Izuku ends up starting a fist fight with one of the maternity nurses who was apparently a rabid Shouto stan. Who knew?
She had gone fucking crazy as soon as Natsuo said those words. He'd translate but really, they were quite unfit for polite society.
She had swung at his fice and then latched onto his hair. There's a reason why he keeps it short nowadays. Izuku, startled, punchs her straight into the solar plexus. Her grip slackens and he flips her over his shoulder and pins her.
She thrashes and bucks wildly, spitting and snarling. Then Izuku is body-slammed by apparently another Shouto fan.
This guy is big and heavy, reeking heavily of Alpha dominance pheromes and Izuku fucking loses it. Not his first fucking rodeo with Alphas who think they're hot shit and he's learnt his lessons in blood.
The alpha tries to make him submit, rumbling heavily in his chest but Izuku growls low in his chest, a warning to not mess with an enraged dam. "Try me, bitch," He spits, smiling feraly.
The alpha roars, his fragile fucking masculinity insulted being called a bitch, and swings. Izuku deems this bastard fair game and decks him hard . Dick Alpha staggers back.
The nurse, now recovered, launches onto his back and nearly brings him down. She's one heavy bitch.
Izuku lets himself fall backwards and lands with all his weight on her, effectively stunning her again. He kicks the alpha looming closer, pushing him away to give him some space.
"You just gonna watch or not?!" He yells, enraged that out of an entire room of onlookers, none of them were helping him.
Thankfully, speaking breaks the spell on the room. Immediately, two burly nurses spring forward to restrain the alpha. One of the surgery techs pins down the screeching nurse, trying to calm her down.
Immediately once everyone is restrained, the security director, a team of guards with him, arrives.
Kotobuki, a grim-faced beta, asks the room, "What the hell happened here?"
Ono pipes up, "Doctor Midoriya got attacked because he fucked Shouto Todoroki."
Izuku just groans. This rumor is never going to die now.
Enji squints at the file before him, hands clasped before him.
The childrens' files had been pretty normal, mostly medical data alongside school records. Hiori Hana had been listed as their primary guardian from ages four to six. It corresponds with Izuku's residency overseas.
Enji can see his son's face in Sabuki. Her hair and eyes are Izuku's, verdant green like a forest in the depths of summer, growing and thriving, but her face–oh, her face is exactly like his Shouto's when he was child, eerily placid and stoic for one so young. She has a frown exactly like Shouto's when he's utterly confused. His heart twinges when he sees her school picture, easily seeing the resemblance.
Chiharu has a round, sweet face. He shares his eyes with Shouto though, not just in heterochromia, but also in their shape. They have a half-lidded look to them, calm and sleepy. His hair, a soft brown, doesn't curl like his siblings and dams' but instead straight and floppy. Chiharu has a bowl-cut, like Shouto did at his age, and in the printed out of the photo taken from social media, he smiles charmingly up at the camera, holding an Endeavor plush toy won from the carnival.
In the next photo, the three siblings are all posed together for a photo and Atsuhiko looks almost like the mirror image of Touya. The same rougish grin, curly white hair, brash stance echoes in him. Sure, Atsuhiko's hair is green at the roots, fading out to white, but still the resemblance is uncanny to his Touya.
"Uh, sir?" Miyake, his assistant, hesitantly asks, "Are you alright?"
"Yes, yes," He waves them off with hand, wiping the stray tears, "Just very happy that I have such beautiful grandchildren."
Miyake looks at the photos themself, before retorting, "While the resemblance is certainly there, sir, I would suggest you get DNA tests. You wouldn't want a repeat of the Changeling Incident." With that, they grabbed a stack of completed paperwork and left to file it.
Miyake's sheer disregard for propriety and their frankness to voice opinions is why Enji keeps them around. Or as Touya said, "Miyake doesn't give a shit if you're the Number 1 hero, they'll call you out on your bullshit."
However, the Midoriya family wasn't all sunshine and smiles. The dam, Midoriya Izuku, was the dark spot on their pristine record.
Enji could recognize that the majority of school reports in Izuku's youth were likely due to his status. He didn't judge him the boy for it, it's not like he could control what he was born as. The school records painted him as an idiot and a troublemaker but the national exams put him the 99th percentile of scorers. From his experience, if someone said 2+2=93, you looked closer because something wasn't adding up.
The Aldera school had a prominent amount of complaints against and had closed down three years ago, due to a formal investigation finding rampant corruption and turning a blind eye to bullying and abuse. Enji made note that Ground Zero also came from this school.
