it a few times before, her new ideas for impact-resistant gear, but he hadn't realised she'd already started working on it. He should've been paying better attention to her.

"It...could work, but you'd have to factor in the delay time between absorption and output." He picked up his chopsticks, gesturing as he spoke. "If the material takes too long to convert stored energy into usable force, then it's just glorified padding."

Mei lit up. "Ooh, you're right! Maybe if I—"

"Hatsume!"

The new voice that approached them came from one of the third year Hero Course students; a tall, dark haired guy that Izuku only somewhat remembered from...somewhere. It wasn't like Izuku really cared that much anyway, he kept his interactions with hero students to a minimum.

"Hey, Fujita!" Mei greeted cheerfully, completely unfazed by the sudden new presence. "What brings you to my humble corner of U.A.?"

Ah, so that was his name. Fujita.

Izuku nodded to himself, logging it away for the next time he'd have to interact with the boy, before turning back to his food. He wasn't entirely in the mood to eat, he never was when he felt this exhausted. Usually he'd just down an energy drink, scran a bag of cookies and be on his way.

"...but if that's what you want, he's the guy you wanna talk to," Mei said, her foot colliding with Izuku's shin to get his attention. His eyes snapped up to hers, jaw clamping shut to keep from cursing her out.

The fuck was that for?

Izuku felt Fujita giving him a once-over, his expression unreadable. "You're Midoriya, right?"

Izuku hesitated, unsure if he wanted to engage. He didn't bother with most Hero Course students if he didn't have to, and they didn't bother with him. That unspoken agreement had worked just fine so far.

But, Fujita's tone wasn't arrogant or demanding. It was neutral, almost cautious. He didn't have that usual swagger Izuku come to expect from the Hero Course, either. On top of that, he knew Izuku's name, which was a big step up from the renditions of 'that guy from the support course' he was used to hearing.

"Yeah," Izuku finally answered before pointing his chopsticks across the table at his friend. "Whatever she said—"

Mei landed another harsh kick to his shin, knocking the table this time from the force. He crused from the pain and shot her another glare, but she just grinned at him like she hadn't just tried to fracture his leg.

The third year shifted awkwardly, eyes dancing back and forth between Izuku and Mei as they conversed through glares, before clearing his throat. His expression looked vaguely uncomfortable, like he wasn't used to approaching Support Course students himself, and usually hero students didn't. Most of the time the they'd just put in their requests, which would then be handed down the grapevine until they ended up with a support student (or occasionally got sent off to an external company). The only times they ever approached support students directly was when they wanted someone in particular to handle their upgrades, adjustments, or whatever else it was they needed fixed.

Unfortunately for Izuku, he had become someone the other years wanted to approach, even more so after his internship the year prior with GearTech Industries - one the top support gear companies in Japan.

"I uh...I was hoping you could help me with some mods before graduation. My gauntlets have been wearing down too fast during heavy combat, and I was thinking of integrating a—"

Izuku held up a hand, cutting him off mid-sentence. "Do you have the blueprints with you?"

The boy blinked. "Uh...no, but—"

"Bring them next time," Izuku said flatly. "I can't help you if I don't know the specs. If you want a consultation, we do that in the lab, not over lunch." He may not have been eating, but this was still his personal time.

Izuku felt Mei's glare narrow on him and he knew better than to anger her further. If he didn't help Fujita, she was likely to give him a lecture that he truly wasn't in the mood for.

The hero student frowned slightly, clearly not used to being dismissed so quickly, but after a beat, he nodded. "Alright. I'll get them."

"I'm free before school tomorrow, bring them by the lab and I'll have a look," Izuku conceded, pushing his tray away from himself. He wasn't in the mood.

"Okay, great. Thanks!"

With that, Fujita disappeared back to his friends, leaving Izuku to glare at Mei. She didn't seem to care, still grinning back at him. "See? You're getting popular, Zuku!"

Izuku groaned, rubbing his temples. "Don't start."

"I'm serious! Word's getting out!" she teased. "Maybe you'll start getting external commissions too!"

"I already have enough work," he muttered.

Mei just laughed. "C'mon, you love it. Now hurry up and eat before you pass out on me again, genius."

Lunch went by pretty quickly after that, their afternoon being spent in the Support Lab, as per usual. Maina had decided to join Mei in annoying Izuku as he modified the first year's gear, adding a few personal touches that he knew would help in the long run. He already had to throw out the student's list of suggestions that were, in his humble opinion, completely useless.

"This thing already has reinforced joints," Izuku muttered, adjusting the wiring inside the leg guard. "Adding an external shock absorber on top of that will just slow them down. Am I building a tank here, or what?"

Maina, leaning casually against his worktable with her arms crossed, shrugged at him. "Not if they compensate for the weight. If they're a good fighter, they'll adjust."

Izuku shot her an unimpressed look. "And if they were a good hero, they wouldn't need this much reinforcement in the first place."

Mei snorted from where she was preparing to weld a new support frame together. "He's got a point."

This student had specifically requested extra reinforcements for their suit, though conveniently forgot to mention that it was already decked out with top of the range shock absorption and carbon fiber plating. Izuku had spent half the morning staring at the blueprints wondering if they were trying to survive villain attacks or launch themselves into orbit.

"Yeah, yeah," Maina grumbled, rolling her eyes. "This is for a first year, remember? They probably don't have a handle on their quirk yet."

Mei and Izuku exchanged a glance, an entire conversation passing between them in mere seconds, before turning in perfect sync to fix Maina with identical looks of unimpressed judgment. It was the kind of deadpan stare that had gotten them sent to detention more than once. Apparently, it made people feel incredibly stupid and judged.

Yeah, like that wasn't the whole point of the look.

Maina groaned. "I hate you two sometimes."

Mei beamed at her before flicking down her mask and starting to weld her project. Izuku merely rolled his eyes, waving the screwdriver in his hand as he spoke, "Well, if you think the first years are going to magically learn to handle their quirks just because they've got a fancy set of armour, you're deluded."

"They're learning. I'm sure they won't need this kind of support when they go into their second year," she defended.

And undo all his hard work in their next suit 'upgrade'? How bothersome.

"I still don't think 'reinforcing every single joint' is going to make them better heroes." Izuku leant back, holding up the leg guard like it was some kind of artefact from a bygone era. "They should be focusing on their quirk control and working on that. Armour's secondary."

Mei snorted, flicking up her welding helmet so that they could hear her. "God, you sound like a purist."

"I'm just saying," Izuku shrugged, "gear is supposed to complement your abilities, not replace them. At some point, they'll need to learn to actually use their quirks, and not just rely on some crutch of extra padding to stop them from hurting themselves. Quirks can be damaging to the body too, you know."

Maina laughed, clearly not as concerned with the whole quirk-gear debate as Izuku was. To her, it was all about business. She'd made it clear from the day they first met that she was mostly interested in the money that came out of working with support gear. "Let them rely on whatever they want, man. More gear for them means more commissions for us."

"You should copyright that as a slogan," Mei remarked as she returned to her work.

Izuku rolled his eyes, tossing the leg guard onto the table with a clatter. "Yeah, great. Heroes completely dependent on their gear. What could go wrong?"

"So cynical," Maina shook her head. "I thought you loved heroes."

"I do," Izuku confirmed. The shelf in his dorm was stacked with figurines, and his notebooks were filled with analysis on his favourite heroes and their quirks: strengths, weaknesses, their applications, their costume, support gear, team skills, the whole shebang. But just because he loved heroes, that didn't mean he wasn't critical of them.

"Oh he's a total fanboy," Mei agreed, putting her work on pause, yet again, just to comment. Izuku waited for her to remove her helmet before launching a pen at her head.

"Like you don't curl up next to a Thirteen plush every night," he scoffed.

"Have you seen her gear!" A star struck look overcame Mei's face, eyes practically shimmering. "It's marvellous! What I wouldn't give to get my hands on some of her team's tech."

"I thought you preferred Ingenium, or...who's that hero with the nunchucks from Europe?" Maina asked, clicking her fingers like the name was on the tip of her tongue. "You know, the one who has those like bright green glasses things..."

"Velocity Viper," Izuku supplied.

"Yes! Velocity Viper!"

"Oh she's cool too," Mei agreed, deciding to roll her chair over to Izuku's bench since a conversation about gear was way more interesting than building a basic support frame. She adjusted her goggles around her neck, wiping the sweat from her brow. "Did you see the new magnetic nunchuck mods she unveiled last month? Absolute genius! A self-returning mechanism with kinetic charge-stores in the handles? I need to reverse-engineer that."

Izuku chuckled, though would be lying if he said he didn't have half sketched blueprints of his own version of the design in his dorm. "I'm pretty sure you'd need like three different patents and a death wish to even try," he remarked.

Well, she did have the death wish part down.

"Details," Mei said breezily, waving her hand.

Maina pursed her lips in thought, moving her weight onto a single hip. "Maybe we should just quit U.A. now and become tech pirates or something. Set up our own black market workshop."

"Sure," Izuku said dryly, reaching for the wrench sat across from him. "I'll pencil it in right after our ethics exam Thursday morning...oh wait, I've got a mental breakdown planned for five. Would Friday work?"

"Asshole," Maina shook her head at his sarcasm, while Mei snorted so hard she nearly dropped his notebook...that she had taken upon herself to have a peruse.

Yeah, that's fine. It wasn't like he was using it or anything.

His pink haired friend scoffed. "Please, Midoriya. You're already halfway there."

"Gee, thanks," he rolled his eyes, hands moving automatically as he spoke: tightening screws, recalibrating shock-dampeners, reinforcing frames without even needing to think about it too hard. If he was honest, he didn't actually mind working on the first year's gear, even if he had groaned and moaned about it to Mei for a little over an hour the night before.

Contrary to popular belief (and his less than enthusiastic attitude), he did actually like the Support Course. Tinkering with gear, solving problems, crafting designs that others relied on, it was as simple to him as breathing. He'd always been good at this kind of thing, even as a kid; fixing broken toys, pulling apart gadgets and gizmos just to see all the parts and test whether he could put them back together again. It was like solving puzzles, which was ironic considering he couldn't stand actual puzzles. He didn't have the patience for them.

"Wait, we don't actually have an ethics test Thursday, do we?" Maina asked, a worried look befalling her face.

Izuku hid his laugh in his sleeve as Mei answered, "No. Boy Genius over here is just being a sarcastic ass again."

"Who would I be if not myself?" He turned to her with a grin and that same pencil he had chucked at her was now being launched at his head. He muttered a curse as he began rubbing the spot where it had hit him. It was going to leave a mark for sure.

"Alright!" Power Loader's voice suddenly cut through the room, their conversation dying on their lips as Izuku, along with the rest of Class 2-H, turned their attention to the front.

Since when was he here? Izuku hadn't even noticed him come in.

"I know you're all busy with your projects and commissions at the moment," he began and Izuku got a sinking feeling in his gut. He had a feeling he knew where this was going and he already hated it. "But it's that time of year again. The U.A. Sports Festival is just around the corner!"

Of course it fucking was.

A collective groan echoed around the workshop, bouncing off the newly reinforced concrete walls — a feature that had only been installed after one particular incident the year prior. Izuku had been testing a prototype out and accidentally launched himself through one of the walls into a Business Course classroom and ended up embedded head-first in the teacher's desk. He was like dart in a dart board, arms pinned at his sides and legs hanging out the back. It didn't help that Mei had shouted 'bullseye' right before he passed out.

To this day, people still thought it was Mei's invention that had exploded, and Izuku was a little smug that no one had ever corrected them. Regardless, after that disaster (and after Principal Nedzu had stopped laughing), it was deemed safer for everyone to convert this corridor into Support Course classrooms only, and reinforce the walls.

Power Loader chuckled from where he stood at the front, completely unbothered by his class' outcry. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You're not the Hero Course. You're not exactly itching to get tackled into the dirt by people with super strength. Trust me, I get it." He placed a hand on his chest almost as though he was sympathising with the complaints being voiced. Izuku knew better than to believe him. Power Loader was still a Pro Hero after all, and his quirk literally specialised in being in the dirt. "But Principal Nedzu and I had a chat—"

Oh, actually fuck off did they.

"—and we agreed that if you're being asked to compete, you deserve a fair shot at showing off what you can do."

Izuku narrowed his eyes.

There was a beat of silence.

He did not like where this was going.

"Which is why," Power Loader continued, an almost wicked grin stretching across his face beneath his mask.

Izuku really didn't like where this was going.

"We've arranged extra training sessions for you all. Three times a week until the festival. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon."

Izuku's mouth fell open. Were they having him on?

"Plus a few minor adjustments to your regular PE lessons to help you work on your fitness."

No, Power Loader was definitely having him on. This had to be a joke.

The only reason Izuku even bothered showing up to their regular PE lessons was to avoid failing. Besides, Mr. Kubota didn't even care if they participated or not, as long as they weren't a liability.

Half the class visibly sagged as if their spines had all simultaneously been yanked out, Predator style. The other, more psychotic half all seemed actually excited by this idea. The nutters.

"This has to be illegal," Maina stated, looking just as outraged as Izuku felt.

"But I have so much work to do," Mei protested, dramatically throwing her hands in the air, then immediately perking up again. "But if there are investors watching, I need to get to the later rounds to show off my babies like last year! Yes! Let's do this! Ooh, this will be fun!"

Izuku's glare turned from Power Loader to Mei like a laser sight. Great, now she was going to force him to participate too. He knew exactly who to blame when he ended up face down in the dirt day in and day out.

"You'll thank me later," Power Loader said cheerfully, completely ignoring the growing chatter and complaints breaking out across the room. "We've got a few other teachers lending a hand too. Pros with experience training Support teams, some gear specialists, and even a few Hero Course veterans. Think of it as a chance to level up, like in your video games."

Izuku groaned, his excitement at the prospect of meeting new Pro Heroes crushed under the weight of three extra hours of physical exertion per week. And that was if these 'sessions' were only an hour long.

"I'd rather level up my heart rate straight into cardiac arrest," he muttered.

Mei snickered from her spot across his desk. "Cheer up, Zuku. Maybe you'll trip and knock yourself out."

"Don't give me hope." Or ideas.

"And before anyone thinks about skipping," Power Loader's voice was sharp as he scanned the room, eyes lingering suspiciously long on Izuku, "attendance is mandatory."

There were several louder groans at that.

"Why is he looking at me?" Izuku threw his arms out almost dramatically, wrench clanging back onto his desk. He slumped into his chair with a frown, acting as though he wasn't just planning a hundred and one ways to get out of the entire thing. Faking cardiac arrest was number fourteen.

"I mean..." Mei turned to him like it was obvious.

Cardiac arrest was now number seven.

"Gear is important, no doubt about it," Power Loader continued from the front, everyone quietening down once more, "but if you can't keep up with the people you're designing for, you're not going to understand what they need in the field. You're future engineers and innovators—being able to think on your feet, adapt under pressure, and hold your own physically is just as important as what you build."

Izuku sank lower into his chair, dragging his hands down his face in pure despair. He could already feel the stress migraine building behind his eyes.

This was going to suck.

"And on that note," Power Loader somehow sounded even more cheerful than before, "our first session starts tomorrow. So make sure you bring your gym kit. And before anyone even thinks about it: not having your kit isn't an excuse. I'll have spares, and I'll let you know now that they aren't washed."

Several students grimaced at that, probably disappointed that their 'no kit' excuse would no longer work. Forgetting your kit was so over done, if they wanted to make it work they should say it was destroyed by one of Mei's inventions or something, at least that would be realistic. Plus, Izuku knew it worked since he'd used that excuse for almost two months straight before Nedzu had caught him.

"Attendance will be taken," Power Loader continued mercilessly. "Participation will be noted. And if you don't show up, you'll be making up the sessions." Oh, so they were covering all of their bases. "And trust me, you don't want to see my idea of 'remedial training.'"

Izuku exchanged a desperate look with Mei, who just gave him a helpless shrug and a grin like she was already resigned to their fate. Given her prior enthusiasm, he wasn't surprised.

"Good talk!" Power Loader clapped his hands together, the sharp sound making a few students flinch. "Now, back to work. I'll be here if you have any questions or need any help."

As soon as he dismissed them, the room exploded into chatter. Complaints, groans, and frantic muttering filled the air like smoke. Izuku didn't move from his chair. He just let his forehead thunk down against his worktable with a dull thud.

"Tomorrow," he mumbled into the metal surface. "They're really making us start tomorrow."

That was nowhere near enough time for him to mentally prepare for such bullshit.

"Bright side," Mei chirped as she slid her face down to be in line with his on the desk, grinning wide enough that Izuku briefly debated throwing a screwdriver at her, "if you pass out during the warm up again, they'll have to let you sit out."

She always had to bring that up, didn't she? It was one time!

"You're not helping." He frowned, banging his forehead against the desk one more time in hopes that it would wake him up from whatever nightmare this shit show was.

"Helping is for people with hope," Mei said sagely, sitting back up.

"I'm telling you," Maina began, returning to Izuku's bench with one of her circuit boards balanced precariously on her palm, "if they bring in Cementoss, I'm out. I'm not doing obstacle courses where the walls punch back."

"Could be worse," Mei said, still far too enthusiastic about all this. "Midnight might be helping. You remember last year's flexibility drills?"

Maina grimaced like she was reliving it. "I still don't understand how she was physically able to get her leg there."

"Don't remind me." Izuku shuddered as he sat up to continue his work, reaching for his pliers.

He'd managed to wiggle out of the second half of Midnight's felxability class by claiming an old knee injury was acting up and that he was seriously struggling. He remembered saying something about being embarrassed that the class would have to see him mess up her stretches, or that he was insecure about it, or something like that. He couldn't remember exactly what he had said anymore since it had been so long, but it technically wasn't a total lie since he had slammed his knee into a gear rack. He just didn't mention that he'd done it the day before. On purpose. Just in case.

Thankfully, Midnight had taken pity on him and let him sit out the rest of the session. She'd apparently told the class that he was going to observe under the excuse of 'medical caution'.

If she helped on any of the days, he would be sure to use the same injury to his advantage.

Someone across the room — was his name Kuronuma? Maybe Kuroda? Izuku couldn't remember — groaned loudly, "If Vlad King shows up, I'm transferring schools."

"Come on," Mei laughed, picking up her gloves again to get back to work. "He's not that bad."

"The guy looks like he bench presses a bus for fun!" The same kid exclaimed. "You call that 'not that bad'?!" He air quoted.

"At least he's better than Ectoplasm," another student piped up. "Remember when he covered for Mr. Kubota last year and ran that stealth course? Teleported behind you every time you messed up."

"Nothing personal, kid," Maina deadpanned in a terrible impression of Ectoplasm's monotone voice, amusing a few of their classmates.

Izuku smirked faintly, tightening the last screw on the brace he was working on. He could probably get this first year's suit done in the next hour, assuming his friends stopped distracting him...which was unlikely.

"You're all assuming it's going to be normal training," Izuku said with a frown. "Nedzu's involved. It's going to be weird."

Izuku was all too familiar with their Principal's methods. He'd spent enough time trapped in the rodent's office to know his routines inside and out. He was sure they'd be on first name basis soon...assuming Nedzu even had a first name.

"Nedzu always makes it weird," Mei agreed, having heard enough about him from Izuku.

"I heard a rumour," Maina voice was now a whisper as she dropped her circuit board onto Izuku's cluttered bench, ignoring his half-hearted attempt to shove it off, "that a few years ago, Principal Nedzu had the Hero Course students fight wild animals for their final exam. Like, not even trained ones."

"Wait, what?" Izuku turned, eyes wide as he stopped his work for a moment to give her his full attention. That didn't sound right. Principal Nedzu almost definitely had a few screws loose, but he wouldn't endanger animals like that.

Maina shrugged. "Yeah, apparently they had to fight like, a bear, and a wild boar, and a pack of wolves. Someone said Nedzu thought it would be a good test of how well they handled stress, and apparently the boar was the most difficult one."

Mei's eyes were wide, mouth gaped. "That sounds crazy."

"That sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen," Izuku muttered, adding 'ask Nedzu about illegal wildlife battles' to his list of things to do. It wouldn't be long before he ended up back in the rodent's office anyway, so he wouldn't have to wait long before he got to tick that one off.

"Do you guys think Eraser Head's gonna be helping?" Maina asked after a moment of thought, her voice carrying a faint note of dread as she twirled one of Izuku's half finished gadgets between her fingers.

Izuku spared her a look, initially because he was worried she was about to break his stuff, but then he noticed the furrow in her brows. She was nervous. Was she scared of Eraser Head or something?

"Maybe," Mei shrugged without looking up from her welding. "He is one of the Hero Course teachers, and I think he graduated from here too. Why?"

"Cause if he does, I'm screwed," she practically whined, tossing Izuku's gadget back towards his desk. He caught it before it could clatter to the floor, scowling as he put it away in one of his drawers. It was just a prototype shock stabiliser and likely wouldn't have broken, but still. "He's totally going to expel me!"

"He's not going to expel you," Mei assured, waving her off like it was a stupid idea. "He only expels the Hero kids. We're in Support."

"I was the one who accidentally set his capture weapon on fire last year," Maina deadpanned.

That got the their attention, both of them recounting the incident that occurred near the end of their first year. It had caused such a scandal at the time that even the current first years knew about it.