As a hero, Enji can only request school records, police files, medical records and residences if said person was paying the bills. Any banking records require special paperwork in order to view. While getting the files quickly is certainly helpful for solving cases, he can't help but not how easily it would be for a hero to abuse the system. After all, what he's technically doing right now could be called an abuse of power. Though… he can make an argument that he's preventing another Changeling Incident from happening to Shouto again. Yes, that should hold up as a viable excuse.
Hana's claim that Izuku was kicked out when he was twenty matched up with residence records. He started renting out a one-room apartment, nearly 9 years ago. Six years ago, Hana and Midoriya moved to a larger two-room apartment. It coincides with Hana getting hired under Markeru Agency as a sidekick. Enji sees a picture being painted and he's not sure if he likes it.
Izuku attended Tokyo University on a full-ride scholarship, majoring in neurosurgery with a minor in cybernetic surgery. He graduated in high honors, top of the class and high in class rankings. His professors opinions on him range from bigoted to disparaging to neutral, not a single one of them truly positive over the only quirkless student in the cohort, but all of them agree that he is clever and skillful.
Izuku's own medical records are sparse. Bare minimum doctor visits, one broken arm as a child, the medical records only pick up once he becomes an adult. Enji writes down to check into Inko Midoriya and Hisashi Midoriya on sticky note. Prenatal visits all on time and easy delivery, the only thing the OB noted was that Izuku seemed to be displaying Mate Separation Syndrome though the father was a one-night stand.
Enji squints, putting on his reading glasses. Did he read that right? Yeah, no that was what the doctor put down. That is certainly strange… though some of Shouto's own behavior makes sense. It's interesting that Izuku was diagnosed with it while Shouto wasn't. There was a stigma against Mate Seperation Syndrom in Alphas so perhaps the signs of it were ignored.
It was a lot to think over, he had to admit. Enji had a niggling sense of curiosity on how Izuku and Shouto had seemingly bonded over one night. It was even stranger how this bond seemed to persist even throughout the years. Was it because they had children? Was that what kept them tied together? Or was it something else entirely?
"Strange…" He lit up a cigarette. "This all just gets stranger and stranger, the more I look into it."
A few minutes later, the door burst open, "No smoking!" Miyake commanded him out with an imperious finger. "We added a balcony for this! Go use it!"
Enji hid a smile, meekly following their command.
"And I'll bring the next item on the agenda for you while you're out there!"
Ah fuck.
Ueno did end up being a good lead, actually. Izuku's "mom sense" was spot on.
The preliminary agents from the Underground Hero Coalition, Eidolon and Ironclad if she recalled correctly, had found three people at the warehouse. Three of them had been bound in metal. Eidolon had reported that there were four bound originally, but one had managed to escape.
Eidolon's psychometric analysis of the remains of the exploded warehouse stated that there had previously been children in there, two dead and twenty-six alive. The source of the explosion was an industrial water heater that had experienced a failure.
Eidolon couldn't give a direct answer, but was able to identify that it happened because of a quirk. Hiori would bet solid money that Chiharu had used his quirk to explode it. Ironclad's anaylsis was cold but grim. Creati's assumption that the kids were taken for organ trade was correct.
All in all, the kids had managed to escape on their own but the organ traders were looking for them. It was now a race against time who would find them first.
Hiori stares resolutely ahead, surrounded by heroes. Most are from Endeavor Agency but some are underground heroes and others were called in from other agencies. This is a big cross-agency case, though probably not the biggest of the year.
There's nothing else to do but wait, wait until they act. So she just waits, surrounded by her fellow heroes on the bus. She worries her bracelet between her fingers, the one kids had made.
Green thread for Sabuki, for her hair, for her fire. Purple thread for Chiharu because it's his favorite color. White for Atsuhiko to represent his ice, for his hair fades out to white even though its green at the roots. Izuku is red because he always wears his red shoes, because red represents blood and his work. And she is yellow because she's sunlight. Together, they are threaded together, made stronger, made into a whole, made into a family.
Shouto is three seats to her left, Hiori distinctly aware of his presnece ever since the absolute worst conversation with Endeavor, and she wonders where Shouto would fit into their family?
Is he just a stranger… or was he the father?
She doesn't look at him and he doesn't look at her.
What if he decides that Izuku and her are unfit guardians for the lil devils? What if he decides to sue them for keeping the kids from him? What then? She understands now why Izuku never reached out to him, especially after the Changeling Incident.
A knot resides in her throat, an unknown prayer whispering please, please, don't take my family away . Still, there is nary a hint of the turbulence that Hiori is going through on her face.
Hiori is worried, make no doubt about that, but she's a professional Pro Hero too. She stifles all her anxiety, dread and that small part of her that just wanted to cry from uncomprehensible fear, not for herself, but for her family. She buries those feelings deep down, where the sunlight will never reach them, letting the cold dirt cover it all up.
She's no different than Izuku really. They both don't show their true feelings, putting on different masks. She is a stern face, a fierce look in her eyes, a glittering figure that looms on the horizon ready strike. Hiori Hara prowls under the sun, every inch a predator that revels in her opponents' fear and hesitation. Izuku Midoriya is a soft smile, a quiet voice and sure hands. He fades in the shadows, watchful and analytic, waiting until the best moment to strike. Izuku Midoriya stalks through the shadows, unseen until he wants to be seen.
Izuku Midoriya and Hiori Hara are quite different but not, all at the same time.
But right now, it's time to wait and prepare, until it's time to act, it's time to let the mask slip and reveal the predator lurking inside.
Natsuo Todoroki had always been aware of Izuku Midoriya, ever since he had joined the hospital staff. It's pretty hard to ignore the man half of the rumors center around.
Natsuo likes Midoriya, thinks he's nice and an incredible doctor, but he's also terrified of him down to the marrow of his bones.
He thinks its because growing up with a Pro Hero father and Pro Hero brother has taught him something about danger and how it lurks in people. Whatever is present in Midoriya, is present in Pro Heroes. Not the type of Pros that are in it for the fame or the money, but the ones who are too good at heroics, born with the right type of quirk for heroics (or is it violence?).
Danger lurks within in Midoriya and Natsuo is not enough of a fool to ignore it nor smart enough to stay away.
Going back to the rumors, there are a ton of them about Midoriya, flocking around him like ravenous seagulls.
Most of them center around the fact that he's a single parent, without the father in sight. Natsuo can admit that asking Midoriya in the middle of the cafeteria has pretty much poured gasoline on the fires of those rumors, but he's a Todoroki! It's in their blood to drop bombshells during a meal! Just because he pretends he's not like his dad or his siblings, doesn't mean that he doesn't know how to do it. It's more like… he uses them sparingly, ha!
There are other rumors though. Some are about his residency in the Western Wastelands of North America. No one, at least no one sane, does their residency there because you were more like to die than come out alive by the end of it. Midoriya never spoke about his residency, just smiling and said it had been an intense residency but he'd learned a lot from it.
"Learned a lot from it" was an understatement apparently because Midoriya once did an thoracic aortic dissection repair during his residency. The way they found out was when an especially vicious virus had made it's way through the hospital staff. A third-year resident was supposed to do it, but the supervising surgeon, the entirety of the cardiothoracic unit honestly, had gotten sick. Midoriya ended up being the supervisor that time which was quite shocking because he's a neurosurgeon. Natsuo would be lying if he said he didn't find it hot.
Another big thing that the rumors center around, though they're not really rumors more like bigotry, is that Midoriya is quirkless. He doesn't really care about his quirk status really, Midoriya's a damn good doctor but a helluva lot of other people do. People tended to belittle Midoriya, devaluing his work.
The head of the neurosurgery department, Professor Juba, was an nasty bastard to him. Natsuo and his circle half-joke that's Juba hates Midoriya because he knows that Midoriya is competition. It's not really a joke.
Juba once left a craniectomy to Midoriya, after two back-to-backs. The only thing Midoriya said was, "If you felt that you needed some help Juba, you should've just asked." with that serene smile and unflappable demeanor.
Midoriya is a nice guy. He's always willing to help from fellows to nurses, never once lost cool and cared about his patients. That's the important part, Natsuo thinks. He's a doctor who cares and regardless of society's expectations, those are the type of people you need in the medical field.
Natsuo has always known that Midoriya has that danger lurking underneath his skin, so it's no surprise how he reacts in the cafeteria.
He's stunned as his colleagues, people's had civil conversations with, attack Midoriya and for what? Because of jealousy? Because he asked a stupid question?
In those few minutes, Midoriya fights off his attackers, Natsuo can see him. He sees Midoriya, not just the quirkless doctor, but the man who survived his residency in the Western Wasteland, a man who raised his children on his own, a man who's got steel in his knuckles and one hell of an uppercut.
Yeah, Natsuo realizes, Midoriya is hot but he's also terrifying. He can see why Shouto would be attracted to him. Something about heroes and being adrenaline junkies. Nothing turns them on like sleeping with someone who can also kill you.