Mei paused, lifting her welding mask just enough to look Maina dead in the eye. "Oh, yeah no, you're absolutely getting expelled."

"Mei!" Maina whined again, dragging out her name like a petulant child.

Izuku gave the brunette a slow, unimpressed blink. "Accidentally?" he repeated, voice dry as sandpaper.

"It was an accident!" Maina insisted,  throwing her hands up defensively. "I didn't mean for the stabiliser to explode."

"You set his scarf on fire during an assembly," Izuku reminded her.

"It was barely a fire! He stomped it out in like two seconds!" She argued, like that somehow made it better.

"It was still on fire," Mei sing-songed, mask now shoved fully up so she could watch Maina suffer properly. Izuku nodded in agreement.

The brunette scowled at both of them. "It wasn't my fault! I forgot the stabiliser was in my pocket from labs and— look, I just figured I'd tweak the wiring a little during Nedzu's speech. I didn't think it'd spark like that!"

"Wait," Izuku shook his head, attempting to understand what had actually happened. "Hang on. So you found a stabiliser in your pocket, and decided to fix its wiring. During assembly. In the dark. While Mr. Ai—"

"I didn't know he was walking past!" She interrupted. "I thought I could do it quietly."

"But you short-circuited it." Izuku furrowed his brows. That was the only plausible explanation as to why it had sparked and exploded the way it did.

"And it sparked right onto Eraser Head's scarf," Mei added, both of them puzzling the pieces together.

"Plus it smelt like burnt polyester for the entire assembly." Izuku scrunched his nose up at the memory.

"And you set off the fire suppression system," Mei added once again. It was almost like the duo were reading off a list of crimes.

"Okay! I get it!" Maina snapped, folding her arms stubbornly across her chest. "Bad idea. Lesson learned. You don't have to go on."

"You're the one who brought it up," Izuku mumbled under his breath as he flipped around the almost finished costume, holding it up by the shoulders to assess. He pursed his lips in thought.

No. This wasn't right.

"This is missing something." He flipped it again, the front now facing the other way. "Mei."

Without even glancing over, Mei answered, "Secondary support struts."

"Thank you."

He dropped the costume back onto the bench before weaving through the cluttered workshop toward the bins lining the back wall. He sifted through them, fishing out a small frame piece and tossing it between his hands as he scanned the drawers for the right box of screws.

He should really just start keeping a junk drawer at his station. Walking across the lab every time he needed a different size screw was getting old fast.

"I doubt it'll even be that bad," Maina sounded rather optimistic when he returned to his bench, the brunette now sat in his chair and spinning lazily back and forth. "It's probably just some obstacle courses and basic fight training, or sparring or something."

"No, please, take a seat."

Maina flashed him a grin before turning back to Mei to continue their debate on what the next few weeks would look like. He resigned to standing, walking to the other side of his bench so that he had space to work.

"Aren't you guys overthinking this?" He eventually asked, having had enough of all the outrageous ideas they were coming up with. It had somehow become a debate between a tank of robotic sharks with lasers on their heads, and nail bombs. Somehow, the sharks with lasers was the tame idea.

"You're underthinking it," Maina disagreed, deadly serious. She pointed a finger at him. "All it takes is one mechanical shark and we're all screwed."

"Why is it always a mechanical shark?" Izuku shot her a look. She had some kind of obsession with them. At this point, he was surprised she hadn't tried to make them herself. "You know that's not a normal fixation, right?" Maybe they should get the school to have her checked.

"I'm telling you Izuku, you don't prepare for mechanical sharks," Maina's voice dropped to an ominous whisper, while Izuku's eyes widened in pure confusion. "You survive them."

Izuku opened his mouth, closed it again, then decided there simply weren't enough hours in the day to unpack whatever the hell that meant.

Before he could even figure out what on earth he was supposed to say to that, Mei spoke up instead, "aren't you even a little nervous, Zuku? You don't exactly work out, no offence."

Izuku barely looked up. "None taken. I fully plan on faking my own death before the training starts."

"And yet," a heavy hand slapped down on his shoulder, causing him to jump nearly three feet in the air, "you're still showing up to training with the rest of us."

Power Loader.

Izuku hand came up to grip his shirt, feeling how fast his heart was racing in his chest. Fucking hell. He almost went into real cardiac arrest! He took a deep breath, attempting to get his soul to return to his body.

The Pro didn't have to scare the bejesus out of him, fucking hell. That had to be some kind of child endangerment or something?

"I don't know what excuse you're cooking up in that overclocked brain of yours, Midoriya, but it's not gonna work. Everyone's expected to show up, and that includes you. Even if you fake your death."

"Would you believe me if I said I had sudden onset gym-induced paralysis?"

"No."

"An existential crisis triggered by the concept of 'competitive sports'?"

"No."

"A tragic— debilitating, debilitating allergy to group exercise?"

"Still, no."

"What about an acute form of post-traumatic stress? I did take a metal bar to the face once."

Power Loader laughed. "Nice try."

Izuku decided on one more hail Mary.

"What if I promise to speak with Hound dog about it—?"

"Hound Dog would probably make you run extra laps for the audacity."

Izuku let his head fall backward. "Shit."

Mei snickered.

"Two o'clock tomorrow. Gym Beta. Be there," Power Loader said, pointing a warning finger at him. "Or I drag you there myself."

Izuku had to accept defeat. "Fine." He'd just get out of the ones being run the following week instead. He could struggle through the first session. It would probably be the easiest one anyway. He could do that...maybe.

"Good," Power Loader smiled, satisfied. "And Midoriya? If you are going to speak with Hound Dog, perhaps instead of 'PTSD from a metal pole', you could try tackle the actual issues."

Izuku blinked, caught off guard. He opened his mouth to ask what the hell he meant by that when a loud crash echoed across the workshop, followed by frantic yelling. Power Loader was gone quickly, rushing off to help whoever had managed to cause such carnage.

"Looks like you're not getting out of this one, Midoriya," Maina teased, spinning his chair in a full circle.

If she messed with his chair settings, he was going to snap her circuit board in half.

"Actual issues?" Izuku parroted what his homeroom teacher had just said, ignoring Maina. "What does that even mean?"

"What doesn't it mean?" Mei teased, earning herself a pointed glare. "What? You avoid all your problems—"

"I don't avoid my problems," Izuku denied.

"Uh huh, sure," Mei nodded. "Whatever you say, Zuku."

"I won't look through your calculations if you're gonna be an ass," he half threatened.

Her eyes widened and she clutched at her chest in mock horror. "No, no, please, not the calculations!" She gasped dramatically, sarcasm dripping off of every word. Izuku chuckled despite himself. They both knew he was going to look through her work regardless of how much of an 'ass' she was.

"Right, get out my chair Maina." Izuku snapped his fingers, pointing upwards for emphasis. "I wanna get this done before the end of the day." With a loud sigh, Maina jumped out of his seat and took her work back to her own bench.

He got to work on adding the secondary support struts to the shoulders of the costume to help distribute the force of any heavy hits, but it was delicate work. He had to make sure the struts didn't add too much weight or restrict movement, while ensuring they were strong enough to actually do their job.

He carefully threaded a wire through the socket of the support, his brow furrowing in concentration. His hands were quick but precise, moving in a rhythmic dance as he worked.

The hours flew by faster than Izuku expected and, for the first time in a long time, there was only one explosion. To top it off, it wasn't even Mei's fault—something she proudly celebrated once the flames had been doused. She'd given Izuku a fist bump and sauntered her way over to the workshop wall where a homemade tally chart hung proudly between two fire extinguishers.

Grinning, she'd added a fresh tally under the 'Explosions (not Mei)' column, directly beside the much more crowded 'Explosions (Mei)' column and the one labelled 'Izuku did it'.

The last time Izuku had been forced to add a tally to his column had been about two weeks prior. He'd been testing some custom made spring-loaded grappling hook one of the third years had brought him. They'd practically begged Izuku to modify it for them so that it better suited their mobility-based quirk.

In hindsight, he really should have checked the build quality before agreeing since whoever made the thing had done a pretty shoddy job — loose wiring, stress fractures in the launch mechanism, terrible weight distribution. It was a disaster waiting to happen. He was surprised it hadn't exploded sooner.

Sure enough, the damned thing misfired and the hook was sent flying into a nearby stack of electronics (the same electronics Mei swore she was 'just about to' put away) and caused a domino effect that nearly decimated Izuku's entire work bench.

In his defence, he hadn't designed the damned thing. He was just the poor idiot who'd agreed to 'improve' it. Besides, was it even considered a proper field test if something didn't blow up at least once?

Power Loader had a few choice words to say about the situation, some of which were spent arguing that a 'field test' was supposed to be conducted in a field and not a lab, but like...tomato, tomato.

Izuku smiled at the memory as he tightened the last screw of the first year's gear. "Right," he slumped back into his seat, removing his gloves and slapping them down on the counter. "That's that done," he announced, standing up and stretching his sore back. "Which means I'm done for the day."

That suit had taken him far longer than he expected. It was almost embarrassing that he had needed to spend so long on some simple upgrades. He was getting rusty.

Maina made a noise of disbelief. "Izuku Midoriya, leaving the lab before midnight? Is the world ending?"

"I wish," he muttered, running a hand through his unruly curls. When was the last time he actually washed his hair? He'd make sure to have a shower at some point before tomorrow.

"I'm almost done," Mei called as she continued to use her soldering iron.

Izuku tidied away his bench as he waited for her to finish up, and soon the two were making their way back to their dorm, the sky darkening overhead as the campus street lamps flickered on above them. Damn, he hadn't even realised how late it was.

It was a peaceful walk, the kind Izuku rarely got to enjoy since he was usually rushing around campus. The breeze was cool against his skin, tugging at his loose curls. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, head tilting toward the sky as he released a soft sigh.

They passed a few other students milling about, as well as a couple Hero Course kids going on their nightly run. Izuku cringed at the mere thought of such a thing. He wouldn't be caught dead running for fun. Heck, he doubted he'd even do it if he was being chased. At that point, he'd be willing to cut his losses and accept defeat.

"So," Mei began suddenly, clicking her tongue a few times as though debating what to say. "Did you know Maina was the one who set Eraser Head's scarf on fire last year?"

"Oh my god, no!" Izuku gasped, whipping his head around to face her so fast he nearly threw himself off balance. "I was told it was that kid in 3-A with the firework quirk."

"No, cause same," Mei agreed, sounding just as scandalised. "I can't believe she didn't tell us sooner."

"I can't believe she thought messing with a stabiliser during assembly was a good idea," Izuku remarked, voice full of disbelief.

Mei snorted, rolling her eyes at his statement. "It's like she had to pick the most inconvenient time to mess with it. I can't believe she didn't get in more trouble though."

"He probably just gave her one of his deadpan looks," Izuku said, mimicking a flat, unimpressed expression. Mei laughed, smacking him on the arm.

"I can totally picture that. He'd just look at you with that blank stare, like 'I've seen war crimes, and this ranks below that.'" Mei agreed, mimicking the Class 2-A homeroom teacher's voice.

"Oh, was that supposed to be Eraser Head, was it?" Izuku laughed.

Mei grinned mischievously. "Course it was. It's all in the eyes, Zuku. He's got that 'I'm not mad, just disappointed' look down to an art."

Izuku put on his best deadpan face, narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms like they'd seen the Erasure hero do numerous times in the corridors. "Grr, you kids never learn. Why do you have a gizmo in your pocket during a formal assembly?"

"A gizmo!" Mei cackled, clutching her stomach. "Oh, he would definitely call it a gizmo."

"Still, it's not as bad as that time Nedzu brought in that guest speaker and Tetsuo dropped a whole prototype drone on his foot."

"Oh, I remember that!" She gasped, clapping her hands together as she recounted the memory. "It was right after Power Loader gave that whole speech on workplace safety and shit, and then BAM! Down comes the death frisbee."

"It wasn't even aerodynamic," Izuku commented, shaking his head. "You can't cram a propulsion engine into a housing meant for stabiliser testing—it throws off the entire centre of gravity, which is probably why it fell so easily, and—"

"God, you're such a nerd sometimes," Mei interrupted.

"We're in support," he stated like it was obvious, "being nerds is basically our brand."

"Speak for yourself," Mei scoffed. "I'm a cool nerd."

"You tried to solder a sandwich last week."

"It was an experiment!" she protested, cheeks puffing out in mock indignation. "I wanted to see if I could heat the cheese evenly without a microwave. Science demands sacrifices."

"It set on fire."

"And I learned something!" she said brightly. "Namely, don't solder sandwiches."

"Wait, did you just say you heat your sandwiches up in the microwave?" He halted in his steps, head turning to stare at her with a look of pure criticism.

"Well how else am I supposed to melt the cheese?" she reasoned.

"Are you fucking deranged?"

She scoffed. "Coming from the guy who doesn't melt the cheese on his sandwiches."

He honestly had no idea how to even begin formulating a response to that.

"Wait, I just remembered," she said as they turned the corner, almost bumping into a group of first years loitering around one of the benches. "Did you ever end up finishing that smoke dispersion rig...thing that you were making?" She gestured her hands in front of her, as though she was trying to show him what she meant. "You know, the one you were testing with the chemical canisters from that failed riot-control module?"

Izuku blinked, thrown by the sudden shift in conversation. "Uh...kinda? I got it to work, but I haven't gone back to optimise it or calibrate the output properly or anything," he waved a dismissive hand. "It's sat in one of my drawers acting as a divider right now."

Which was true. After he'd made it on a whim a few weeks prior, he didn't actually know what to do with it, so settled for using it to separate his drills from his drill bits. He hadn't had a reason, nor the motivation, to keep refining it.

"Why?" He asked.

Mei shrugged one shoulder like it wasn't a big deal, but Izuku had known her long enough to know that nothing was ever casual when it came to her and tech.

"I was thinking of repurposing the dispersal valve. Yours don't choke like mine do when the pressure builds, and...I've got a new project that needs a stable smoke release," she spoke quickly, words blurring together as she clasped her hands together over her chest like a prayer. "I swear I won't gut the whole thing."

He narrowed his eyes at her, unimpressed, but she did have a point. When it came to dispersal systems and pressurised rigs, he was better at building them than her. That kind of precision work had basically been drilled into him at GearTech during his internship the year prior. He could practically do it in his sleep.

The smoke dispersion rig she was eyeing hadn't been his best project, but its valve system was one of his cleaner builds. It was efficient, responsive, and calibrated down to the millisecond, which meant no lag during release. Of course she'd want it. And since he'd already considered stripping it for parts, it made sense that he donate it to her project. It wouldn't exactly be a loss.

Still, the petty part of him liked the idea of making her suffer through making her own one. Then again...that would almost definitely result in another gas leak, and even with the upgraded air filtration system Nedzu had installed after the last time, it would delay everyone's work for days.

"Hmm..." He hummed, pretending to stroke his chin in thought. "By 'repurposing', do you mean like the time you 'borrowed' my prototype impact-dampening bracer plates and melted their polymer casing with a heat gun in an attempt to get them to fuse to your 'hover boots'?" He air quoted since the boots had done nothing more than spark and melt into two lumps that were now permanent features at the side of the lab.

"That was months ago!" she shot back. "And I left you a note when I borrowed them!"

"Yeah, a post-it you signed with the words 'thanks, Mei' and a heart."

"Exactly. Gratitude and love."

He snorted, shaking his head, but there was no real heat in it. "Fine. You can have it."

"Yes!" She cheered, jumping up and down with excitement, "Thank you so much, Zuku! You're a legend!"

"But," he interrupted her celebration, her scope lens eyes gleaming like twin searchlights as she waited for him to continue, "if it explodes, I'm not getting in shit with Power Loader, and I'm writing 'I told you so' on your gravestone."

She cackled, delighted, not even caring one bit about her insinuated death. "Oh, don't act like we aren't going to have side-by-side cremation plots when we go. We're in this for life, baby!"

Izuku laughed, faking a gasp. "How could I forget the plan for our matching tombstones?"

"Exactly," she beamed. "You know," she added, voice a bit softer now, "I'm not just stealing your stuff for fun. Your dispersal system is smart. Like, stupid smart. You could patent that if you wanted to. Probably sell it to half the Hero Course if you gave it a flashy name, probably some Pros too."

Izuku didn't respond immediately. He kept his eyes on the path ahead, shoulders tensing slightly. "Maybe," he said after a moment, voice quieter. "Or maybe it just ends up in another drawer like everything else."

Mei didn't push. She just bumped his arm again and grinned like she always did. "Well, in the meantime, I'll give it a good home. Smoke babies coming soon."

Izuku raised an eyebrow at her utterly sincere, and borderline manic, enthusiasm for poisonous gas clouds. "You've got issues, Mei."

"Pot. Kettle. Black."

Izuku frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"But Power Loader, I'd rather die than run around three times a week! Oh woe is me!" Mei mocked in her best Izuku impression, throwing the back of her hand to her forehead like a fainting maiden.

Izuku frowned.

"Is that supposed to be me?"

"Is that supposed to be me?" She did it again.

"Real funny Mei," Izuku rolled his eyes as they turned up the street leading to their building. Izuku dragged his feet at the thought of the training they were going to have to do the next day. "I still think it's a colossal waste of time," he muttered.

Mei sighed dramatically, tossing her bag onto one of the benches lining the street. Izuku stopped, turning to see why she had stopped when suddenly her hands were on his shoulders and shaking him back and forth with each word for emphasis. "Stop. Being. A. Little. Bitch."

"What the fuck," he frowned, attempting to shove her off but her grip on his shoulders tightened.

"Midoriya, you are the most dramatic person I know. Power Loader's not out to get you. He's just trying to make sure we don't embarrass ourselves at the Sports Festival."

Izuku opened his mouth to protest, but Mei steamrolled right over him.

"Seriously. It's not the end of the world. It's exercise. Worst case, you pull a muscle and throw up. Best case, you survive, prove you're not just some nerd stuck behind a workbench, and maybe even remember what the sun feels like."

He shot her a deadpan stare. "I am absolutely content with being 'just some nerd stuck behind a workbench'."

"Yeah, well, contentment isn't exactly ambition, Zuku," Mei said as she dropped her arms, her tone suddenly more pointed, despite her teasing. "And don't pretend like you don't care. You wouldn't build half the shit you do if you didn't want someone to notice eventually." She grabbed her bag off the bench, tossing it back over her shoulder. "So stop complaining. You're good at this stuff when you actually try, genius."

Izuku sighed heavily, rubbing the back of his neck. "Okay, I get it. I'll try not to complain too much."

"That's the spirit," she grinned, clapping him hard on the back.

He stumbled a step forward and shot her a half-hearted glare as they continued their walk home. They could see their dorm from here, a few of their classmates milling about in the windows.

"Yeah, yeah. Plus Ultra or whatever," he grumbled, flashing a tired thumbs-up and a sarcastic smile.

Mei snorted. "That's the saddest 'Plus Ultra' I've ever heard."

"It's a Hero Course thing anyway," he shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets to fish out his keys.

"Maybe we should come up with our own motto then," she suggested as they climbed the steps, Izuku scanning their way inside. "Just for the Support Course."

"Like what, 'Barely Adequate'?"

"Now that I can get behind," she beamed as the dorm doors shut behind them.

Chapter Text

The shrill blare of his alarm forced Izuku awake the next morning. He shot up from his desk with a start, eyes wide and red raw, a piece of paper remaining stuck to his cheek like a parasite. Fantastic.

"Great," he muttered, voice rough with sleep. Nothing like waking up with blueprints glued to your face.

He pried the paper from his skin and tossed it amongst the growing clutter on his desk, consisting of half finished sketches with notes scrawled in margins, a smothering of dirty dishes (which may or may not have mould growing in them), a single sock that he didn't remember ever owning, a disassembled radio he forgot he was supposed to be fixing, and a collection of empty energy drink cans stacked in a sort of tower up against the wall. Not to mention the vast array of blueprints, notebooks, burnt-out circuitry, and abused prototype scraps dotted around.

Why was he even at his des— right. He hadn't actually gone to bed. Again.

Izuku let out a long sigh, running a hand through his messy hair before forcing himself to stand. Everything ached. He was pretty sure his joints were composing a symphony from how many of them were cracking. But— dammit, he'd forgotten to shower again.

His eyes glanced to the small clock on the corner of his desk. Nope. He didn't have time to do it now if he wanted to be on time to meet Fujita before homeroom.

Breakfast? Unlikely.

Caffeine? Absolutely.

He already felt as though he was running on fumes, and he hadn't even left his dorm yet.

Shuffling toward his dresser, he grabbed the first clean hoodie he could find and tugged it over his head, not even bothering to change out of his uniform from the day before. It wasn't like it was wrinkled from laying in bed all night, and sure, maybe it had a few stains here and there, but that really wasn't his problem. Dressed was dressed.

He did use an almost unhealthy amount of deodorant and cologne to hide the fact that he was rewearing his uniform though. If he layered it on thick enough, nobody would notice...would they? He shrugged off the thought. Who was he to care anyway?

Grabbing himself yet another energy drink from the bucket he stored at the foot of his bed—yes it was lukewarm, but he really didn't have it in himself to give a shit since it was already...07:46, and he'd promised to meet Fujita by 08:00.

Why did he even agree to this meeting? He could have stayed on his desk for at least another hour!

He did a spin to find his bag and grabbed a handful of notes off the top of his desk to stuff into the main pocket. He shoved two of his notebooks in for good measure, though he was sure he'd come to discover he forgot something later, tossed the bag over his shoulder, and chugged down half his drink as he made his way out.

He greeted a few of his classmates as he went and waved a goodbye to Mei, who was stood by the kettle in the kitchen with what looked like a pink birds nest on her head. At least she'd gotten some sleep for once, Izuku mused as he headed out. He slid on his headphones, using them to keep his curls from his face as he strolled along the UA paths.

He was likely going to be late, sure, but he wasn't about to sprint to get there first thing in the morning. He hated running even at the best of times.

The walk to the main building wasn't too far, so he'd be there early enough to get a start on Fujita's gear, though he'd likely have to wait until the weekend to do the bulk of the work. Especially since he was now losing his afternoon to Power Loader's stupid 'team-building' exercise. God, he was bitter.

Izuku was currently debating which excuse would work best down the line. Walking his fish? Too common. Take his grandmother to the vet? She was dead. Besides, he'd already used the dead grandmother excuse seven times, so he was bound to be caught out soon. Needed to rearrange his sock drawer? Surprisingly, this one had once worked with Present Mic when Izuku wanted to get out of his class in order to finish the coding for one of his projects. He managed to get the top grade in their year for that work...though it did come with a series of detentions for skipping English.

Still worth it.

He scanned his ID on the outside door, waiting for it to unlock so that he could finally enter the building. Ever since the dorms had been introduced, Nedzu had revamped practically everything, and his new security systems, in particular, were bordering on paranoid. Izuku wasn't one to judge, but the last time he was in Nedzu's Office he could have sworn he saw a retinal scanner.

With a click, the door finally opened and Izuku made his way through and up the stairs. Sometimes he really did wish he had access to the school's lift, but it was only there for accessibility or to transport heavy goods between floors...plus, none of the students (except for a girl in class 1-E who was in a wheelchair) had access with their ID.

One of these days, Izuku was sure he'd be able to hack it.

"Midoriya!" A loud voice and broad smile greeted him the second he entered the corridor for the labs.

Fujita.

Izuku tugged off his headphones, letting them sit around his neck as he approached the eager student. He had a large folder clutched to his chest—most likely his gear's schematics and the design details Izuku had asked for the day prior—as well as a case with #14 printed on the side. That must be his hero costume.

"Morning," Izuku nodded in greeting, tipping back the last of his drink and scanning his ID to let them both in.

The door unlocked with an unceremonious click, and he dragged it to the side. Power Loader had installed industrial strength sliding doors in hopes that it would mitigate the damage caused by some of their Class's (Mei's) more volatile experiments. It had only been somewhat successful so far, but it was better than nothing.

"Close the door," Izuku instructed as he flicked on the lights. They buzzed to life, casting long shadows across the cluttered workbenches and shelves stacked full of spare parts. Izuku strode inside like he owned the place, because at this point, he may as well have.

Power Loader might run the lab, but Izuku and Mei? They lived there. It hadn't taken much convincing on their part to be allowed to work here out of hours. Sure, the agreement stated that they needed a chaperone, but as long as they didn't get caught, what did it matter?

Monitors blinked to life as he moved through the space with practiced ease, flipping switches and booting up the necessary systems. A low hum filled the air as the auxiliary generators powered up, the faint scent of solder and metal dust settling into the back of his throat.

Fujita lingered awkwardly near the entrance, shifting from one foot to the other. "You need me to—?"

Izuku waved a hand at him without looking. "Yeah, just slide it across. It's not heavy." Moments later, he heard the distinct sound of the door dragging across the floor, then clicking back into place.

"Where, um...where do I—"

"Behind the desk at the front there's like a small black cupboard," Izuku began as he continued his rounds to make sure everything was turned on correctly, then doing a quick systems check on the central terminal.

Heavens forbid the system failed to boot properly—he'd have to restart the whole damn thing, and that was definitely not how he wanted to start his morning.

"There's some coolant in there—" there wasn't, but Fujita didn't need to know that "—check near the back. Should be in a red can."

Fujita gave him a skeptical look but still wandered toward Power Loader's desk. "What kind of coolant?"

"The kind that helps when your quirk burns through your gauntlets too fast," Izuku responded, stretching his arms over his head with a yawn. Izuku wasn't actually allowed to take from the stash, but he also wasn't technically taking from it if someone else handed it to him.

Loophole.

Fujita crouched down to rummage through the cupboard, muttering something under his breath about how messy it was, and Izuku took the opportunity to slouch into his chair with a long groan.

He felt his chair bump something, and then the sound of something heavy clattering to the ground. He cringed, but made no move to see what it was, or pick it up. As long as there was no explosion, he could deal with it in a minute.

"This feels weirdly heavy," the hero student called across the room. "This isn't gonna blow up in my face, is it?"

"Not unless you shake it," Izuku responded, barely hiding his grin.

Fujita reappeared moments later with an anxious expression and holding the very thing that kept Izuku from quitting school altogether—a premium, hero-grade canned coffee: imported, expensive, and absolutely banned from him because of how many he would go through in a morning.

"...are you sure you need this to fix my gear?"

Izuku took the unlabelled red can from him and began twisting off the fancy lid. "Oh, most certainly." It cracked open and he immediately took a long sip like it was a healing potion from one of his video games. "So, what's the problem with your gear—" another sip "—wait, no. Start with your quirk."

"My quirk?" The hero student seemed unusually timid as he lingered beside his desk.

"You can sit down, you know. Here, I'll grab Mei's," Izuku jumped up, grabbing Fujita her chair before dropping back into his. "Right, your quirk. I need to know exactly what I'm working with here. Tell me what you can, and we can go from there."

Fujita released a heavy breath as he took a seat and set his case and folder on the table. "Right, um...okay. My quirk's called Momentum Lock. Basically, any kinetic energy I generate, I can store and release in bursts. Running, jumping, taking a hit, even just tapping my fingers. It all builds up over time, and I can control how much I let out at once."

Izuku nodded, dragging Fujita's folder towards him and flipping through the pages. His eyes scanned the various schematics on display while Fujita continued to explain his quirk and applications. Izuku knew he'd be scribbling this all down in his notebook the second Fujita left. His quirk seemed to work similarly to Fat Gum's, whom Izuku had studied extensively. Heck, he had some of his merch in his dorm room. His FG squishmallow was definitely his favourite, too.

"Your quirk is crazy versatile," Izuku complimented, the schematics somewhat forgotten as he regarded the hero student. "You're basically a kinetic battery. The applications of that are insane. How much energy can you store? Is there a cap? How does the storage process work—do you have a passive limit, or can you consciously control how much builds up? Is there a release cooldown? What about your discharge mechanism, does it scale proportionally? How does it interact with external forces? Like, if someone hit you with a shockwave, would it be stored the same way? Or—"

"Uh..." Fujita chuckled awkwardly, scratching at the back of his neck, "Is this going to help you with my gear?"

"Oh. No, not at all," Izuku admitted, tapping his pen against his chin. "So, what's the problem? You said your gauntlets were wearing down too fast?"

"Yeah. When I release energy through my arms, it puts stress on my gear. My gauntlets can handle a lot, but during heavy fights, the pressure warps the metal." Fujita clicked open his costume and pulled out the gauntlets to show Izuku where they kept breaking. "I've had them reinforced twice already, but it's not working. I was hoping you'd maybe have a solution...for that..."

Izuku took another long sip of his coffee, nodding along as he inspected the gauntlets in Fujita's hands. His green eyes flickered over every dent, every strain mark, every crack and crevice, his mind already whirring a mile a minute with ideas. He could already think of three alternatives...scratch that, he could think of five.

"Can I?"

"Yeah, sure," Fujita nodded, handing over the equipment. Izuku took it eagerly, grabbing the other one from the case to compare. From the damage, it was obvious Fujita favoured his left side - probably left handed.

He tossed the gauntlets back into their case and dropped to the floor, opening his bottom drawer and rummaging through the chaotic pile of notebooks stacked haphazardly inside. He'd been meaning to organise them, but it itched his brain just right when they were in a mess like this...he didn't understand why either.

"They're supposed to help me channel and focus the stored energy more effectively," Fujita explained as Izuku rummaged around from his crouched position, "but they burn out too fast when I use full output. I thought maybe adding an energy conductor—"

"Nah," Izuku interrupted, not unkindly, sounding a little amused. "That'd just make it worse. Your Quirk works like a battery, but your gear isn't designed to handle variable output. It's treating every discharge like a single high-voltage surge instead of something gradual. If anything you'd need some kind of discharge regulator, not a stronger conductor."

Fujita blinked. "...Oh."

"Yeah," Izuku muttered as he pulled out a couple notebooks, scanning their covers.

No, these weren't the ones he was looking for...maybe he put them somewhere else? He furrowed his brows in thought as he downed the last of his coffee, chucking the can with pinpoint accuracy into the bin at Maina's station. She was still allowed into Power Loader's stash so he wouldn't get upset finding the coffee there.

"You hero students really need to start understanding how your gear actually works instead of slapping on upgrades and hoping for the best."

"I tried to contact the support company, but they're so swamped at the minute that they don't have time to spare on 'simple repairs'."

"Oh?" Izuku glanced over his shoulder.

"Yeah, they've basically said that unless our costume has been incinerated, there's a three month wait period. It's the same for a bunch of us, hence why we now have to come to the support coure," he explained, sounding far more annoyed than Izuku expected.

What? Were the Support Course students not good enough? Actually, to be fair, they didn't have access to the kind of resources and money that companies like Detrenat, FutureWorks, or AtomLabs had.

Hmm, perhaps Izuku should go pester Principal Nedzu again. He'd always wanted to try out that non-Newtonian polymer brace system, and the rodent did have the budget for it.

"Three months isn't that bad," Izuku shrugged, continuing his search.

"No, I know, but we have the Sports Festival in a month," Fujita exasperated. "And with our placements round the corner, I can't afford to be off duty because my suit doesn't work." That made sense. A lot could happen in three months.

"Which support company?" Izuku asked, feigning casual interest as he moved to look through a pile of blueprints on his desk. Where on earth had he put it?

"Steelworks," Fujita muttered. "Same one that handles most of our reinforcement gear. But apparently they're dealing with a backlog of requests from some of the bigger Hero Agencies. I heard a few classmates saying that it's not just in Musutafu either. Some Agencies in Tokyo and Oksaka, and even Fukuoka are waiting. I think someone even said there was a backlog in Kushiro, too."

Well, that certainly was interesting.

Steelworks was a very reliable company, albeit not as cutting-edge or flashy as a place like Detnerat, but it was good—a solid mid-tier manufacturer that handled high-volume contracts with various Hero Agencies and Hero Courses, as well as a range of support programmes. So, if they were backed up across multiple prefectures, that meant pro heroes were breaking their gear far more than usual, which was never a good sign.

"Huh. Weird," Izuku said, playing it off while leafing through a new pile of schematics. "What, are villains getting rowdier all of a sudden?"

Fujita snorted, but hesitated. Just for a second.

"...you could say that," the hero student admitted, averting his gaze. "A few of my classmates were talking about their recent missions. It's mostly just rumours, but they said there's been a spike in black market support gear shipments. Stuff that's way too high-quality for standard smuggling. One guy said it was like Steelworks quality stuff, the Agency he's at found a crate of chassers? Chases? Chasters?"

"Chassis," Izkuk supplied.

"Yeah, them," Fujita nodded. "So, basically, either someone's supplying villains with serious tech, or there's a new player getting involved. And..." Fujita lowered his voice. "There's been talk of Quirk stimulants making rounds again. Like, Trigger-level enhancers, potentially stronger."

Izuku stayed silent, but his mind was racing.

Quirk stimulants. Black market support gear. A sudden influx of heroes needing emergency repairs across multiple cities.

That couldn't be a coincidence. It sounded coordinated somehow.

Sure, he'd heard bits about stolen goods on the news—something to do with missing container shipments and classified development patents, but Izuku wasn't foolish enough to believe that everything the media reported was truthful. That would be like trusting politicians to have your best interests at heart, or the Hero Commission actually caring about the people of Japan. Never going to happen.

"Sounds messy," Izuku finally said, moving to a newer set of blueprints in his second drawer. "Guess you hero students have your work cut out for you then."

"Yeah," Fujita muttered, running a hand through his hair. "No kidding."

"Well," Izuku shrugged, deciding to offer him some kind of reassurance about his gear, "the issues you're currently looking at is material fatigue due to pressure buildup from your quirk. If the issue is pressure buildup, then reinforcement alone won't fix it—you need a way to redistribute the force instead of just absorbing it." Not a hard fix, but a tedious one.

Fujita raised an eyebrow. "And that means...?"

"Basically," Izuku tossed a few notebooks on the floor to get them out of the way, "The constant build-up and sudden release of kinetic energy is overworking the structural integrity of the metal. Reinforcements help in the short term, but if the material itself can't handle the stress, it's just delaying the inevitable." He glanced over his shoulder, the confused look on the dark haired student's face making Izuku almost sigh. "The inevitable being that they become unusable."

"So...you can't fix it?"

"Don't insult me," Izuku frowned, a quiet ah hah leaving his lips when he found the notebook he was looking for. It was in his second drawer, not the bottom one like he thought. He stood, already flipping through to find a design he'd worked on the week prior for a completely different project. "I've been testing a flexible impact dispersion framework for another prototype. If I modify it for your gauntlets, it should channel excess force away from the weak points instead of letting it wreck the structure. It would also help with your variable output issue."

Fujita blinked. "You just have something like that ready?"

"I still need to modify it," Izuku repeated. "And even then, you'd have to test it. No point fixing it if it doesn't work under real conditions."

The hero student let out a low whistle. "Damn. No wonder people keep sending requests your way."

Izuku rolled his eyes but didn't dispute him. He was aware of how many requests were being sent his way. They were currently piled up in a box in the corner. He'd sometimes lucky dip one out when he had a free hour.

"We, uh...we have a trip to the USJ next Wednesday. We'll be running full simulations with combat elements mixed in. That's probably the best place to see if the new upgrades hold up under pressure, right?"

Izuku hummed. "Wednesday...that doesn't give us much time for testing..." he muttered to himself, tapping a pencil against his jaw for a few moments before turning his musings into words on a page. "If we're testing them before Wednesday, we'll need to do it at least twice. I don't like sending out unfinished work, so you'll need to run some trials with me before I sign off on it."

"Okay. When do you want to do the first test?"

Izuku tapped his pencil against the paper now, considering. "Monday after school should be fine." He began to make notes in his book. "If there are any major failures, that still gives me time to make adjustments before a second test on Tuesday."

Fujita nodded. "Sounds good."

"You'll need to push the gauntlets to their limits when we test them," Izuku added, glancing up. "No holding back. If they're going to break, I want them to break in testing, not during live combat. Understood?"

Fujita gave a half-smile, shaking his head. "Man, you really don't mess around."

Izuku snorted. "Wouldn't be much of a Support student if I did." He continued to scrawl more words into his notebook, flipping to the next page to add the appropriate sketches. "I'll book one of the gyms for us."

"Don't we need a teacher there if we're going to be using quirks after hours?" Fujita sounded just as unsure as he looked, hands toying with his blazer and knee bouncing against the chair.

"Eh," Izuku wobbled his hand from side to side. "As long as we don't add or subtract from the populace, I doubt they'll care."

"How reassuring..."

Izuku continued to quiz Fujita on his field specs and combat habits up until the first bell rang, the hero student taking his costume case with him as he ventured back to his homeroom with a promise to meet Izuku on Monday. Izuku really needed to get a move on with those gauntlets if he wanted them to be ready for testing by then, as well as finding the time to complete all of his other assignments.

Loosing out on lab time three afternoons a week wasn't just inconvenient—it was borderline sabotage. He already had four commissions stacked on his bench, three redesign requests waiting for approval, and a backlog of paperwork that he was definitely going to ignore for at least another day. Not to mention he still had regular lessons in the mornings that also set him homework and assignments.

And it wasn't even like their afternoon was spent being productive. They were skipping out on the lab to...what? Run around a gym?

It was ridiculous.

He wasn't in the Hero Course. He wasn't trying to be. If he wanted to play dodgeball with a pro hero, he'd transfer and cry about his tragic backstory like the rest of them. But no, Power Loader was on some kind of delusional improvement kick, all 'cross-discipline collaboration' this and 'showcasing support talent' that.

Why couldn't their brains and work speak for themselves?

He began to toy with one of his newer builds, an idea that had struck him a little after 5am a few weeks ago, as he waited for the rest of his class to show up. Mei was first to arrive for homeroom, throwing a clear bag down in front of Izuku as she went. Inside was a sandwich and protein bar, both of which Izuku ate before first period. The day went by far too quickly after that, and by the time the bell signalling the end of fifth period came round, Izuku still had yet to pick a good excuse to get out of training.

"Why do you look so constipated?"

"Charming, Mei," he frowned at her.

"Well, you do." She fell into step beside him, a large cart of gear being pulled behind her. He chose not to ask. "So, spill. Who pissed in your oil?"

He sighed dramatically, running a hand down his face. "You already know."

"Couldn't come up with an excuse that worked, huh?" She teased, elbowing his ribs with a shit eating grin on her face.

"Shut up," he grumbled, shoving his hands into his pockets as they walked. "Do you know how much work I could be getting done right now? Instead, we're going to spend hours running around like idiots." It felt embarrassing just to think about it.

"Could be worse," Mei shrugged, unbothered as always. "We could be working on group projects."

Izuku made a face like she'd just forced battery acid down his throat. "Don't even joke about that."

She cackled as they shouldered open the main building's side doors, stepping out into the cool afternoon air to begin their long, soul-draining walk across campus. It took them almost twenty minutes to reach Gym Gamma, both of them having agreed that walking all the way over counted as their warm up.

The gym was tucked away near the edge of campus like a concrete bunker crossed with an industrial jungle gym. Reinforced walls, retractable barriers, and enough built-in hazard features to make an insurance agent break out in hives. At least, that was what Izuku had been told since he'd never actually been inside.

Apparently, the Hero Course used it for agility and endurance drills. Izuku stared at it the way a civilian might look at a life sized meat grinder—something to stay the hell away from. Actually, no. He didn't know anybody who stared longingly at meat grinders. That was a terrible analogy on his part. He blinked slowly at the structure like it had personally offended him in a past life.

"You know," Mei started as they approached the rest of their class lingering just outside the entrance, "you could just pretend to pass out. Oldest trick in the book."

"Tempting," Izuku pursed his lips in thought. "But I doubt Power Loader would buy it. He'd probably just throw a wrench at my head and tell me to walk it off."

Mei laughed as they met their class, their homeroom teacher already waiting with his arms crossed and looking far too enthusiastic about this forced afternoon of suffering. Actual torture sounded more appealing to Izuku right now. In fact, he would rather do a group— no, that was too far. Group projects were still worse than this, he wouldn't lie to himself.

"Alright!" Power Loader clapped his hands to grab everyone's attention. "I booked this gym for the next few hours—"

Hours! As in plural?!

"—so head inside and get warmed up. I don't want any of you pulling something and wasting Recovery Girl's time. We'll be starting easy today with a basic obstacle course."

Basic his ass. Izuku would put money on half of them ending up in the infirmary by the end of the day.

Izuku slumped. "Kill me."

Mei just grinned. "You should've pretended to pass out."

"I'll pay you to knock me out with that gear," he motioned to the cart propped behind her. The boots in there looked particularly heavy, they'd definitely do the job.

"How much—"

"Oh, we won't be needing any of that today, Mei," Power Loader appeared at their side, and Izuku watched with growing amusement as their homeroom teacher wrestled the handle free from his friend's vice grip.

"Wha—! How are we supposed to be the Support Course if we aren't allowed to use support gear!"

"You'll figure it out," Power Loader responded as he began walking off with her cart.

"Maybe you should pretend to pass out," Izuku whispered to her as they watched him go, voice laced with amusement.

Mei smacked him round the back of the head before turning to follow the rest of their class inside.

"Hey, that was uncalled for," he winced, rubbing the growing bruise as he followed behind her.

The inside wasn't anything like Izuku imagined. The air was dry and smelled faintly of rubber and cement, and the walls stretched high over head. But other than the steel trusses and support rigs holding up the ceiling, the gym was pretty bare. There were about ten faded squares marked out on the ground, probably to section off sparring matches or something, but other than a set of sliding doors in one wall, there was nothing else there.

No obstacles.

No mats.

No death traps.

Just...concrete, steel, and more concrete.

Izuku felt mildly offended that the gym looked so normal. For something with such a terrifying reputation, he had expected more...flames maybe, or spikes, or even a rock climbing wall.

How disappointing.

Half of the class split off to jog round the sides of the gym, while the other half began stretching in the corner. Mei and Izuku shared a look and wordlessly settled on joining the group stretching, continuing to chat as they did.

It wasn't that they were lazy. In fact, they were both in pretty good shape from all the heavy lifting that was required to build the things they did. However, doing mandated exercise at a Hero School where half the student body were practically child soldiers, and every single member of staff was a Pro Hero, was...well, it wasn't exactly motivating.