When the security director, motions for Midoriya to come with, Natsuo follows. It is because of him that Midoriya got attacked after all.
He trails behind the entourage. Midoriya is the shortest among them, disheveled in his scrubs but with a commanding presences that Natsuo had never noticed before. Midoriya always wears a black skintight shirt underneath. It's got a high cut that covers the majority of his neck and the sleeves stop just above his elbow. He's never seen anyone else wear such a thing underneath their scrubs, maybe a shirt underneath if they get cold, but this outfit never changes.
"Midoriya, go get checked out," Kotobuki commands. "We need to check these guys out too before they get any charges laid on them."
Midoriya nods and twists away, Natsuo dawdling a few meters away.
Midoriya's eyes flick towards him, an unnambeable darkness lurking within, "Might as well as make yourself useful, Todoroki."
They sequester themselves in an empty examination room. Natsuo makes a new file for the event, dragging up Midoriya's medical file, inputting it into the system. They go through the whole legal rigmarole of "Do you still live at this address? Any new complications?..." and so on.
He's tugging on nylon gloves when Midoriya speaks up, "There's a possibility I slept with you brother."
He's turned away, looking through the window. His face is cast in blue-tinted light, a steadfast set to his jaw and the slight bump of a broken nose. His freckles are muted against his tan skin an donly with close attention, can he make out the trace remnants of a scar on his cheek.
"It was a one night stand. Shouto… it was when he had the buzzcut. I thought it was a cosplayer or a fan, honestly. I didn't think I actually slept with him."
"Did you ever think you did? Sleep with Shouto, I mean?" It's tentative, he just wants to understand, he just wants an answer.
"When the kids' quirks came in coupled with their appearances. My dad had a flame breath so Sabuki's wasn't a huge surprise. I thought maybe the guy I slept with had an ice quirk when Atsuhiko's came in. It was when Chiharu got his quirk that I became to doubt it."
"Why didn't you ask? Or at least try to test for paternity?"
Midoriya laughs. It's a cold, cruel thing. There's no humor in it, just jagged edges. "It was so soon after the Changeling Incident… I don't want fame or money. I'm no gold-digger," Green eyes lock onto him. "I just wanted my family safe. I kept mum because I don't have any evidence."
"Family is the most important thing to me in this word, Todoroki. I couldn't li-live with myself if I lost them." He crumples, shatters, turning into himself.
"Shit, I'm sorry, Midoriya." No matter how tough the omega is, he's still just had his kids kidnapped a couple days go. Yeah, Natsuo is definitely the asshole in this situation.
A few moments pass before Natsuo asks, "Could you take your shirt off so I can check you for bruising?"
He turns around to give him a bit fo privacy, rifling through absent-mindedly in the folders. When he turns back, he's greeted with a bare-chested Midoriya.
The guy is absolutely shredded, which wasn't an absolute surprise given the guy's physique but wow . He's got a couple scars, some look like bullet holes, stretch marks from pregnancy, but the most blaring thing about him is the tattoo.
It covers both his shoulders, upper chest and lower neck. Japan is still conservative even in this day and age. It's no surprise why Midoriya keeps it covered, because Natsuo knows he would find it very difficult working here if the staff saw. It's a beautiful work of art though, dragons and lotuses and cranes all floating on curly clouds, painted in a traditional style.
"Now I know why you wear the turtleneck."
Shouto pants as he races through the forest, Aegis dogging his heels. Every few minutes or so, he stops to send out a flare, three bursts of fire high into the air from his right side.
Solus (or was she his sister-in-law now? Could he call her Hiori?) had said that her niblings knew that three repetitive bursts of something were a shared signal in their family. If the kids saw it, one of them would be able to send out a flare as well. They would be revealing their location to their captors as well as the heroes, but they couldn't afford the time to manually search through the forest. They would have to take the risk.
Solus seemed so calm, like this wasn't even affecting her but Shouto is all torn up inside. These were kids , maybe even his kids! Who might be kidnapped once again to have their organs sold. He couldn't–no, he wouldn't allow that to happen.
He stops, on what appeared to be a the top of a hill, though it's difficult to tell in a wooded area, releasing another flare. They watch, looking for an answer.
Nothing. They continue on, going through quadrants 3F and 4F.
Their earpieces crackle to life, "All agents converge on Quadrant 5D, the victims have been found. The criminals are now pursuing and engaging with violence. Our priority is to safely extract the victims proceed with caution."