When Power Loader returned, probably having stored Mei's tech somewhere safe, he was accompanied by Cementoss. So he was the first 'guest hero' to grace them with his presence.

Izuku watched as they surveyed the class and both looked disappointed by the scene before them. Well, Power Loader looked disappointed. Cementoss was harder to read, given he had limited facial expression being, well, made from concrete, but Izuku imagined he was frowning internally.

He couldn't possibly guess why.

A moment later, Power Loader was back to addressing his class. "Alright, everyone! We were going to have you run a basic obstacle course today, but..." his eyes swept over the group, "we won't be doing anything with a warmup like that."

Oh no...

"So, let's try this again." He gestured to the gym beside them. "Two laps, then you'll be doing dynamic stretches. Not...whatever that was. You all still have PE, so don't act like none of you have ever done a warm up before. You're not here to halfass it, you're here to train. Act like it!"

That got them moving.

The class scrambled into motion, Izuku following suit as they ran their laps and did the appropriate stretches. Izuku had never heard Power Loader snap like that before and never wanted to hear it again.

"Hey Zuku," Mei said as they came towards the end of their first lap.

"What?" He shot her a side glance.

"Race ya!"

She took off into a sprint for the second lap.

"Wha—! I wasn't ready! Hatsume!" He immediately broke out into his own sprint to catch his friend.

Fifteen minutes later, the class had sufficiently warmed up to Power Loader's standard, the Pro seeming marginally less annoyed than before.

"I still won," Mei muttered as they walked over to join the end of the line at the side of their gym, where their class had been instructed to stand.

"It wasn't even close, Hatsume," Izuku scoffed.

"Hatsume?" She gaped. "Damn, someone's touchy."

"Shut up," he rolled his eyes and she elbowed his side.

"Alright...Cementoss." Power Loader raised a hand towards his coworker, who stepped forward and, with a crack of his neck, dropped to a crouch, pressing his palms to the polished gym floor.

The ground trembled, then suddenly massive rectangular pillars of concrete surged upward, carving paths and platforms into the gym with precise movements. Bridges formed. Walls emerged. Narrow balance beams grew out of the far end like concrete branches.

Izuku watched, eyes wide. "Oh...my God..."

"I Know!" Mei beamed, practically bouncing on her toes. "Cool, right?

Izuku didn't know if he wanted to fanboy over witnessing Cementoss' precision quirk control in person, or cry over the death maze he was now expected to survive. Probably both.

Once the terrain finished shifting, Cementoss straightened, dusting his hands off like he hadn't just terraformed a gym with zero effort. The floor was still humming slightly from the force of it, the new course sprawling across the space like a concrete jungle.

Izuku merely gaped. He was amazing!

Power Loader gestured to the newly formed course. "You'll each have a go at running this course, but don't worry, we won't be timing you. This isn't a race, and I don't want any of you pushing yourselves too hard and getting injured on the first day. There's also no quirk use, or support gear allowed. We want to see your raw coordination, agility, and endurance. Consider this your baseline test."

Izuku blinked.

Wait, they weren't being timed?

For a second, genuine hope sparked in his chest. No timers. No scoreboard. No flashy displays. No pressure to win or outperform one another. Just...complete the course. No need to win. No need to stand out. He just needed to finish it.

So that meant he didn't need to try. He could just do it. He could do that. Yeah, he could definitely do that.

Then Power Loader kept talking. "But we will be ranking your performances."

The spark died immediately. Of course they were.

Why did everything in this school loop back to numbers on a board? Rank. Score. Evaluation. Hero potential. Even in the support course, they couldn't escape it.

Did he care where he ranked? No. He really didn't. So why did it matter to them?

He glanced to the rest of his class, most of whom looked genuinely eager to give this course a go, and already knew most of them were going to try harder than he was.

He let out a long, slow exhale.

His only aim for this session was to make it out without face planting a wall or embarrassing himself. In fact, if face planting a wall meant it was over quicker, he'd happily launch himself into one no questions asked.

Power Loader stepped aside so that everyone could get a clear view of the structures. "The course is simple enough. You start over here," he pointed to the floor beside him, "and, you see that big red platform? That's your end point. You can climb, jump, balance, swing, do whatever you need to do to get there. Think smart, move smarter. If you fall, try again from where you left off. It's not about speed, it's about control and stability."

Why did he have to sound so kind and reassuring?

"Any questions before we start?" he asked.

Over half the class raised their hand.

"No? Good," he beamed, their hands falling back down to their sides. "Furasu, you're up."

Izuku and Mei both turned to watch Maina hesitantly approach the start line. She was chewing her lip, arms tense at her sides, eyes darting up at the jungle of brutalist architecture that now loomed in front of her.

"You got this, Maina!" Mei cheered, hands cupped around her mouth like a megaphone. "Don't die!"

"Great advice," Izuku spared her a sidelong glance. "Very reassuring."

"I am being reassuring," Mei insisted. "She's gonna do great. Besides, I don't hear you cheering her on."

"Good luck Maina!" Izuku called, raising his voice just enough to carry. She glanced over and gave him a small, nervous smile. "See?"

"Dick," Mei muttered, elbowing him as Maina gave them both a shaky thumbs up and took her position.

She looked to be visibly shaking, eyes scanning the course for a way across. Even Izuku couldn't see a clear route through it all, and it didn't help that she was going first. At least if a couple people went before you, you'd be able to pick the best route.

"You'll do great," Power Loader said, looking up from his clipboard. When the fuck did he get a clip board? Izuku really needed to start paying attention to his surroundings more, this was getting sad. "When you're ready."

Maina nodded, taking a long, calming breath, before launching herself forwards. She ran at the first barrier, vaulting over the concrete with ease, then began climbing up the wall across from it, using the holds and protrusions to make it to the top.

"Oh yeah, go on Maina—" THUMP! "—OW! Fuck. That looked like it hurt..." Mei cringed as the class watched her get bodied into a wall. Even Power Loader and Cementoss seemed to flinch. How comforting.

Izuku grimaced, fist raised to cover his mouth. "That's going to leave a bruise."

"Definitely...but she's up again," Mei said, sounding genuinely impressed.

Izuku squinted to watch her limp across one of the platforms, her balance off and hand pressed to her shoulder. She reached a ledge, hesitated, then backed up a few steps to get a running start. Izuku clenched his hands into tense fists, watching as she bolted.

"Oh, this is stressing me out," Izuku turned away moments after her feet hit the next platform. It wasn't even that he was worried about Maina—okay, that was a lie—but he hated seeing people get hurt. "Why are we even watching this? It feels wrong."

"Aww, does little Zuku have a heart?" Mei cooed.

"Stop being a dick," he frowned at her before turning back to watch Maina.

She had two options on where to go now: either she could try to balance her way across what looked like an inch wide beam that zigzagged across a ten metre drop...or she could crawl through a claustrophobic looking tunnel that was tilted at a downward angle. It didn't even look like it had enough room to get her shoulders through.

She chose the tunnel. Izuku didn't blame her.

She limped across, wiping the sweat from her forehead as she went. She crouched and crawled into the entrance, and soon disappeared into the concrete tube. There was a scream, a crash, a shout, and then she was suddenly emerging from the other end looking as though she'd aged ten years and fought a war.

Oh fuck...

Yeah, Izuku wasn't going to do the tunnel.

She continued through the next round of obstacles, then then next, and soon she was stumbling through the last few meters of the course, tripping twice and nearly rolling her ankle before finally reaching the red platform. She collapsed backwards onto it like a corpse, arms spread wide, chest heaving.

"She made it!" Mei cheered and a few of their classmates joined in, clapping and shouting their support.

"I don't think I've ever respected her more," Izuku muttered, watching her lie there like she'd just escaped a war zone.

Power Loader went to check on her and helped her off the platform. She staggered to the edge of the gym, where a few of her other friends went to help her sit down and offered her a bottle of water.

As soon as she had cleared the course, Cementoss was stepping forwards again. With both palms pressed to the floor, he triggered another seismic ripple through the gym.

The ground groaned as it shifted. Columns sank. Ramps twisted. New hazards erupted from the floor. Balance beams narrowed. One wall even rotated like some hellish Rubik's Cube until it clicked into place at a perfect 90-degree incline.

Izuku stared, horrified. How the fuck were they supposed to climb that?

"Why is it worse now?" someone whispered.

"I hate it here," another muttered.

Power Loader didn't even flinch as he called the next name. "Koizumi!"

A quiet kid from the back stepped forward, stretching out his arms as he approached the start line with a confident grin. Then another name was called. And another. And another. One by one, each of them took on the obstacle course from hell, Cementoss shifting the route between each person.

Some of his classmates launched themselves into it with a kind of frantic energy that Izuku was pretty sure only mild brain damage could explain. Most of his classmates, however, stumbled, swore, or face planted before making it halfway.

The pit in Izuku's stomach only grew the more he watched. His turn was getting closer and he hated it.

To be fair, a few people did do pretty well.  One guy zipped across a series of poles like he'd done it a thousand times, and another girl scaled a wall using momentum alone, skipping the hand holds entirely.

When it was Mei's turn, she gave him a cocky salute before jogging to the line. "Try not to miss me too much."

"Good luck!" Was his response.

Izuku watched with growing alarm as she launched into the course with reckless abandon, grinning the whole way. She cleared the first hurdle, climbed a wall, ducked beneath a swinging column—narrowly avoiding having her skull bashed in—then sprinted towards a wall too high to jump in a single go.

Somehow, and Izuku still had no idea how she managed it, she catapulted herself over the wall entirely...though her landing had been less than graceful.

"Holy shit..." Izuku gaped. There were no other words for whatever the fuck she just did.

She, like Maina, decided to go the tunnel route, foregoing the long stretch of concrete that resembled basalt columns.

She finished her turn pretty quickly after that and returned to his side with a red face and proud grin.

"It's actually not as bad as you think," Mei said before taking a long drink from the water bottle he'd handed her."Okay, it's a little bad. But you're smart. You'll figure out a route."

Izuku didn't reply right away. He was too busy watching the course shift again, a new route being constru— was that a spike trap?!

Oh, this could not be legal. This had to be violating a code of conduct somewhere!

It wasn't like he could complain to the Principal anyway. Nedzu would almost definitely laugh him out of his office.

As the number of people left dwindled, Izuku felt the nervous tremble in his hands getting worse. He shoved them into his pockets and tried not to pace. He hated it. He hadn't felt this kind of stomach churning anxiety in a long time. He really hated it. For fucks sake, why did they have to do this? Why couldn't he just go back to the lab? This was so unfair! He didn't wanna be here. He hated this whole thing! It was so stupid. Such a stupid idea—

"Midoriya Izuku, you're up!"

Fuck.

Maybe he could just leave? No, he'd already been warned about that. But if it was only his presence that was required, maybe he could get away with not participating? No, he'd definitely get in trouble for that, too. Power Loader had really gone all out when planning this shit. There were no loopholes.

Izuku would know, he'd spent a large portion of the night before looking for them in the email their class had received detailing the plans (and their new timetables) for their next few weeks of training sessions.

"Midoriya," Power Loader repeated and it was only then that he realised he hadn't moved.

Okay, he could do this.

He just needed to get to the red platform without breaking a bone or crying in front of everyone. Easy peasy.

He peeled himself away from his spot and began trudging towards the start line, Cementoss still reshaping the terrain. He watched it move, eyes narrowing to determine the best route through. He didn't want to get stuck anywhere.

By the time he was finished, there seemed to be far more inclines than Izuku would have liked. It looked horrendous. It also looked like it required way more effort than he was emotionally prepared to give.

"When you're ready, Midoriya," Power Loader said, noting something down on his clipboard as Mei shouted some encouraging words at him.

"Okay," he offered a thumbs up to his teachers with all the enthusiasm of a someone heading into surgery without anaesthesia, and stepped over the start line.

He was still deciding which way he wanted to go as he walked up to the first obstacle—the same low cement barrier that everyone else had had to face so far—and hopped over it with ease.

Most of the course was supposed to be completed higher up, so when he came upon two sheer columns of concrete, he knew he was supposed to scale them somehow.

He glanced to the side of the gym. Technically, he could just walk round all of the obstacles to get to the red platform, but one glance over at Power Loader and he knew doing that was signing his death warrant.

So, with a frustrated sigh, he moved between the two blocks, eyes glancing up to gauge how far he was supposed to climb. That had to be at least ten metres. And there was no safety net! What if he fell? Or broke his back? What then?

Oh wait, that was why they had Recovery Girl. But still, it was unnecessary. Ugh, he was going out of his way to complain now. He really needed to get over himself. He was here now, he may as well just get this over with.

Planting his foot on one side, and his arm on the other, he lifted himself off the ground and wedged himself between the two surfaces. Once he was sure his grip would hold, he carefully inched his way up by pressing outward with arms and legs, using pressure to climb.

He pulled himself up and over onto one of the platforms, planting his foot firmly on the solid concrete to push himself to stand. He wiped off his hands, glancing down at his forearms to see a few scrapes from climbing.

How inconvenient.

His eyes scanned for his next path, looking towards the obstacle that he'd seen many of his classmates get taken out on. Sure, none of them were completing the same course, but many of the elements were similar throughout.

A narrow beam stretched across a deep drop and, to add to the whimsy of it all, there were swinging wrecking balls just waiting to dash his brains across the concrete. Oh, he just couldn't wait for this.

He walked to the edge, watching the timing of each of them as they swing back and forth. They were't all the same size weights, nor did they have the same velocity or swing arcs. He just needed to think, calculate their arcs, match the distance across the beam...yes, this was doable.

If he started now—no, wait, now—he could make it three quarters of the way across before needing to hit the deck to avoid the last pendulum.

Well, logically, hanging from the beam and crawling his way across by his hands was probably the most logical route, but did he trust himself to be able to do that and then pull himself up and over at the other side? Absolutely not.

Right...he just needed to wait for the next—now!

He dashed onto the beam, arms stretched out for balance and his knees slightly bent, every ounce of his focus locked on the swaying metal obstacles ahead.

One step.

Two.

Swing. Pause. Swing...

Three steps.

Wait...wait...

Now.

He dropped onto his stomach just in time for the final pendulum to swing past, swooshing over his head so close that he felt the wind shift as it passed. He waited for it to pass overhead once more before jumping back to his feet and launching himself onto the next platform.

"Oh my fuck!" He gasped lowly to himself, resting his hands on his knees as he turned back to the death trap of an obstacle. He hadn't even realised how tiny the beam was when he was on it but now, looking back, it may as well have been a goddamn pencil.

Thank God for adrenaline.

Though, his fight or flight response should not be kicking in during school hours. That was another thing to add to the future lawsuit.

Cracking his back, he wobbled across this platform to pick his next route.

"Okay, what are we doing now?" He spoke to himself, looking between the options ahead.

On the left was some kind of narrowed tunnel, like the one Maina and Mei had crawled through. It was small, cramped, and he could barely see more than a few feet inside before it bent sharply to the right and disappeared into shadows.

Yeah...no.

He turned to his right—oh, great. A series of vertical poles stretched ahead, spaced just far enough apart to make stepping across impossible. He'd have to jump. And, oh would you look at that, they got taller and smaller as you went along.

Well, he'd already deemed the tunnel a no go.

"Poles it is," he muttered bitterly, already regretting his decision.

He walked up to the edge, judging the distance to the first one. It wasn't far—maybe a metre, possibly less—but the poles were smooth, untextured cement, and if his grip slipped even once...

Nope. Don't think about falling. Just go.

He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, then jumped. His feet stumbled, slipping slightly on the smooth surface, but he managed to shift his body just right to stay standing. Okay, yeah. This wasn't so ba—WHY THE FUCK WAS IT MOVING!

"Oh, you have to be fucking kidding me!"

Suddenly, each of the poles began bouncing up and down to their own rhythm, like weird little pogo sticks.

"Go on Zuku! You got this!" He heard Mei shout from somewhere off to the side.

"Yeah!" Came his weak reply.

"Don't jump too early!" She added. "And don't jump too late! Make sure to—"

"Shut up!" He interrupted. His heart was already racing and her comments weren't helping in the slightest. "I'm trying not to die here!"

"Sorry! Just don't slip off!"

"Mei!"

"Sorry!"

He settled into a crouch as the pole he was on moved slowly up and down in a steady flow. Unfortunately, this was the only one that moved at such a manageable speed. It was the rest that he was worried about. Each one was set at a different height, and worse, a different rhythm. Some rose and fell in a slow, predictable arc. Others jerked violently, springing upward like they'd been rigged with landmines.

Right, think Izuku.

Use your head.

He narrowed his eyes, tracing each of the cylinders that jutted up from the floor and finding the patterns in their movements. It couldn't just be random, there had to be a pattern. There was always a pattern. Everything had a rhyme or reason to it, he just needed to find this one.

It was like watching a poorly-tuned harmonic oscillator. If he could time it—like matching the frequency of a forced vibration with natural frequency—he could minimise the shock and use the rhythm to carry him across. Simple applied physics...or as simple as physics could be when you were hopping between unstable concrete pogo sticks like a hyperactive lemur with a death wish.

When the second pole was seconds from reaching its lowest point, he launched himself across. He fell for all of a second before the pole was jerking upwards once more.

His foot hit just off centre, and for a moment, it felt like the whole thing was going to pitch him sideways, but his arms shot out, windmilling until he regained balance.

Oh fuck, thank God he made it.

The pole dipped hard beneath him, jerking down like it was offended by his success. Izuku yelped and, with perfect timing, sprang to the third, this one a little thinner, a little taller, and a lot more actively trying to kill him.

Now he was starting to sweat, not from exertion, but from the sheer anxiety of knowing there were still three more poles and they only got worse from here. The next one wasn't even straight. It tilted slightly to the right every time it moved, as if it were trying to play psychological warfare.

"You're not a person," he hissed at it. "You're a piece of concrete. You don't get to have a personality."

Still, he jumped.

"Don't slip, don't slip, don't slip—!"

This one had no give. His landing was hard, jarring straight through his knees to his spine, and his foot slipped for half a second, but he caught himself again, arms out, knees bent.

He clung onto this one with his hands, making sure not to fall as he waited for its movements to align with the next pole.

These two poles had some of the more erratic movements, so he had to wait a little longer than he liked for their timings to sync up. He'd rather cling to this pole an extra minute than find out what it felt like to have concrete kiss his forehead at 14.1 metres per second.

"He looks like he's having a stroke," someone remarked and, if he wasn't so focused on not falling to his death, he'd have thrown a nasty glare their way. That wasn't funny...but it also wasn't entirely inaccurate.

Izuku was visibly trembling, sweat streaking down the side of his face, muttering equations to himself like a math professor on a bender.

"Five seconds...relative vertical displacement...about 127 centimetres...phase offset...two poles left...okay, yeah, it's just physics. I can do physics," he told himself, steeling his legs.

He nodded his head in time to each of his counts until he hit one, then jumped across the space to the penultimate pole. He was almost surprised he made it, hitting the pole dead centre and adjusting his weight with ease.

Yeah, okay, he might actually be getting the hang of this.

Then he saw the final pole.

"Oh, come on," he gaped, throwing an arm out. "That's not even...how the fuck am I supposed to jump onto that!"

It had about the same circumference as a can of Monster and was vibrating so hard in place it looked as if it was actively angry at existing.

"That can't be regulation!"

His complaints went ignored by his teachers, not that he was surprised. He was pretty sure one of his classmates broke their arm earlier and the two of them had barely batted an eye. They did, however, send her to recovery girl with two of her friends—friends that had already had their go, mind you.

The pole he was on suddenly dropped to half its height, his stomach floating into his chest, before shooting up towards the ceiling. Well, it hadn't done that before. Thankfully, he knew how to place his body to keep balance as he was swung around like a piñata bat.

Okay, this was bordering on sadistic.

Focus, Izuku.

He shook his head, forcing himself to breathe, and tracked the last pole despite being flung about like a ragdoll. Unlike the other poles, the final one wasn't bouncing. No, it looked like it was just vibrating in one spot, no vertical movement what so ever.

That made this easier, even just slightly.

He took a deep, steadying breath, waiting for his pole to drop to its lowest point. Then, as it began its ascent once more, he threw himself forwards.

His foot hit the last pole right by the edge, almost slipping off, but he used it like a springboard and hopped right past it onto the next platform. It was a small square, just large enough for him to stand on comfortably, but it may as well have been a throne right now.

He immediately dropped to his ass, leaning back on his palms and looking up to the ceiling as he willed his heart rate to steady once more. Why did he ever apply to this school in the fist place? Parkour was never this terrifying.

He didn't even care what came next. At this point, his soul had already left his body.

He knew he couldn't linger too long, so turned to see the next obstacle. Unfortunately, it didn't look like he had much of a choice on where to go from here. There was only one way forward and it looked as though hopping was involved yet again.

Why was it always hopping? He wasn't a rabbit!

He turned, curious to see what he could've been doing if he'd gone through the tunnel instead. His eyes narrowed into a glare when he spotted the set of monkey bars right by the tunnel exit. He could've done fucking monkey bars!

This was such a scam.

He looked back to his current task, deciding not to dwell on it. It wasn't like he planned to go back on himself. He was stuck here now, may as well get on with it.

In front of him stood a set of...six large slabs of cement tilted at different angles, alternating as they went along. So he just needed to sort of run between them like some fucked up form of steps. Very ninja warrior of them.

He shook out his arms, giving his hamstrings a quick stretch, before jumping into action. The cement wasn't as smooth as before, giving him a pretty good surface for his trainers to grip as he leapt between them.

His movements were sharp and efficient, each step timed perfectly. In almost no time at all he had cleared the entire obstacle, landing on the opposite platform with a surprising amount of grace.

Even he had to admit he surprised himself on that one.

He was also equally shocked that there hadn't been another secret sabotage from Cementoss. Take the victory.

Glancing to his right, he saw the monkey bars would have brought him out onto this platform too. He frowned at that, fully regretting not taking the tunnel.

He was close now. One more stretch to go. That was it. He could practically see the red platform now, the end point taunting him like the last cookie in the jar after someone had already licked it.

Between him and his salvation stood a rotating cylinder. It looked to have uneven grips bolted around its inside surface, and was tilted up at maybe a 45 degree angle. It was spinning slowly at the moment, but he had a feeling that would change.

"Okay, cool. A sadistic hamster wheel," he mumbled, cracking his knuckles.

He scanned the holds inside, watching them move, and waited for the timing to sync up before he jumped inside.

His fingers latched onto the first hold and he quickly began his climb. As he expected, the rotation soon picked up under his weight, but a small grin grew on his face.

He was already ahead of he game.

The increasing centripetal force helped pin him onto the grips, anchoring his body as he scaled upwards. He moved like he'd done this before—climb, brace, shift, grab—riding the rhythm of the wheel with perfect control.

As he neared the top, he used the spin to launch himself forward. He vaulted towards the end of the tunnel and dove out just as it tried to whip him backwards.

He hit the ground with a rough thud, rolled once, then skidded to a stop on his side. He groaned into the concrete.

"God, I'm gonna chun..."

He felt his stomach twisted violently and covered his mouth with a fist, eyes shutting tightly as he tried to will away the nausea.

This was fine.

Yep, it was fine.

He just needed to go sit on the platform, then he could go home. Yep, just go sit on the platform. He'd even crawl over to it if he had to.

It should be just ahead of...he craned his neck back to glare at the sheer concrete wall that suddenly greeted him. He blinked.

What the fuck.

He had to get up that?

Were they actually taking the piss?

Nah, Cementoss definitely had it out for him. Nobody else had to do this bullshit at the end of their course! This was a bloody joke!

He dragged himself to his feet, staggering like he'd aged ten years in the last five minutes. For goodness sake, he was gonna have to actually try now, and that was the last thing he needed.

"Fine, fuck!" he cursed, shaking out his arms once more. He gave his legs a quick slap to convince them to cooperate.

His whole body was aching, his top clinging uncomfortably to his skin, and his hands were scraped raw from the tunnel.

But still, he needed to finish this.

If he gave up now, he was sure Power Loader would get on his case about it and he really didn't need the added aggro.

Swallowing back the nausea, he ran towards the wall. He planted one foot in front of the other, refusing to be put off by the quick incline and, at the last second, twisted his body sideways. His foot caught the wall just right, giving him the lift he needed to reach. He swung up, caught the top of the wall with both hands, then hooked one foot over the lip and pulled.

He was over, just like that.

Balanced perfectly on the edge, one leg still dangling off the side, and sweat dripping into his eyes, Izuku was sat at the top. He stood, taking the last few steps needed to make it onto the platform.

He was covered in dirt and dust, and was pretty sure he was bleeding internally. He didn't collapse like Maina had—mostly because his legs locked up—but he definitely stood there in a daze, breathing like he'd just sprinted a marathon.

Yeah, no. He wasn't doing this again.

Ever.

He offered a wave, just to make sure his teachers had seen he'd made it onto the platform, before sliding back down the way he came.

Mei was already there to greet him with a water bottle and an excited hug. "You did it! That was crazy good, Zuku!"

"Thanks," he chuckled, downing over half the water in one go. Fuck he still felt sick. Did they have to spin him that much?

"I can't believe you didn't take the tunnel!" Maina gaped, coming to stand beside Mei.

"Everyone who went through the tunnel screamed bloody murder, I wasn't gonna risk that," he reminded her like it was obvious.

"Oh...yeah, no, the tunnel was fine. It just had like bumps and stuff in the walls to throw us off, and I thought there was a spider," Maina shrugged as they made their way back across the gym.

"You couldn't have told me that sooner?" Izuku gaped at her.

"But you were fine up there. You made it look easy as well," Maina shrugged in her defence. "I honestly thought you were gonna stack it five seconds in."

"What? Like you did?" Mei quirked a brow, jabbing her with her elbow.

"I'm just saying. He was so against this, I thought he'd choke, or just outright refuse to move halfway round," Maina admitted, sheepishly.

Izuku would be lying if he said he hadn't considered just outright refusing to move, but that was more childish and embarrassing for him than it would be annoying for Power Loader. He wasn't an asshole.

"Regardless," Mei dismissed, wrapping an arm around Izuku's shoulders, "you did great!"

Izuku gave her a half-hearted smile, exhaustion catching up to him fast.

"Good job, Midoriya," Cementoss said as he passed, Maina continuing on to go stand with her other friends as they prepared to watch the next person.

"Oh, uh...thanks," he scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

"You've clearly got skill, kid," Power Loader added, jotting down a final note on his clipboard before looking up. "I'd like to see what you can do at the Sports Festival this year. You didn't compete last time, and you only get three chances. Don't miss out this year, yeah?"

"Uh...sure," he shrugged, though knew he was already working on submitting an application to Nedzu that would allow him to be exempt again.

"Good," Power Loader nodded before turning to call up the next person.

Izuku and Mei took that as their cue and headed to one of the benches at the side of the gym.

"I'm just saying," Mei said as she plopped down beside him, "if you can do that without using any gear or your quirk, we should definitely build you something for the next run. Streamline your movement, shock absorption, maybe a deployable rope system—"

"No."

"But—"

"I am not letting you strap rockets to my back again."

"They were thrusters—"

"They were a fire hazard," he interrupted her with a laugh. "And anyway, I will not be doing that again."

"Don't be so modest."

"Modest?" He quirked a brow.

"Yeah, I used the wrong word," she admitted, rolling her eyes, "I thought you wouldn't notice."

"Uh huh," he chuckled. She used the wrong word a lot, usually when her mind was working faster than her mouth. "Do you remember when you used to think torque was just a fancy way of saying 'twist real hard'?"

"That's basically what it means, though!" she protested, swatting his shoulder.

He smirked but didn't argue further, letting her puff up in indignation beside him.

"You're insufferable," she muttered, shaking her head.

"Yeah, but I'm your favourite," he replied, too tired to hide his smugness.

She didn't deny it. "I still don't get why you don't want build some kind of thrusters..."

He groaned and leaned his head back against the cold wall, letting her ramble. It was easier to just let her go sometimes, especially when he was too tired to hold up his side of the conversation.

It took a little over half an hour for the rest of their classmates to take their turns, with only one of them needing to be escorted to Recovery Girl with what looked like a nasty concussion.

"Alright," Power Loader called to the remaining members of his class, drawing everyone's attention. Izuku stared at him with a blank expression, already prepared for the worst.

If he told them they had to run again, Izuku was going to walk out and face the consequences for his actions on Monday.

"Good job today, you all did exceptionally. The first round of baseline testing is now complete and you will receive some notes later this evening, which means you've got your own performances to improve on for next time."

Izuku had no intention of opening that email whatsoever, but he knew Mei would do it for him regardless. She did know his password, after all.

"Next week we start properly. Timed runs, endurance testing, team drills, sparring...the works. We will also have some different members of staff joining us."

A few murmurs broke out as their class began debating who would be showing up to help. Izuku didn't want to turn up, but if he was going to be forced to train, they could at least bring in someone cool like Thirteen.

"Now, go stretch, shower, and hydrate. I better not see any of you passing out on your walk back to the dorms," Power Loader concluded. "Well done today, and have a good weekend!"

A chorus of 'thank you' and 'have a good weekend' was spoken in response, and Izuku tried not to cry as he was forced into a series of cool down stretches, his stomach still really unsettled. Okay, so him and spinning really didn't go well together.

Eventually, Class 2-H were done for the week and headed out of Gym Gamma, most of them limping or dragging their feet in exhaustion. Izuku knew there was going to be a lot of mumbling and grumbling in the morning...yeah, he was probably going to be one of them.

The sun was already dipping toward the horizon, casting long shadows as they began the long walk back. Thankfully, he and Mei had stashed their school bags at the dorms during lunch, so they didn't need to make a stop at the main building to collect their stuff on the way.

"You know what you need?" Mei said after a few minutes of walking in silence.

"Two weeks of bed rest and a medical note?" he offered.

"A grappling hook."

Izuku snorted. "Why do I even talk to you?"

"Because I'm a visionary, Zuku. And you love me."

"Debatable."

"Shut up." She bumped his shoulder with hers, grinning. "You're gonna kill it at the festival this year, Zuku, I can just feel it."

He didn't answer right away. Instead, he watched their classmates shuffle ahead of them, listened to the soft crunch of gravel under their feet, and let the hum of Mei's optimism wash over him like white noise.

"Think about all the internship offers you're gonna get! You weren't even there last year and got scouted by GearTech! Do you know how crazy that is?"

"Yeah, it was pretty cool," he agreed, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "But let's not get ahead of ourselves—"

"Oh shush," Mei cut him off with a teasing grin. "Enough of that. You’ve got the talent, the smarts, and the guts. Anyone who doesn’t see that is blind."

"And you don't?" He quirked a brow. Mei was beyond talented and was bound to become one of the greatest support engineers of their generation. 

She rolled her eyes. "Of course I do, but you’re your own worst critic. You always doubt yourself when you don’t need to."

"Maybe I just don’t want to get my hopes up."

"But imagine what you could pull off with another year of training at a top Support Company under your belt," she said, practically bouncing at the possibilities. 

Izuku shrugged, trying not to let the compliment get to him. "It’s not like I’m the only person who can design tech."

"But you’re the one who actually makes it work," Mei pressed on. "All those companies spend years trying to crack what you just do in like a weekend. Don't act like I haven't seen the blueprints in your sock drawer."

"Why are you going in my drawer?" He turned to her with a look of judgement. 

"Don't change the subject."

"Don't go in my drawer," he shot back.

"Well, if you stop acting like an idiot, I will," she retorted.

"Yeah, yeah," he rolled his eyes, knowing she wouldn't change. Not that he wanted her to. 

Hatsume Mei was a unique individual and the kind of chaotic energy that somehow pulled everyone forward. She was unapologetically herself and practically lived outside the box, surrounded by her wild ideas and infectious enthusiasm. Without her, things would feel a lot quieter, and honestly, a lot less interesting.

"So, why didn't you compete last year?" She asked casually, though he knew she was slightly nervous about asking. She hated prying too much. "Did Power Loader fall for the sock drawer excuse?"

He sighed. He knew this conversation was coming sooner or later, though he knew that if he told her to drop it then she would. Mei, for all her craziness, knew not to push boundaries.

"I didn't give an excuse, Principal Nedzu signed off on my absence," he shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pockets. He regretted not bringing a jacket with him.

"It had to have been a good reason for Nedzu to sign off on it. The Sports Festival is practically the biggest event in the world."

"Okay, it's not that important."

"More people watch it than they do the Olympics!"

"That's only cause they heavily regulate quirk usage at the Olympics," he dismissed her claim.

Despite the existence of quirks, they still wanted to maintain the authenticity of the Olympics, which meant that all competitors were forbidden from using their quirks at any point within the stadiums or arenas. Nor were performance enhancers, support gear, or any kind of suits wired for impact resistance or reaction time enhancements allowed. Just raw talent and years of practice.

When you compared watching a group of regular people sprinting down a track or playing hockey, to a group of sleep deprived teenagers being given free reign of their quirks for the first time with a legal go ahead to scrap whoever they wanted with almost no consequences...it made sense why the Sports Festival had become as popular as it was.

"I suppose," Mei muttered, accepting his reasoning with a half-shrug. "Still, what's the deal?"

Izuku glanced at her, his mood shifting. "Family stuff."

She was silent for a moment, considering his answer. It was pretty obvious from his tone that he didn't want to talk about it, so he was eternally grateful when she moved on from the topic to ask him about his plans for the weekend.

"Oh, also, Power Loader approved our leave this weeked. So, if you're still alive tomorrow afternoon, we're gonna grab smoothies. No backing out."

He smirked faintly. "Wouldn't dream of it."

"Good. Because I've been dreaming of strawberry matcha all week, and if I have to go one more day without it, I will cry."

He snorted. "So dramatic."

Chapter Text

"So, you still being a little bitch about the training?" Mei greeted Izuku as he came walking into the kitchen the following morning, eyes half sunk into his head and jittery hands making it almost impossible for him to successfully take a sip from his drink without spilling any.

"I was up all night trying to catch up on work," he stated, entirely unamused, "take a wild guess."

"You know, Mei, I think he's still being a little bitch about the training," Maina remarked.

"Wow, really? I was about to say the same thing!" Mei chirped back, sarcasm dripping off of each word.

"Oh yeah," Izuku faked enthusiasm, shaking his hand in a mock 'rock on' gesture, as he ventured over to the cupboard. He'd hidden some coffee in there somewhere—something that was banned in their dorm by Nedzu since their class had gone through a five kilogram bag in a weekend.

Not to mention the fact that Power Loader had needed to confiscate 27 coffee machines. Even Izuku had to admit that he was surprised by the number. To make it worse, neither he, Mei, nor Maina had owned a coffee machine.

The Support Course really knew how to pick them.

"So, did you manage to finish those gauntlets yet?" Mei asked instead, hopping up onto the counter behind the cupboard door.

"Not yet."

"Really?" She sounded genuinely surprised.

"Really."

"Did you at least finish the schematics?"

He sighed. "No."

"Then what was all that banging I heard at like 2am?" Maina asked from somewhere behind him.

He froze, cringing at the memory of himself slipping on an empty gas canister he'd been using to prop his balcony door open. One thing led to another and he now needed to fix his chest of drawers. 

"No idea."

"Chatty, aren't you?" Maina teased. "Wanna find a thesaurus one of these days?"

"Don't you mean a dictionary?" He frowned, head now halfway into the cupboard as his hand reached for the compartment he'd built into the back their first night here. Hopefully Power Loaded hadn't checked— "Yes!"

"What?" Mei perked up.

He didn't need to say anything as he took a step back, returning to his full height as he displayed the unopened bag of coffee.

"Oh. My. God," Mei gaped. "Have I told you how much I love you lately? Because I definitely don't do it enough."

Izuku rolled his eyes, but couldn't fight the smile that forced its way onto his face. Even exhausted, he couldn't take a compliment.

"Yeah, yeah," he shook it off, turning to grab three mugs and the kettle. "Just fill out my forms for next weekend and we're even."

"You got it!" She agreed without hesitation, hopping off the side to source the rest of the ingredients they'd need.

"You know if Power Loaded catches you, you're gonna get in serious trouble, right?" Maina muttered, sounding just as nervous as she looked.

The pair froze mid task, both of them turning to face Maina with almost blank expressions. The day they cared about getting in trouble with Power Loader would be the day the world imploded.

"We're incriminating you too," Izuku told her as he returned to his work, spooning out the appropriate amount—and by that he meant two extra scoops—of ground coffee beans into each mug.

"Oh, no, I'm fine," Maina shook her head, waving her hands.

"Nah, we insist!" Mei denied.

"Really, it's fine. I'm fine. I don't have much to do today, anyway—"

"Showoff," Izuku muttered.

"—so you don't need to waste any on me. Besides, what if they do a dorm inspection? I don't want detention—"

"You're massively overthinking this," Mei interrupted, pouring some chocolate sauce into her mug.

"Am not!"

"Do you think if I got a detention—"

"No!" They both interrupted Izuku before he could even finish voicing his thought on how to get out of the next training session. They'd already heard it all before.

He cursed under his breath but left it there, continuing to make his coffee how he liked it. He stopped pouring the milk halfway and instead added the last of his energy drink to top it up, a decision that earned him a disgusted grimace from his pink haired friend.

"Here," Mei held out Maina's mug.

"But—"

"We both know you're going to drink it, so let's cut to the chase, yeah?" She retorted and, with a resounding sigh, Maina caved and took the mug.

"Thank you," she said before she took a sip, face contorting into a slight grimace. "I can already feel my organs panicking."

"That's the sign of quality coffee," Izuku replied, sliding into one of the chairs across from her and finally taking a sip of his own chemical abomination. He'd bought these coffee beans from a shop he'd found down a side street in town. It was definitely a questionable establishment and he wouldn't be surprised if they had some kind of dirty dealings going on, but the coffee they sold was imported and better quality than one would expect for the price they sold it at. If it ain't broke.

"No, it's the sign of irreversible damage," Maina countered, cradling the mug with both hands and taking another drink. "Honestly, one day someone's going to have a heart attack in this dorm and I won't be surprised if it's one of you two."

"Statistically speaking," Mei mumbled between sips, "it's probably going to be him."

Izuku would have protested if it wasn't true.

"I already wrote my will," he nodded.

"You put me down for your boots, right?" Mei asked with a grin, hopping over to take a seat beside him. She'd been begging him to let her have them since he first reverse engineered them from a mangled villain prototype he scavenged off the black market...not that she needed to know that.

"Obviously."

Maina stared between them, unamused. "You two are the actual worst."

"And yet," Izuku said, lifting his mug like a toast, "you still hang out with us."

"Regrettably," she admitted as she took a seat opposite the two of them.

"God, I'm still so stiff," Mei muttered, rubbing at her shoulder.

Izuku nodded in agreement. He ached. Everywhere. If it was already this bad after a single training session, he could only imagine how bad it was going to get when they started doing it every other day.

"Me too. I sat in the bath for an hour this morning," Maina agreed. "And I swear I almost broke a rib. I asked Power Loader to sign a slip for me to visit Recovery Girl yesterday, and when I got there, like half our class were queueing outside. I'm not even joking."

"Damn..." Mei muttered.

"They really need to calm it down." Izuku slouched into his chair, resting his mug on the table as he came to rest his head on his hand.

"Right? Like, we're in Support, why are they making it so hard? It doesn't make any sense!" Maina complained.

"Well...I mean, I get why they're doing it. They want us to have a chance at getting through to the later rounds," Mei defended, gesturing with her mug like she was holding a whiteboard pointer. "Like, when the Hero Course graduate, they'll be pro level heroes. So at the Sports Festival, we'll basically be fighting 'almost pros', which is entirely unfair."

"True," Izuku nodded. "But why only our class? Why not Business or Gen-Ed? Aren't we all in the same boat, if that's the case?"

Mei shrugged, accidentally knocking her knee against Izuku's under the table without apology. "I dunno. Maybe because we build weapons and they probably don't want us to not know how to use them under pressure."

"I do the module on civil safety and evacuation systems. I design traffic infrastructure," Maina said flatly. "What am I gonna do? Throw a bollard at someone?"

Mei looked thoughtful. "You could. Those base supports are no joke."

"Yeah, lemme just lift a ten tonne cement block. That's a great idea," Maina retorted, gesturing with her arms as though she was lifting said block.

Izuku snickered.

"Don't know why you're laughing," she shot him a glare. "Your last prototype looked like it could snap your spine if you leaned wrong."

"Then don't lean wrong," he shrugged, taking another sip of his coffee. He could feel it slowly easing his headache and lightening the invisible weights that threatened to drag his eyes shut with each blink.

God, he was so tired.

The smell of coffee and chocolate clung to the air, and the morning sunlight filtering through the dorm kitchen windows made the grime on the panes look almost aesthetic. He was barely paying attention to their conversation, too busy thinking about how much more work he needed to get done before he and Mei went for smoothies later. He should be able to get the last of the planning done for Fujita's gauntlets, then it was just about making them, which was always the fun part.

"You read yours yet, Zuku?" Mei asked, nudging his arm.

"Hmm?" he looked up from where he'd been staring at his coffee and shook his head. "No, why? You get good feedback?"

In truth, Izuku had absolutely zero interest in Power Loader's physical assessment of him. He hadn't done badly, he was aware, but that didn't mean he wanted to improve. He was content being the mediocre individual he was when it came to physical exertion.

"Yup," Mei nodded, flashing a proud smile. "He said I was efficient and precise under pressure, and, I'm quoting him by the way, 'surprisingly coordinated for someone who frequently sets fires in the lab'."

"That can't be all he said. He legit said at the start of the email that there'd likely be more things to work on than things we were good at since we've only just started and to not be disheartened by it since like, we'll get better and stuff," Maina said, partially explaining it to Izuku since he hadn't read the email.

Well, that didn't sound demoralising at all.

"Or that was just you," Mei teased.

"Uh, no. Come on, be honest Mei," Maina urged.

"What?" She gaped, amused, though one look at Izuku's bored expression had her folding. "Yeah, fine. He said something about how maybe I lack the...interdisciplinary neuromuscular cohesion required for continuous reactive movement across dynamic terrain substrates."

Maina blinked. "You wha—?"

"So, you can't run on uneven ground without falling on your ass," Izuku summarised, grin growing on his face.

"Yeah..." Mei admitted, unbothered. "Still said I was efficient though."

He huffed a small laugh, taking another sip from his drink. "Sounds about right."

"How'd yours go, then?" Mei gestured to Maina.

She released a heavy breath. "How do you think? I basically got called out on my lack of cooridnation and 'inability to stay on my feet'." She air quoted with her hands. "Said I move like a deer on a frozen lake and that my spatial awareness is 'developing', which I think is a nice way of saying I don't have any."

Izuku smiled faintly behind his cup. "So...no feedback that made you consider switching careers, then?"

"Nope. Only that I'd probably die on a long rescue mission and should work on not running into walls," Maina summarised.

"Encouraging."

Maina glanced at him. "You sure you don't want to read yours?"

"Oh, absolutely not," he scoffed into his drink, tipping the last of it back and returning the empty mug to the table.

"But it could be useful!" Maina pressed, mock-earnest.

"Doubt it," he denied as he stood, taking his mug over to the sink to wash up.

"I bet it's got some useful feedback," she insisted.

"I haven't even read my feedback from our exams last year, why the fuck would I read this one?" He retorted, rinsing his mug and placing it on the drying rack next to the sink.

"But you got full mark—"

"Don't bother, Maina," Mei interrupted as he came wandering over. "He's too pussy to open it."

He came to lean against the table, arms folded across his chest. "Are you trying to bait me?"

"That depends...is it working?"

"I mean...yeah, it probably would've worked," he admitted.

"Ugh, I knew it," she frowned.

"You just want to hear what it says so you can laugh at it with Maina."

"Obviously."

"Yeah, never gonna happen," he refused.

"That's not fair, we told you ours," Maina protested.

"You volunteered to tell me yours," Izuku countered with a raised brow. "I'm not walking into a firing squad just because you two got hit first."

"That's cowardice," Mei said plainly, slurping up the last of her coffee.

"I never claimed to be a hero," he said like it was obvious.

"Yeah, yeah, Mr. Moody and Broody over here," Mei rolled her eyes as he started making his way towards the stairs

"Aww, I love it when you use cute nicknames," he teased.

"Fuck off, Midoriya!" She shouted back and his laugh echoed all the way up the stairs.

He made it back to his room pretty quickly after that, shutting the door behind him with a dull thunk. He could hear the doors of some of his other classmates opening as they made their way downstairs to breakfast, thankful to have been up before them so he didn't have to interact.

His room was dim, lit only by the lamp at his desk and various monitors or tech that had LEDs attached. His floor was layered in a carpet of blueprints and disassembled parts, and the air was filled with the soft mechanical whirr of fans, processors, and half a dozen machines in various states of life.

Fujita's gauntlets, meanwhile, sat in the dead centre of his desk, already disassembled with their components carefully laid out like a forensic reconstruction. He rubbed at his eyes, then carefully navigated through his room to his desk chair. Right, he could do this. He still had time.

He settled into his chair, grabbing a freshly sharpened pencil from the monster-can-turned-penholder and got back to work on his blueprints. There was something satisfying about the way a sharp pencil drew on paper compared to a blunt one that had his hand moving a mile a minute.

Time trickled by like water through a sieve and soon, as he had finally started reassembling various joints of the left gauntlet, he heard feet approaching his door. From the sounds of things, he knew exactly who it was, and prepared himself for her presence.

His door flew open moments later, almost crashing into the wall as Mei announced herself. She walked in without knocking, which was standard practice at this point. As was her waltzing over to his bed and launching herself amongst his duvet and pillows.

"So," she began, sitting cross legged near his pillows, his Fat Gum squishmallow now clutched on her lap, "you almost done?"

"Here," he replied, not even bothering to look up from his work as he grabbed her notebook from his top drawer and tossed it over his shoulder.

"You finished it already?!" She gasped and he listened as she flicked through the pages with a joyful squeal. "Ah, I can't believe it! This solves the entire thermal dispersal feedback loop issue. How do you do this so easily!? Thank you so much, Zuku! You're the greatest!"

"No stress," he shrugged off her compliment, tightening a final screw before spinning round in his chair to face her. "I can leave this here if you wanna go soon?"

"I'm ready when you are," she shrugged and it was only now that he saw she was already dressed in her favourite pair of cargoes - she loved how many pockets it had since it allowed her to bring all her doodads with her - and an appropriate vest and jacket, with her handbag sat by his door.

"Uh..." he looked down at his oversized Fat Gum shirt and Red Riot pyjama pants, "...yeah, I need to get dressed."

"Yeah," Mei agreed, rolling onto her back to stare at his ceiling as a way to give him some privacy. "Do you think you'll get the gauntlets done in time?" She asked as he made his way across the room to his cupboard.

"Yeah, if I can adjust my calculations this evening, I'll have most of tomorrow to try and test the different kinetic dampening sequences," he explained as he slid on a pair of baggy jeans and a matching 'T-shirt' shirt. "Is it gonna be cold? Or should I go like this?"

"Uhhh..." Mei sat up just enough to appraise him, Izuku giving her a slow spin.

"Model material?" He joked.

"Hardly," she scoffed. "More like a before photo."

"Bitch." He picked up one of his pillows and chucked it at her.

"I mean, that top looks like shit, so maybe add a hoodie. It's supposed to rain later," she shrugged before flopping back again.

"This is my favourite top," he frowned as he looked around for a clean hoodie. He'd showered last night and had, somehow, managed to wrestle the knots free from his hair, which he had since tied up into a bun on the back of his head. It still housed many stray curls, but it was more manageable. Maybe he could get a haircut while they were in town or something...

"I know, and it's a cute top," Mei spoke, tossing the Fat Gum toy up and down as she waited for him. "But it's not very stylish."

"Ugh," he rolled his eyes. "The day I start caring about my outfits, shoot me."

"Only if you promise to dedicate your body to science," Mei bargained.

"I swear we signed something about that last year?" He furrowed his brows as he slid on his hoodie, head popping through the top and dislodging even more of his curls from his bun. Ugh, how irritating.

"No, we tried to, but they said we had to wait until we were twenty, remember?"

"Oh yeah...and then your mum found out and got pissed," he laughed, going to grab his rucksack and slung it over his shoulders.

"She didn't get pissed," Mei denied, though even she knew she was lying. Izuku shot her a look as she sat up, and his pink haired friend sighed. "Okay, she was a little bit pissed...but it's only cause she wants us all to be buried together at the family grave."

"What? Scared of being cremated?"

"No!" She jumped up, slapping his arm as they headed for the door. "But why be put in a box and turned to ash, when you could help further post-mortem cybernetics and neuro-link research?"

"You don't have to convince me," he held his hands up in surrender, having heard this argument before. They'd spent many nights debating ethical limits of posthumous data preservation...among other things. "I'm already an organ donor."

"Ugh," Mei pulled a face as she stepped through his door, waiting for him to lock it behind them. "Why do you get to be an organ donor and I don't?"

"I'm just better than you, aren't I?" He teased and immediately took off towards the stairs, hearing Mei's shouts of protest and thundering feet chasing after him. He laughed, practically launching himself down the stairs, using the bannister to whip himself round the corner to the next flight.

"Midoriya Izuku, I will piss in your sink! Get back here!" Mei threatened, which sent him stumbling with laughter.

"Makabe! Protect me!" Izuku gasped, jumping behind Makabe Seiji, the kid in their class with a density manipulation quirk and the patience of a saint.

"Wha—" Makabe blinked in confusion, looking up from his lunch just in time to see Mei thundering down the stairs. "Midoriya, get off me."

"She's on a rampage," Izuku pointed a finger over his shoulder, keeping a hand on his back like a baby koala clinging to his mother for safety.

Mei skidded to a stop, hands on her hips. "Don't you use Makabe as a meat shield! Coward!"

"A meat shield?" Makabe looked between the two of them with almost horror on his face. "I'm just gonna...yeah, I'm gonna go..." He carefully slid from Izuku's grip and stepped away from them.

"Enjoy your lunch," Izuku offered a smile, moments before Mei was bringing her hand round and slapping him upside the head. "Ow! Mei!"

"It's your own fault," she retorted, turning without another word to go collect her shoes. Izuku followed close behind, sliding on his red trainers with ease.

"You got the conse—" Mei flashed the signed consent form in his face. "I'm sorry."

"Good," she beamed, hopping up to her feet with the energy of a fully charged capacitor. "Now let's go! The next train leaves in twenty minutes."

She grabbed his sleeve and practically dragged him from their dorm before he even got the chance to respond. He stumbled down the steps behind her, then pulled his sleeve away from her hand.

"Mei, slow down! Stop pulling me!" he protested weakly, though she was already skipping ahead of him. "We still have time to catch the train!"

"Yeah, and we'll have less if you slow down!" she shot back.

Yeah, fair enough.

He jogged after her, following the main path between the dorms and U.A.'s front gate. The security office was tucked away round the corner from the main gates, it's design equally complex and the interior far more advanced than it looked from the outside.

Izuku held the door open for Mei, who practically slapped the signed permission form on the counter before the security officer inside had even looked up.

"Afternoon, Mr. Nakano," she greeted with a grin.

"Afternoon Hatsume," he responded, picking up the form to check it over. "Where are you going?"

"We're going into Musutafu, and will be back by eight," she reiterated what was already written on the form.

The man looked up from the piece of paper, glanced between them, then nodded. "Everything looks to be in order. You've both got your IDs?"

Izuku pulled his from his pocket and watched Mei flash her's like a police badge. They pressed them against the scanner pad on the desk, waiting for the soft green beep to confirm their departure, logging it into Nedzu's system.

"Alright, that's you two sorted. Just make sure you're back by eight. I don't want to have to call your teacher on a Saturday," Mr. Nakano warned.

"Don't worry, we will be," Izuku promised.

"Thank you!" Mei added as they made their way to the exit through the security office. Izuku gave Mr. Nakano a polite nod before following her out into the sunlight, blinking as the warmth hit his face.

They decided to take the shortcut through the woods out front to get down the U.A. hill, cutting across the worn footpath students had trampled into the grass. There was a paved route further along, but it took almost twice as long to get down.

Thankfully, it was a short walk and they were soon buying their tickets and making their way onto the platform. The station itself was tucked away beside a few cafes, which the pair frequented when they wanted a change of scenery, and some quiet shops just outside the school zone.

A few other U.A. students in weekend clothes were already waiting under the awning, chatting in groups or sitting with earbuds in. Someone from 2-A waved vaguely in their direction, but Mei didn't notice, and Izuku offered only a small smile of recognition. He actually had no idea what their name was and dreaded the thought that they may come over to speak with them.

He'd only just bothered enough to remember the names of everyone in his class, there was no way he was gonna bother with the others.

He and Mei shared casual conversation as they waited for their train...well, Mei spoke enthusiastically about a new polymer coating she'd been looking at for heat-resistant wiring, and Izuku half-listened while mentally calculating resistor thresholds in his head.

Less than half an hour later, they were walking into Mei's favourite smoothie place in all of Japan: Funkijuice.

It was a tiny, aggressively vibrant shop wedged between a laundromat and a stationery store that sold notebooks shaped like frogs. The juice place looked like it had been designed by a sentient pair of sunglasses: loud colours, mismatched furniture, neon menus, and a wall covered in Polaroids of customers holding towering smoothies. Mei had three photos up already and excitedly pointed them out every time they came.

Izuku wasn't on the wall...well, he was in the background of one of Mei's photos holding a lopsided smoothie that looked like it had been attacked by sprinkles, but he didn't think that counted.

"I'm going for the strawberry matcha," Mei declared as they joined the short queue.

"Really? I never would've guessed!" Izuku said, voice dripping with sarcasm. It wasn't like he'd had to listen to her go on about her strawberry matcha the entire journey there or anything. No, not at all.

"Yeah, it's so good," she nodded, eyes jumping about the menus above the counter.

Izuku rolled his eyes but couldn't help the small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Her enthusiasm was like static electricity, annoying if you touched it wrong but kind of energising.

"What are you getting?" she asked suddenly, turning to him like he was the deciding vote in the great smoothie election.

"Uh...probably the dragonfruit-blueberry thing? The one with the chia seeds that look like frogspawn."

"Sounds lush," she cringed.

"Yeah, well, you like avocado, so..."

"Huh?" She made a face. "The fuck is wrong with avocado?"

"What isn't wrong with avocado?"

"You're a cretin," she decided as they approached the counter.

The barista, unsurprisingly, greeted Mei by name and she placed hers and Izuku's orders. As promised, she was the one to pay, and they were soon sliding into a booth near the front window with a flickering novelty sign that read 'SLURP YOUR BEST LIFE' in slanted calligraphy hung beside them.

The table was lopsided and wobbled every time either of them leaned their elbows on it, but it had a good view of the street and was covered in enough stickers that it was practically a table cloth.

Their drinks came pretty quickly, followed closely by a couple plates of food for them to pick at. It wasn't anything substantial, though Izuku doubted it was supposed to be since this was still primarily a smoothie place.

Izuku was halfway through his drink when Mei flipped her phone round to show him whatever was displayed on screen. He squinted, leaning closer to see she was on the school's baseball page.

"Are you gonna watch their match this week?" She asked. "Makabe is on the starting lineup this year."

"Really? Oh, congrats to him." Izuku made a mental note to congratulate him when they got back later. "Who are they playing?"

"Seijin."

"Oh, that's an easy win then."

Mei snorted. "Right? Their pitcher last year couldn't even throw a straight ball without crying."

"God, that match was painful to watch..." Izuku shook his head, recounting the 18 to 1 slaughter they'd achieved a few months prior during their first year. The one run Seijin managed had been a mercy slip, and everyone knew it.

"Imagine the scores though, if they let the Hero Course compete," Mei mused as she scrolled through their page on her phone. "Someone like that Iida kid could practically rocket between the bases."

"He'd also need to know how to hit the ball," Izuku added.

It wasn't that the Hero Course student were outright banned from taking part in extracurricular activities...yeah no, they were basically banned.

The school gave the usual spiel about scheduling conflicts and prioritising professional development, but everyone knew the real reasons: insurance liability, injury risk, and legal grey areas.

You didn't put a kid with engines in his calves or someone who could generate small earthquakes into a casual sports club unless you were actively seeking lawsuits. Not to mention most of them already had combat training and extra physical conditioning crammed into their week, it was unlikely they could commit to the training.

Their schedules were so packed that U.A. had to build a dedicated medical wing for preventative care. And still, students in the Hero Department went through crutches like disposable chopsticks.

Izuku hated that he knew all of this about the Hero Course, but when every single student you agreed to help with their gear gives you the same mini rant about not being free half the week because of their extra training, you pick up on the similarities.

"Bet Bakugou would just blow up the ball if he got struck out," Mei joked around a tofu bite.

"He'd blow up the pitcher," Izuku replied flatly, rolling his eyes at the mention of the blonde. Mei was already well informed of what went on there.

"Sounds about right," she agreed with a laugh. "Hero students do the dumbest stuff with so much confidence."

"Mmhmm," Izuku agreed, clinking his smoothie against Mei's like a toast.

"Support Course supremacy," Mei declared, grinning. "Besides, it doesn't help that three first year hero kids have already been suspended."

Izuku almost spat his drink all over the table.

She blinked at him. "What?"

"No, no, backtrack," Izuku spoke through choking coughs. "Who's been suspended?"

"Yeah, those three kids from Class 1-B got suspended last week...don't tell me you didn't hear about it?"

He blinked.

"Wait, seriously Zuku? I swear I told you about this last week! Literally everyone's been talking about it!"

He blinked again.

"Oh, you cannot be this dense!" She gaped, slurping her drink as she turned to check a notification on her phone.

Izuku waited, eyebrows raised, for the explanation. Mei could be such a little shit sometimes.

"Well...?" He gestured with his hand for her to hurry up, "fucking tell me then!"

He would never go so far as to call himself a gossip, but he'd also never not listen to Mei when she relayed stories she happened to overhear, by accident - definitely not intentionally - during her 100% real 'maintenance checks' in the hallway where people just so happened to be talking really loudly. Pure coincidence, really.

"Alright, alright, no need to snap," she rolled her eyes, his own narrowing as he watched her take a prolonged sip of her drink. She was being a little shit and she knew it.

"Bitch," he muttered, sinking into the back of his chair.

"What was that? You don't want me to tell you?" She cupped her hand round her ear before settling back into her seat with a teasing pout. "Oh well, I guess you don't wanna know about how they snuck into the faculty wing through the vents and tried to steal the provisional exam questions and Sport Festival mock ups."

"What...the fuck..." he gaped at her.

"Oh well," she fake sighed. "It's a shame you also don't want to hear about how a certain Hero Course student's father also has sway over who gets spotlighted in the Sports Festival, and how he wants to make sure his kid doesn't get shown up again."

Izuku stared at her. Downright just stared.

Mei's grin turned wicked. "Oh, and did I mention? The business staff caught two of the 1-B idiots on camera...stuck halfway in the ceiling vents. Butt-first."

Izuku slapped a hand over his face. "This school is a fucking soap opera."

Mei grinned into her straw. "And you love every second of it, gossip gremlin."

He peeked at her through his fingers, muttering, "I do not."

"You absolutely do," she sang.

"Oh, that reminds me. Did you see the news earlier?"

She levelled him with a flat stare. Of course she hadn't seen the news. The only news Mei gave a shit about was tech advancements and publications. Anything outside of that was mere background noise for her.

"Well, apparently one of Endeavor's sidekicks went missing."

"Wait, what?" Mei gaped. "What do you mean, missing? Which one? What happened?"

"They didn't say which sidekick," Izuku replied, unlocking his phone and scrolling through to find the last article he'd read. "It was on the midday update—someone from Team Alpha, apparently. She was last seen leaving a patrol post in Yotsuya last night and didn't check in after. Apparently they found signs of a struggle but no footage. Whole area's under review."

"That's not normal, right?" Mei asked, frowning as Izuku handed over his phone for her to scroll through.

"Not in the slightest," Izuku murmured, his gaze narrowing slightly as he turned to glance out the window. "Endeavor's agency doesn't let its people go dark unless it's tactical." He would know.

"They're calling it a 'targeted disappearance'," Mei recited from the article she was reading off his phone.

"Which is a very fancy way of saying they think someone took her," Izuku supplied as he chucked the last of his food in his mouth. "Plus, they probably don't want to say it was a villain on record. Endeavor has a reputation to uphold."

Mei scoffed. "I thought you hated him."

"Me hating him has nothing to do with the fact he has a reputation. He is the new number one, after all."

"Ugh," Mei pulled a face, sticking her tongue out as though the mere mention of him left a sour taste. "I mean, look at him." She turned her phone round to show Izuku the fire hero's photo in the latest article...something about him saving workers from some textiles factory after a small fire broke out. "Isn't he just so..."

"Punchable?"

"Uh...I was going to be more mean but sure, punchable..."

Izuku snorted into his drink, wiping his hands on a napkin before taking his phone back from his friend. They finished up soon after, heading out to get some shopping done since - if Izuku knew Mei half as well as he thought he did - there was no way they were returning to campus without at least two shopping bags.

They followed their usual route, Mei spending far too much money on random crap she didn't need. Izuku was always down for blind boxes and collectables - lord knows his shelved were packed full of the stuff - but buying a 10,000 yen mystery box because the shopkeeper told her it had 'good vibes' was where he drew the line.

"You don't even know what's in there," Izuku pointed out as she hugged the large red box to her chest like a dragon with its hoard.

"That's why it's called a mystery box, Zuku," she responded, grinning. "Think of it like a science experiment. Hypothesis: this box will contain something I can turn into a flamethrower."

Izuku shot her a flat look. "Hypothesis: that box contains three keychains, a sticker sheet, and regret."

"Then why is it so heavy?" She countered with a quirk of her brow, giving the box a small shake as if to emphasise her point.

"Well, when you fail to reject your null, I'll be ready to laugh at you."

"Always so cynical," she shook her head at him. "Even if it does suck, it's still fun. You just lack vision."

"I have vision," he denied. "I can clearly see you running out of space on your shelves in two weeks if you keep this up."

That earned him a snorted laugh, loud enough that a passerby turned to glance at them. Mei didn't care, and Izuku had stopped trying to be embarrassed about it. If anything, he found it comforting to know Mei gave no shits.

By the sixth shop, he'd given up trying to keep a running tally of her nonsense purchases and just went along with it. Neon zip ties, a half-off LED panel, an armful of cheap gacha figurines, and—his personal favorite—a plushie shaped like a traffic cone.

"Why do you even want that?" he asked as she jammed it into a bag. She seriously didn't have the space for it.

"Why wouldn't I want it?" she replied, as if it were the dumbest question in the world.

Izuku opened his mouth, then closed it again. "...fair enough."

"Anyways, I'm gonna head to get myself some new underwear—"

"I really don't have to know that."

"Well, you're gonna hear about it anyway," she informed him as she took her bags from his arms. "I'll meet you back here in an hour?"

"Yeah..."Izuku nodded, glancing to check the time on his phone. "I'm gonna head over and see my mum for a bit, anyway."

"Perfect," Mei grinned, already headed towards the shopping centre. "I'll text you when I'm done. Tell her I said hi!"

"Will do," Izuku nodded, adjusting his bag on his shoulder. He turned down a side street leading off the main road, letting the crowd swallow Mei up behind him.

Time to see how his mother was doing.

He turned left halfway along, heading down yet another alleyway, and began walking toward the quieter residential district.

The crowd slowly disappeared, the chatter and foot traffic thinning until it was just the echo of his own shoes against the pavement. Shopfronts gave way to shuttered corner shops and faded vending machines, their displays sun-bleached and half-empty...or entirely empty where someone had just smashed open the glass to take what they wanted.

The air smelled faintly of rust and old cooking oil, and the hum of the train lines in the distance filled the silence where city noise usually lived. He turned the corner and didn't have to check for cars as he crossed the road and cut through the decrepit park the council had installed as part of some initiative a couple years ago.

It had lasted barely two weeks before the swings lost their seats and the slide had become an obstacle course of dents and hidden blades. It was safe to say none of the neighbourhood kids ever paid it a visit unless they were using it as a spot for (underage; not that Izuku cared) drinking.

It took just under ten minutes before he arrived at his mother's building, which was tucked against a rundown factory just past the train lines. The building was a squat, ugly block of flats with peeling paint, rust stains crawling down from the gutters, and a buzzer panel that hadn't worked properly in years.

Izuku had debated fixing it but he knew it would only get broken again, so there was really no point wasting his time.

Laundry hung from balconies like tired flags, some lines drooping under the weight of blankets, while others had pegs missing the clothes all together.

As he approached, his feet crunched over broken glass from a bottle that had evidently been smashed against the side of the building. He shouldered open the front door that led into the reception, the hinges squeezing slightly in that way that made his skin break out in goosebumps.

The reception desk was empty, though it usually was—their landlord preferred to do collections in cash, in person, and with the subtlety of a crowbar. He didn't waste his time sitting around at reception, nor care about a single complaint ever raised by a tenant.

Izuku would have complained if the rent wasn't so cheap and the landlord didn't conveniently 'forget' to file paperwork with city inspectors, meaning anyone who asked questions about residents—or their quirks—was usually turned away. It was the kind of place where people didn't ask too many questions, and that made it worth the peeling paint and leaking pipes.

The air was musty with old cigarette smoke and fried food as he crossed the space, slipping into the stairwell instead of even attempting to brave the lift that he was confident hadn't been serviced since the building was built back in what was probably the twentieth century.

He climbed the stairs slowly, keeping a tight grip on his bag as he went round and round each flight. Why did he have to pick the flat on the sixth floor? His thighs were already protesting, though it wasn't like he hadn't done worse during Power Loader's first training session. He couldn't wait for that whole shit show to be over. What was it now? Only six weeks left? Or was it eight?

He hoped for the former.

By the time he reached the landing, his breath fogged slightly in the cooler stairwell air, and he paused to roll the ache from his shoulders.

His mother's flat was halfway along the corridor, past a door with police tape that had never been properly removed, and another with a lock clearly pried open and replaced with something cheaper.

He nodded a greeting at old Mr. Tanaka, who was crouched in the hall fiddling with his radio antenna again. The old man shot him a gummy grimace, mumbling something about static.

"Afternoon, Tanaka," Izuku greeted, automatically crouching down beside him. "Still giving you trouble?"

"You'd think with all this tech nonsense the kids get these days, someone would fix the damn signals," Tanaka grumbled, twisting a bent wire with far too much force. "Damn thing only wants to play idol music." He smacked the side of the dented radio.

"You keep smacking it like that and you'll snap the antenna clean off. Here, let me..." Izuku pulled a multitool from his pocket — one he always carried thanks to Mei's insistence that a true support course student should never leave home unprepared.

He'd originally thought she was talking about condoms, since she'd gone on a whole rant about being safe and protected, and was confused as to why it only applied to support students.

She had laughed in his face when he told her. That was the last time he admitted to misunderstanding one of her rambles.

A couple quick adjustments and a twist of the screws, and the radio crackled to life, fuzzy voices sharpening just enough to make out the announcer.

"...oday's rankings, it seems Endeavor is holding firm at number one despite the mounting criticism of—"

"Bah." Tanaka cut the announcer off with a sharp twist of the knob, switching the channel over to his preferred public radio station that Izuku knew he called into from time to time to complain about local heroes. "All the same bloody faces every year. Heroes, politicians, the Commission, doesn't matter. Flashy uniforms, and no common sense. Half of 'em couldn't change a tire if their life depended on it."

Izuku smiled faintly, slipping the multitool back into his pocket. He'd learned long ago not to argue with Tanaka when he went on one of his rants. "At least you've got it tuned properly now. Should hold for a while."

"Hmph. We'll see. These things are made cheap these days, everything is. Make 'em so they break in a month and they want you to buy a new one. Back in my day—"

"Back in your day, they didn't have pocket sized computers that could do your shopping for you," Izuku finished for him, having heard it all before.

Tanaka snorted, then jabbed a thumb toward the door with the replaced lock. "Speaking of broken, you hear the racket from that one last night? Useless brat had half the building awake with whatever friends he's running with. Council won't do a damn thing. Bet it's those villain wannabes from across the tracks sniffing around again."

Izuku didn't respond, though his shoulders tensed slightly. He knew all about that lot, but drawing attention never helped in this place. It was usually best to just leave it alone. It wasn't like they were much of a threat anyway.

"Maybe they'll quiet down when the new heroes come in," he offered instead. He'd read all about it on his laptop, how the commission were revamping hero routes in the lower wards as part of their 'Community Safety Initiative', a shiny new program meant to cut down response times and build trust between pro heroes and the public.

It was supposed to be the first stage of their 'soft relaunch' after last year's whole All For One and League of Villains scandal, a way to show they still had control.

Spoiler: they didn't.

Izuku could almost laugh at how little the Commission had control of, but who was he to comment? He only read up on their plans as a way to amuse himself when he was down, not to offer alternatives. None of this had made public news yet anyway, but it was only a matter of time.

"Doubt it. No discipline anymore. All these kids growing up thinking they'll be the next big hero just 'cause they can shoot sparks out their ass. Heroes ain't really heroes. Just celebrities with better lighting."

Izuku ducked his head, mumbling something noncommittal as Tanaka adjusted the antenna again. Izuku had heard this rant a hundred times before and while he didn't fully disagree, he still held out hope that there were a few heroes out there that could prove him wrong.

The old man sighed and leaned back against the wall, the joints in his knees popping loudly. "You're a good kid, though. Smart. Don't waste it chasing after capes. You stick to your gadgets—you'll make yourself useful that way."

"Yeah," Izuku nodded, offering the old man a tight lipped smile. "That's the plan."

Tanaka grunted approval, then waved him off with a dismissive flap of his hand. "Go on then, don't keep your mother waiting."

"See you later, Tanaka," Izuku said as he pushed to stand, fishing his key out of his pocket.

The man grunted as he moved his radio once more, muttering something about catching the news broadcast at last.

Izuku moved on, finally stopping in front of the familiar scuffed door. The key took three attempts to get into the lock and he had to force it to turn, but soon the door creaked open with its usual sticky resistance. Izuku had meant to oil it, he always meant to, but something else always came up. He kicked off his shoes by the entry, careful not to knock over the low row of supports and walking aids lined along the wall.

"Mum! I'm home!" His voice bounced through the flat. The smell of lavender and warmed rice hung in the air—comforting, if faintly stale.

There was no answer.

He stepped into the main room, blinking in the low light. The curtains were only half-open, and the low mechanical hum of the monitoring systems he'd rigged droned softly in the background.

"Mum?" he tried again, quieter now as he walked through to check the kitchen.

Her tea sat untouched on the counter, though no steam wafted from the mug so she must've made it earlier. The faint ring of condensation had already dried into the table. Her pillbox sat beside it, lid open and two doses missing—so at least she hadn't forgotten today.

"Mum? You home?" He called  again, louder this time.

He moved through the small space quickly, his steps automatic. Her bedroom door was ajar and when he pushed it open, the growing tension in his shoulders dropped with a soft sigh.

She was sat in her chair by the window, chin tilted slightly down and one hand limp in her lap as she dozed in the sun. A thick knit blanket lay pooled across her legs — a blanket she had made when trying to teach him to knit as a kid. It hadn't worked and he still couldn't knit to save his life, but at least they got a cool blanket out of it.

"Hey," he spoke gently, approaching on soft feet. "You awake?"

He didn't want to wake her up if she was in a deep sleep, but he doubted that was the case. His mum stirred slowly, eyelids fluttering open. It took her a moment to find him in the light, but a kind smile grew on her face at the sight of him.

"Zuku," she rasped, her voice dry and soft with sleep. "Hey baby. I didn't know you were up. Did you want a tea?"

"Oh, no, no I'm okay, thank you," he shook his head. "Did you want one? I could go make you one?"

She pondered his question for a moment, eyes staring at the clock on her bedside table. The silence lingered, each second dragging out until he knew he wasn't going to get an answer.

"Mum?"

"Huh? Oh, yes. A tea would be lovely," she nodded, looking up at him with that same soft smile that always cut him down to the bone.

"Okay, I'll be right back," he agreed and promptly returned to the kitchen to make her a fresh cup. She'd always loved the chrysanthemum blend he bought for her from the little stall outside the station.

He moved the kettle under the tap, listening to the slow groan of the pipes as it filled. It was always too loud, too drawn out, like even the plumbing was tired. He popped it on the base and poured away her old cup. Izuku rubbed the back of his neck as he leant against the counter, counting the seconds until it began to whistle.

When the water was ready, he poured it carefully over the dried blossoms, watching them bloom and swirl in the cup like tiny parachutes. He added a little honey—she always forgot unless he did it for her—and mixed in some cold water from the tap to make sure she wouldn't burn herself.

"Here you go," he murmured once he returned, crouching down beside her chair. He set the tea on the small table within reach, nudging aside a stack of half opened letters and the remote she never used.

Inko blinked at it slowly, then at him, as if she'd only just remembered who was in the room. "Oh...thank you, baby. You're always looking out for me, my Zuku."

His throat tightened, but he managed a soft laugh. "Someone's gotta do it, right? Can't have you running around causing trouble."

She huffed a laugh, shifting slightly in her seat to get more comfortable. Izuku offered a hand, adjusting the blanket on her lap before picking up the stack of letters to have a glance through them. They were usually just bills or notices, maybe the occasional letter from the hospital or random flyers, but nothing too serious.

The first envelope was from the electric company—another polite warning about late payments that he swore he'd made on time. The second was stamped red, some bureaucratic threat about overdue fees on her medication deliveries. Izuku pressed his lips into a line, tucking both to the bottom of the stack where she wouldn't see them.

One envelope was still sealed, with the logo of the city hospital printed neatly in the corner. He slipped a thumb under the flap, scanning the first couple lines. Just an appointment reminder. Good—no bad news this time.

He slid the safe letters back onto the table in a neat pile and tucked the worrying ones into his back pocket for later. He'd sort it out. He always did.

"How is school?" His mum asked, taking a sip from her tea. "Did you have that test?"

"Yeah, it went well," Izuku gave the same answer he always did when she asked. "I'm sure we'll get our marks back any day now."

"Oh, that's good," she nodded, her eyes growing heavy again. "You're so clever, Zuku...always have been...my boy..." Her words trailed off into the hum of the monitoring equipment.

"We have the Sports Festival coming up," he decided to tell her as he took a seat on the edge of her bed, her eyes reopening when he spoke. "School's already buzzin' and Mei's planning some new attachments for her gear, so it's going to be...yeah, pretty hectic."

"Ohhh," his mother hummed, eyes crinkling. "Yes, the sports festival. I remember."

"Power Loader even has us training with the hero course staff to prepare," he half laughs, watching his mother's mouth thin.

"Heroes?" she whispered, gripping the blanket tighter in her lap, knuckles pale. "You don't want to do that, do you, Zuku? It's so dangerous...heroes always end up hurt."

He shook his head quickly, leaning forward. "No, no, nothing like that, Mum. It's just practice drills—basic stuff, nothing risky," he assured her. "They just want us to learn how our gear works under different conditions, that's all."

Her shoulders eased, though her fingers still clung to the fabric. Izuku could only sigh as he took her hand into his, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles in a weak attempt at comfort. She was silent for a few moments, her brows still furrowed.

"You did it last year, didn't you?" she said suddenly, her voice warming. "I watched you on the telly. You were so fast—I remember everyone was cheering when you...when you—"

She faltered, brow knitting as she searched for the memory that wasn't there.

Izuku didn't correct her.

Instead, he smiled and spoke softly, "Yeah, it was...pretty cool, huh? I couldn't even believe it myself."

Her face lit with a tired pride, and for a moment, it didn't matter that her memory was wrong. All that mattered was that she was proud of him. He'd take that.

He shifted back, moving her tea more firmly into her hands as he spoke, "You'll have to watch me again this year. I'll make sure to do even better than last time."

"Of course, baby," she murmured, eyes slipping half-closed again. "You always make me so proud."

His chest warmed from the compliment, but he brushed off the feeling quickly. She didn't even know what she was saying.

"Here, have some of your tea."

"Oh, right, yes. Did you want some tea?" She looked up at him after taking a generous sip.

"Oh, no, I'm okay," he gave her shoulder as soft squeeze as he stepped past, then slowly moved around the room. He checked the monitors he had installed, adjusting a couple settings he'd noted were a little off during the week, then began to restock her pill case for when her carer next paid her a visit.

She asked questions as he worked and he answered as best he could, offering a couple stories that he knew would make her happy. He even got her to laugh, a proper laugh this time, when he'd told her about one of Mei's most recent lab fires.

"That girl...she sounds like trouble," she wheezed through a laugh and shook her head.

"The good kind," Izuku assured, smiling faintly as he clicked the pillbox lid shut and tucked it away behind an old photo of him and his mother from when he was a kid, a small label stuck on the bottom reading 'Me and Izuku'. "Mostly."

She hummed as though she wasn't quite convinced, though her eyes sparkled with that soft amusement she used to wear all the time. For a heartbeat, it was like seeing her again—really seeing her—but the spark faded almost as quickly as it came, leaving behind that faraway, glassy stare he'd come to know.

Izuku's chest tightened, a dull ache blooming behind his ribs. He hated the way it made him feel, like part of her was slipping through his fingers no matter how tightly he tried to hold on. It wasn't fair. It never felt fair. He hated it. That stupid hollow feeling that sometimes grew in his chest. It was stupid. So stupid.

They sat together a little longer, talking softly, Izuku prompting her to tell him what she'd gotten up to this week. He made sure she finished her tea and adjusted her blanket so it was tucked more firmly around her legs. She murmured her thanks in that drifting, distracted way of hers, already forgetting she'd thanked him two minutes before.

Eventually, he checked the time on his phone and winced. "I should get going, Mum. I promised Mei I'd meet her to head back to school soon."

She blinked up at him, as though waking from a dream, then gave him a small smile. "Always so busy these days."

"Not too busy to see you," he reassured her, crouching by her chair so she didn't have to crane her neck. "I'll come by again soon, okay?"

Her hand lifted weakly, trembling just enough that he leaned in to make it easier for her. Her fingers brushed across his cheek, tucking an unruly curl behind his ear the way he used to when he was small, and for a moment - for a brief, bittersweet moment - he felt like he was eight years old again, curled against her side on the sofa. Felt like everything was back to normal again, back to when she could remember. Back to when her touch was safe.

He hated dwelling on the past and forced himself to stand. He needed to get going anyway, no point lingering. He had stuff to do.

"Love you mum, I'll see you soon, yeah?"

He leaned down and kissed her forehead, still cool from the room's AC. She smelled like lavender and warm wool, though the undercurrent of her favourite perfume still lingered. At least some things never changed. As he turned to go, she called softly after him—

"Zuku?"

His steps halted. "Yeah?"

"Do you know when Hisashi gets back?"

His hand clenched around the strap of his bag. He didn't look back, not fully.

"No, I don't."

He left the flat pretty quickly after that, almost jumping down the stairs two at a time until he was back amongst the bustling streets of Musutafu. He shook the tension from his shoulders, moving the letters in his pocket into his bag as he went.

"Ugh," he groaned, running a hand through his hair and giving his cheek a light slap to shake that horrid feeling from his shoulders.

God he hated when she asked him that. Sometimes he wished he could just grab her by the shoulders and shake the truth into her.

"Stupid," he grumbled, kicking a particularly large pebble and watching it skitter across the pavement.

He still had forty minutes until he needed to be back to meet Mei and the streets were loud enough at this hour that nobody would notice him. Not the office workers in suits streaming back from late lunches and business meetings. Not the young families getting some last minute shopping in before the shops shut. Not the occasional hero flickering past overhead, capes snagging in the wind, and their names being shouted from below by wide eyed children. To all of them, he was just another teenager with a hood tugged low, trudging toward the train line. Invisible.

Which was exactly what he needed to be.

Izuku pulled his hood lower over his eyes as he crossed the cracked pavement, the faint smell of fried oil and old rain mixing to form an almost rotting-like scent in the narrow backstreet. The laundromat looked as lifeless as ever with its neon '24 HOUR WASH' sign flickering above the entrance, only half its letters still working.

Izuku pushed through the glass door with little fanfare, the bell jingling overhead to announce his arrival. Inside, the machines droned in hollow rhythms, most out of order, a few tumbling clothes that probably hadn't belonged to paying customers in years. A single old woman dozed in the corner with a basket of sheets on her lap.

Mrs. Mamoru.

She lived in a small house nearby with her nine cats and the memory of her long dead husband. Izuku only knew she had nine cats since he used to frequently help her catch them after they escaped and ran away. She would always reward him after with cookies and a cup of tea...a terrible cup of tea that he would always sneakily pour into one of the litter boxes in her home, mind you, but a kind gesture nonetheless.

Deciding not to disturb her, he moved round the washing machines and crossed to the row of dryers in the back corner, just past the change machine. He counted along until he was at the third machine from the end.

He crouched, appropriate coin clinking softly against his ring as he twirled it back and forth between his fingers. He opened the money tray and slotted the gold coin in before shutting it once more. The machine rattled, gears inside clicking in a rhythm far too complex for a mere load of washing. The sound shifted into something deeper, lower, like a note held too long on a bass string, and then there was a small cling as the coin dropped through.

Izuku straightened and pulled his hood further forward, making sure his mask was in place as the drum shuddered once, the false bottom rolled back, and a narrow gap yawned open.

The hum beyond rose to meet him like a living thing.

Izuku slipped inside.

The stairs down were narrow and spiralled, the metal painted black so the edges disappeared underfoot. He was so glad they finally caved and added a small handrail. He couldn't count on two hands how many times he'd accidentally slipped and tumbled down these stairs like a slinky.

He still had a kink in his finger from the time he'd broken it when trying to catch himself on one of the steps to halt his fall. Yeah...not one of his proudest moments. It hadn't even worked, so he broke his finger for nothing.

The air changed with each step down—colder, heavier, buzzing faintly with that familiar low static hum. By the time he reached the bottom, the walls shook with the muffled beat of basslines that weren't quite music.

The Static lived up to its name.

It was always the first thing that hit him—the sound. A constant wash of layered white noise, a storm of audio filters designed to drown out conversation, to erase the edges of words so no recording could catch them clean. To most people, it was unbearable after a few minutes, but Izuku had long since learned to push past the thrum. It almost soothed him now, like pressure on a bruise.

"If it isn't the Bug."

The greeting came from Tusk, the tusked man-mountain stationed by the inner door. His grin split the scar tissue across his cheek as he eyed Izuku's hooded figure.

"Haven't seen you round here in a while."

"Been busy," came Izuku's response, voice twisted by the mask strapped across his lower face. An old respirator rig, modded with a slimline filter and a built-in voice scrambler he'd soldered himself. The effect turned his words metallic, a buzz overlaid with faint distortion. Coupled with the hood, the shadows across his eyes, and the faint tick tick tick of the modulator, it was enough to keep Cicada faceless.

A dumb name, he was fully aware, but he also hadn't been the one to coin it. The blame for that went entirely to RJ.

"It would seem so," Tusk agreed as he stepped aside, revealing the iron door behind him. Izuku handed off a couple coin as he passed, a small thanks to the bouncer as he stepped through the entryway.

The Static sprawled wider than it had any right to, a long room broken by crooked pillars and patched-together soundproof panels. It was a half-lit warren of booths and counters, smoke curling through vents, the buzz of neon strips painting the low ceiling in fractured colour. The air reeked faintly of oil, alcohol, and ozone.

There were a number of doors dotted around the space, each leading somewhere entirely different. Izuku hadn't had the privilege of exploring all of them, but he had hope he'd get there some day.

The crowd shifted like currents: hustlers trading hardware, mercs lounging with heavy boots propped up on tables, scavengers hawking stripped drones and gutted villain tech from crates stacked like market stalls on the far side. And on the left wall, the battered sign behind the bar still read 'SPIN CYCLE'—an inside joke amongst the regulars.

No cameras. No questions. Everyone here had something to buy or something to sell. No exceptions.

RJ spotted Izuku before he'd even cleared the main floor. The bartender's smile was sharp under the glow of the old jukebox, her calico hair caught up in a mess of pins. She raised two fingers in greeting as she came to lean against the counter, toothpick flicking between her teeth.

"Where you been, Bug?" she spoke in greeting, voice carrying through the layers of white noise like it always did. RJ had a way of being heard. "We were starting to think the paranoia had finally gotten to ya."

Izuku muttered something unflattering under his breath about the nickname, but his mask blurred it to illegible static. "Patch here yet?" he asked as he slid onto a stool, moving his rucksack onto his lap.

"Yeah, he's in the one of the ports," RJ answered as she turned to grab Izuku his usual. "Should be back in a bit. Left me to babysit his junkers."

She jerked her chin toward a milk crate stuffed with broken drone arms and stripped-out signal jammers stacked at the end of the bar. Izuku appraised the man's small haul and felt his lip curl in confusion. What on earth did he think he could make—or pay someone else to make—with junk like that? And Izuku didn't call stuff junk lightly, since he made a habit of seeing potential where everyone else saw landfill (something he was fully aware pissed a few people off).

But this? This was the kind of mess you only picked up if you were either desperate, stupid, or running on some half-baked conspiracy theory about building an anti-surveillance crown out of duct tape and wishful thinking.

Patch really was one unique individual.

RJ set the glass down in front of Izuku with a clink that grabbed his attention once more. "So what is it this time, Bug?" Her eyes dropped to the bag on his lap before returning to his covered eyes. "Another one of your miracle fixes? Or you just here to dig through trash and make the rest of us look stupid again?"

Izuku tapped his ring against the glass, his modulator clicking faintly with each shift of his breath. "Depends who's paying."

RJ chuckled low, swapping her toothpick out for a cigarette. "Funny you say that. Someone's been asking for you. Wanted code, not scrap. Big money. You interested?"

Izuku's hand stilled on his glass. He didn't answer right away.

"What kind of code?"

"Beats me," RJ shrugged, moving to look busy by wiping down the bar. "He mentioned something about corprate backends, but you'd have to ask Hound."

Izuku grimaced at the mention of the broker. It wasn't Hound's information that bothered him—the man's intel was usually reliable—but his quirk made him insufferable to deal with. Hound had a nose for chemical signals, which meant he could smell emotions like other people smelled cheap perfume. Useful, sure, especially in this line of work where being able to sniff out a rat could be taken quite literally, but by god was that the only good thing about him.

Hound wasn't any kind of stellar crook, in fact, he got picked up by the police almost weekly. His information was good, but his inability to lie and overall lack of subtlety made him a disaster to work with. Not to mention his constant, wet chewing of gum. Smack. Smack. Smack.

It was disgusting.

The mere thought of working with him was enough to set Izuku's teeth on edge.

Why did it have to be him?

Izuku shifted his glass an inch to the side, watching the condensation slide down onto the bar's warped wood. He didn't like where this conversation was going.

"You're not selling it very well," he muttered, voice flattened by the modulator.

RJ snorted. "Since when do I have to? You'll go see him anyway. Curiosity's your worst habit, Bug."

"Stop calling me Bug," he remarked as he mulled over his options. He knew the request was futile, but he made a point of saying it at least once every time he came in.

RJ's smirk was easy, practiced, but her eyes flicked down the bar, tracking the flow of bodies moving in and out of the various entrances. Sure, Izuku used the Laundromat, but this place had five locations across the city that spat you out here—though Izuku was almost 100% sure there were more that people like RJ knew about that the rest of the patrons weren't privy to.

Someone had probably already clocked him sitting here, too. Izuku hated that thought, hated that familiar itch crawling up the back of his neck. He wasn't nearly paranoid enough for this job, and still—he never felt clean.

RJ leaned against the bar, one eyebrow raised. "So. You in? Or do I tell Hound you're busy knitting sweaters with scrap metal again?"

Izuku tilted his head, hood shadowing the movement. "What's the pay?"

"Enough you'll be able to buy out every bin in this place for a month."

That pulled at him. Just a little. His hands stilled against the rim of the glass. A score like that could keep him flush with parts for weeks. Maybe even long enough that Mei wouldn't notice how much of his stipend disappeared into 'projects' that never made it back to Power Loader's workshop.

RJ watched him think, one corner of her mouth twitching upward. "I'll set the meet, then."

"I didn't say yes."

"You didn't say no." She winked, already sliding down the bar to serve a man who'd just banged his empty glass for attention.

Izuku sat there a long moment, the music pressing in, the conversations blurring into noise. His fingers drummed against the bag in his lap, the patched strap warm against his palm. He hated Hound. He hated being this visible. But—dammit—he couldn't ignore big money when it landed in his lap. Even if it now meant full blown cybercrime.

Okay, yes, this wouldn't be the first time. But Izuku didn't want to make a habit out of it. The more involved he got, the more likely the police would come sniffing, and where you got the police, the heroes were soon to follow.

With a quiet sigh, he shifted his mask to quickly drain his drink, the modulator clicking faintly as he shifted it back into place.

Izuku wasn't supposed to be reckless when he came here. Cicada was smart. Cicada was careful. Cicada kept his head down. Cicada knew not to end up on the police's radar.

How else would he have been able to do this work for almost 5 years without a single policeman or hero sniffing around?

Cicada was smart...but Cicada also couldn't afford to walk away.

The medical and electrical bills in his bag felt like they were burning through the fabric. Fuck! Fine. Fine!

He'd work with Hound.

But this would be the last time. The last time.

It wasn't long after that that RJ nodded her head over Izuku's shoulder and next thing he knew, Patch was sliding into the seat beside him.

"Cicada, Cicada, Cicada," Patch sang, his voice half-laugh, half-sigh. "Kid, you're too punctual, it makes me nervous."

Izuku didn't even glance at him. "Or maybe you're just always late."

Patch clutched his chest like Izuku had stabbed him. It wasn't like that thought hadn't crossed his mind a time or two. "Ouch. Straight to the heart. You wound me."

"You'll live," Izuku muttered.

"Debatable," Patch grinned, leaning in with that manic light in his eyes. "So. What have you got for your favourite, most reliable customer? Don't tell me it's another bundle of code—my clients still don't know what the hell to do with the last one. Sell me something they can hold this time, eh?"

Izuku adjusted his bag and unzipped it. Inside was a compact, jury-rigged stabiliser rig: a portable mount meant to absorb vibration from drones or cameras, reassembled from scrap and old gyro parts.

He wouldn't call it his best work, but he also hadn't used some of his good parts since he was saving them for another project he was working on for a different client.

"Shock-dampener stabiliser," Izuku said flatly. "Custom rig. You won't find one this smooth unless you shell out for imports."

Patch's scarred hands were already reaching out, fingers twitching with greed. "This the toy?"

"Careful," Izuku warned, waiting for Patch to stop pawing. The man was like a kid in a candy shop when it came to tech. For all his misgivings and obvious personality quirks, Patch sure did have a brain in his head. He played the game well.

Izuku pulled it free and set it down on the bar between them. Patch was quick to pounce and spun it experimentally in his grip. The device hummed perfectly, the stabilisers kicking in with seamless grace. No wobble, no catch, just smooth correction.

Patch's grin stretched, wolfish and delighted. "Oh, now that's sexy. Smooth as silk. Your skills are wasted here, Cicada. You should be on somebody's payroll, building toys for the big leagues." He winked, teeth flashing. "Though that's lucky for the rest of us bottom-feeders. Means we get first dibs on your genius."

Izuku arched a brow. "Big leagues don't pay in cash, and they sure as hell don't pay on time."

Patch barked a laugh. "Good, you're learning. Next you'll be charging a finder's fee and a hazard bonus. That's when I'll know you've fully embraced the dark side."

"Don't lump me in with you," Izuku shot him a distasteful glare under his mask. It was almost insulting.

"You say that," Patch wagged a finger, still beaming, "but you keep showing up when I call."

"Because you keep paying."

Patch slapped the bar, cackling like Izuku had just told the world's funniest joke.

"You're a freak, Cicada," he said finally, turning the rig over once more. "Don't know how you do it."

"Torque ratios," Izuku said flatly, reclaiming his drink from the bar when RJ placed down his refil. "People ignore the basics."

"Basics, he says!" Patch laughed, looking to RJ with pure amusement in his eyes as he turned the rig over in his palms. "You'd be surprised how many so-called geniuses forget to even check load-bearing before they wire things together."

"Then maybe I should start charging more."

"Oh-ho!" Patch wagged a finger. "Careful, kid. I've only just scraped enough together to pay you this time. Don't break my fragile heart by raising your prices."

"Pretty sure your heart's collateral by now."

Patch cackled, head tipping back. "God, you're brutal."

A folded stack of bills slid across the bar under Patch's palm. Izuku counted quickly, lips pressing into a thin line, then tucked the money away. The stabiliser vanished under Patch's coat like it had never been there.

Patch winked. "Pleasure doing business with you, as always."

Business, clean and simple, how Izuku preferred it.

RJ, polishing a glass behind the counter, shot Izuku a knowing look.

"What?" he asked, tilting his head.

"You keep showing up with toys no one else can fix," RJ said it like it was obvious.

"So?" He'd been doing it for almost five years, what was different now?

"People have started asking how you keep pulling it off."

"So?" Izuku reiterated, still not really caring.

RJ sighed, leaning over the counter. "You've got eyes on you, kid. Word gets around. Too many clean hand-offs, too many ghosts in the code. Folks are starting to whisper."

"Whispering's fine," Izuku dismissed with the same amount of care he does his english lessons with Present Mic. "It's when they shout I'll worry."

RJ arched a brow, lips twitching. "Cocky little shit." She stepped away and reached for another glass to start wiping down. "Speaking of whispers—something floated through earlier."

Izuku raised a brow, pretending disinterest even as eyes flickered up to hers. "...yeah?"

"Some lab contracts are getting reassigned from Hosu to Jaku City. Heard it's funding redirection, boring corporate stuff mostly, but people are pissed about losing the Hosu money. There's some doctor's name tied up in it but nobody's ever met 'em."

Izuku's brows ticked inward, mulling over the implications. "...so what, rich people got bored of one playground and bought another?"

"Maybe. But when rich people start moving money around this fast, someone's either covering tracks or clearing space." RJ pointed the glass at him. "And when people don't know who's holding the purse strings? That's the sort of thing that bites kids like you."

Izuku looked away, pretending to scan the bins stacked near the back wall. "Good thing I'm not a kid, then."

RJ chuckled. "Sure you're not."

"I could just be short."

"Come on," RJ scoffed. "No matter how many modifiers you use, your voice still hasn't hit puberty yet."

"Geez," Izuku huffed. "I could be a girl."

"Not with hips like those you're not."

"Wow," Izuku deadpanned. "If I was a kid, not saying I am, you've just admitted to checking me out."

RJ froze mid-wipe, then laughed so hard she nearly dropped the glass. "You little bastard. Don't you twist this on me."

"Big words from someone checking out a kid."

"I can still have you banned. Underage drinking is illegal, you know," she reminded him.

"I'm pretty selling to minors is worse," he countered.

"Thought you said you weren't a minor."

"Last I checked, this bar wasn't even legal."

"Touche..." her eyes narrowed, but Izuku could see the underlying amusement.

"So," he changed topic, "how much stuff can I get for...three coins and..." Izuku flicked through his freshly acquired wad of cash and pulled out a neat chunk, "a hundred thousand?"

RJ barked a laugh, though mulled over his question for a few seconds. "Depends. You want legit stock, or you want to go dumpster-diving in my bins again?"

Izuku smirked faintly. "You say dumpster-diving like it's not the highlight of my week."

RJ shook her head, chuckling. "Kid, you're the only one who gets excited about fried processors and busted drone shells. Everyone else brings 'em in for scrap weight."

"Everyone else is an idiot," Izuku said flatly, sliding the bills across the counter, three coins balanced precariously on top. "So, what'll it be?"

RJ scooped up the money, counted it with an experienced flick of her thumb, then tucked it into the strap of her bra. "For this much? I'll give you half a bin to yourself and first pick of the new drop that came in yesterday."

"Only half a bin?" Izuku's eyes narrowed.

"Half a bin and one sealed crate," RJ countered. "Don't push your luck, Cicada."

"...fine," Izuku conceded, hopping down from the stool. There was no point haggling further — the deal was already generous. "But if the crate's full of fried alarm clocks again, I'm sending them back gift wrapped."

RJ grinned, shaking her head. "Yeah, yeah. Go on then, kid. Bin's in the back. Don't cut yourself."

Izuku tugged his hood lower and headed toward the side door, pulse ticking faster than his feet admitted.

The bins were a mess. Rusted metal tubs shoved against the wall, half-covered with tarps, stacked with battered tech that had filtered its way down from black market suppliers, police auctions, or 'liberated' from warehouses by people who knew how to move fast and not get caught. Broken laptops with missing screens, smart tablets bent clean in half, quirk-monitoring devices stripped of their casing, hero-licensed support tech that had been bricked but not destroyed properly. A treasure trove disguised as a junkyard, if you knew what you were looking at.

And Izuku knew.

He crouched down, running a practiced hand over the pile. Most of it was garbage, true, but a fried circuit board here, a busted exosuit actuator there, stripped power regulators, cracked HUD visors — there was a lot of potential. Things he could fix, rewire, or strip for parts.

By the time he was done, he'd pulled half a bin's worth out into a pile, everything organised into a puzzle only he seemed to understand. It mostly consisted of small components, nothing that would draw too much attention.

He did have to hide this stuff in his U.A. dorm, after all. He doubted he could get away with bringing in the quirk-regulation scanner that he found buried under a pile of smashed printers. Yeah...Nedzu would definitely have questions.

Don't mind me, Nedzu, just lugging in a large piece of contraband medical-grade surveillance equipment, nothing to see here. Right. That would go over so well.

Well...the rest of this stuff was also contraband, what was one more piece?

Caving to literally no pressure what so ever, he grabbed the device and wrapped in some loose cloth floating round the bins so it wouldn't clank against the other pieces. Nobody had to know.

He loaded as much as he could into his rucksack, the remaining pieces getting stuffed into a small shoulder sack he'd found mixed up amongst the rubble. He doubted RJ would care if he took it. She rarely did.

The bin still looked like a junk heap, but he could already see half a dozen projects in his mind—patchwork rigs, power rerouters, even something Mei might actually find useful if he could get the actuator housing rebalanced...and check to make sure there were no logos left printed anywhere. Mei and her eyes could sniff out just about anything.

He hefted his rucksack onto one shoulder and the sack onto the other, wincing at the uneven weight. Probably too much to be hauling through campus without drawing attention. Then again, Mei was coming back with probably five times as many bags given her shopaholic tendencies. He'd be fine...maybe...

Nedzu had also given up on scanning staff and students' luggage after the whole situation at the end of last year wherein someone—though everyone knew who—had been flagged for having a 'mysterious device' in their possession...

It was a vibrator.

Safe to say, the mole rat Principal was horrified and thus began the slow loosening of security surrounding U.A. The school was probably more secure than a maximum security prison still, but at least there was no airport scanner at the front gate.

"Find everything you wanted?" RJ asked as Izuku came wandering back through.

"Just about," he confirmed as he watched her drop a crate on the bar top with a heavy thump.

"As promised, one sealed crate," she waved a hand at the dirtied wood. "Don't say I don't take care of you."

Izuku leaned in, running his hand over the faded logo burned into the side. The lettering was half-scraped away, but he could still make out Takoba Freight Co. stamped under a layer of grime. Dockside. Probably fell off a truck—or was pushed. The edges of the crate were dented and scored, the kind of damage you didn't get from careful handling.

"You sure this wasn't on the manifest?" he asked, brow raised as he tested the lid for give.

RJ snorted, pulling out a box of cigarettes and taking one to her lips. "Kid, if it was, you wouldn't be looking at it. Dock rats barely cracked the seal before moving it along. Fresh enough that I didn't even peek. Figured you'd enjoy the surprise."

"Or it's a bomb," Izuku muttered, more to himself than her, though RJ laughed anyway.

"That'd be a hell of a way to thin out the competition, huh?" she grinned around her smoke.

Izuku rolled his eyes but dragged the crate a little closer, his rucksack tugging at his shoulder as he shifted. Whatever was inside rattled faintly—a scatter of metal, like loose bolts or components that had shaken free in transit. Not heavy enough for full machines. Sounded more like...parts. Useful parts.

RJ tilted her head, eyeing him as he worked the sack strap higher on his shoulder. "So? Worth your while, or am I gonna hear you bitch about me swindling you next week?"

"You'll hear me bitch either way," Izuku deadpanned, but there was a faint spark in his eye as he tapped the lid again, mentally cataloguing possibilities. "But yeah. This'll do."

RJ smirked, flicking ash into an empty shot glass. "Knew it. This shit is like candy for you."

"Guess that makes you my dealer," he shot back, tugging the sack strap once more before straightening.

RJ's laugh cracked through the room, rough and genuine. "Damn right. Now—" she leaned forward on the counter, voice dropping low, "—I got a whisper off the new drop, too. Nothing flashy, nothing I'd usually bother telling you. But you like boring shit, so maybe you'll bite."

Izuku frowned faintly. "Define 'boring.'"

"Some corporate shipment rerouted last-minute. Papers said it was just redundant diagnostic kits for hospital gear." She shrugged. "But the suits don't call in extra security for boxes of spare monitors unless something's hiding in the stacks."

Izuku's frown deepened, thoughtful. Hospital gear...extra security...he filed it away for later, though doubted it meant much. A lot of business had increased their security in the last year, especially since the rise in Villain organisations following the League. This was likely just RJ or her contact reading too far into things.

"Yeah," he nodded, feigning a casual shrug. "That's boring."

RJ snorted. "Fine. Here," she flashed a USB, "this was in the new drop yesterday. Thought you'd make the most sense out of it."

"You're not trying to bug me, are you?" Izuku quirked a brow even though he knew she couldn't see.

"Isn't bugging people your job?" She shot back. "Little spy-boy, scavenger rat, crawling through junk with your nose in everyone else's business."

Izuku snorted, slipping the USB into his pocket without hesitation. "If I were spying, you'd already be in jail, RJ."

"If I were worried about that, you wouldn't be standing here," she countered, dragging hard on her cigarette. Her eyes narrowed through the smoke, sharp and amused. "Now get out before I start charging you rent."

"Pleasure as always," Izuku rolled his eyes as he grabbed his newly acquired crate and left the same way he came in. 

When he emerged back into the laundromat, blinking against the stale fluorescent lights, the sun had already dropped lower in the sky and his mask was safely tucked away from prying eyes.

Much to his surprise, by the time Izuku made it back across town, he'd actually beaten Mei to their meeting spot and settled for passing the time on his phone. They would probably be heading back to U.A. soon anyway, he really didn't need the hassle of Mr. Nakano calling Power Loader because they were late back. It had happened once the year prior and Izuku still had nightmares about that man's glare. It was horrifying.

He shuddered at the memory, just as he heard his name being called. He glanced up just in time to see his shopping bag clad friend running along the pavement with a shit eating grin.

"Zuku! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to be late!" Mei was quick to apologise. "I found another capsule machine and—okay, I might have gone a little overboard, but in my defense it was the rare glow-in-the-dark edition."

"You? Overboard? I would've never guessed," Izuku remarked, voice dripping with sarcasm as he slipped his phone into his back pocket.

"Hey! Don't give me that look. You would've done the same thing if it was one of your hero figurine blind boxes."

"...fair," he admitted reluctantly, though his lips twitched despite himself.

Mei's eyes dropped to the side of his bag as she adjusted her own endless stack of shopping bags. "What's in the crate? Don't tell me you finally caved and bought another one of those limited-run circuit boards without me."

Izuku shook his head quickly, careful not to let his expression waver. "Nah, nothing like that. Just some old stuff Mum wanted me to take back with me. Couple pictures and I think she threw in some snacks, not sure yet. It's supposed to be a surprise."

"Ohhh," Mei nodded, though her curious eyes lingered a moment longer. "Man, I wish my parents made me care packages. The closest I get is my dad sending me invoices for parts he thinks I borrowed, which I definitely didn't, by the way."

"Oh no, you definitely didn't scrap your mum's panini press last time you went home," Izuku agreed. "It was the thinker fairies."

"Asshole!" Mei huffed, though the grin on her face gave her away. She was always meddling with her parent's tech. Since he met her, he could recall fourteen times she'd called him up in the middle of the night for help after she broke one of their kitchen appliances in an attempt to 'upgrade' them.

They walked a few paces in easy silence before she glanced at him again. "So, how was your mum? Have a nice time?"

"Yeah, it was nice. She made me lunch and we just chatted for a bit." The lie was easy, easier than explaining how he'd spent most of the visit making sure she'd actually taken her meds and coaxing her awake long enough for a cup of tea.

Mei beamed. "That's great! I'm glad. You look way more relaxed than when you left."

He hummed in acknowledgment, his newly acquired tech weighing him down significantly. It was the USB burning a hole in his pocket that he was most curious about. He never got given USBs...something about people not trusting him to not take apart the files inside and poke at them until they revealed more than they were supposed to.

Which, okay, fair. He would do that.

He just wasn't sure what he was going to spend the night prodding and poking on his laptop...

Oh shit. He still had those gauntlets he needed to finish for Fujita.

Eh, he'd get it done. He always did.

"C'mon," Mei tugged his arm, "let's head back. I have so much stuff I wanna show you."

"Oh no, please don't tell me you're going to do a—"

"Fashion show!"

Izuku couldn't hide his frown if he tried. "I don't think there are enough words to express how much I don't want to do that."

"I don't care." She handed him half of her bags as they walked.

And now he was a her personal butler. What was new?