Shouto turns to Aegis. "I can get us there faster by using my ice quirk, but I'll need to pick you up."
Aegis nods. She's thankfully a short woman, though quite muscular for her size. Shouto's fine though, he used to lug around Koda whenever he got too scared by ants. It was a good workout for shrimpy-him in high school.
He brings forth an ice path underneath his feet, skating forward quicker than they could've on foot. Aegis gives directions, bringing up a holographic map from her gauntlet.
They get there pretty quick. Tectonne and Vantablack are probably the ones who found the kids since they're the only heroes there. They're fighting valiantly, Tectonne brought up a rock barrier around the kids, and Vantablack is taking them on with hand-to-hand. Still, it's thirty something to two and sheer numbers do give an advantage.
Immediately, Shouto brings forth an ice glacier to seperate the criminals from the kids. They were getting too close, Shouto thinks, breathing out frost from the ice overuse.
Aegis hops down from his arms, contacting the logistics agent from the earpiece, "How long before the others get here?"
She frowns, mostly only visible in the brows since she has a face mask. "It's too long," she shakes her head, bringing out the lance strapped to her back. "We'll need to fight."
"Couldn't we move them?" Tectonne asks, feeling his own symptoms of quirk overuse if how rocks and pebbles skitter away from him with each move he makes.
"None of us have quirks suited for mass transportation. If we try to move them, we're more likely to lose them. We need to dig in here and wait until we get more reinforcements. Tectonne, create a more defensible structure. Aegis can only control one shield at a time so we'll use that as a last resort. I'll create some sharp ice barriers around to deter them."
They get to work immediately. Tectonne builds something that resembles a western castle with a moat, which Shouto fills with very, very sharp spikes. Let them fucking impale themselves on it if they want to reach the (his?) kids.
Aegis and Vantablack talk to the kids. Hopefully, Vantablack has learned to comfort kids since his UA days but he hasn't heard any screaming so they're probably fine.
It's maybe five minutes, probably less before the criminals break through. One of them has an acid quirk that used it to destroy his ice barrier.
The fight resumes. He takes on the heavy brawlers, there's one with a powerful air-type quirk that crumbles the ground where it strikes. Someone with a bear mutation, another with a sparkly skin.
The world slips away in the fray of the battle, adrenaline pounding through his veins. He uses fire to keep the air-quirk guy on his toes, barricades the bear guy with ice and grapples with sparkly skin. He minimally aware of his collegues, Tectonne is playing defensive, Aegis and Vantablack are tag-teaming to take out some of the weaker-quirked perps.
He grapples with sparkley skin who has a resistance thing going on. Using Judo, he manages to incapacitate him and lock him up with quirk-cancelling handcuffs. It's easy going from there, the air-quirk guy tires out so its easy to lock him up and he gets in a lucky strike with ice to knock bear-guy out cold.
"Shouto! The kids!" Vantablack cries out.
The castle has been breached. Tectonne has a blank look to his eyes, the work of a mental quirk, and criminals are scaling the walls.
"Motherfucker," He curses, low under his breath.
Shouto launches himself into the air with fire, landing on the castle walls. There's minimal resistance, as most have gone to retrieve their victims.
If Shouto's a bit brutal with these guys, well no one has to know. One down, three down, he keeps taking out all the guys he meets as he goes down the stairs and corridors. He can't hear the kids and that partly terrifies him, partly reassures him.
Either they haven't found the kids… or they've already gotten the kids.
There's a loud crash and a child's scream.
Shouto knocks these guys out with a burst of fire, ignoring the crunch as they hit the floor.
"ETA: two minutes." Sounds through his earpiece.
"Not fast enough," He snarls to himself, taking the stair two, three, four at a time.
He skids into the central room, where the kids are held. There's green fire, circling around the kids, a powerful barrier. A little girl with floating green hair that looks eerily familiar and fire lighting up in her hands.
The criminals are already here and where they try to breach the fire, it grows brighter and hotter, the little girl obviously controlling it.
Shouto freezes two people to the wall with his ice, only leaving their mouths and noses uncovered so they can breath. He knocks another lady out with a roundhouse kick.
The acid guy, the one who destroyed his ice, is creeping closer, readying for an attack.
The world slows down. He's already running to stop him but the guys spraying the girl with acid.
She screams.
It's high pitched, one of pain, not of fear.
Shouto hates that he can distinguish a fear scream or a pain scream.
He launches himself. He can feel the acid hit the right side of his face, skin bubbling beneath the acid, before he turns it away. Since that's the fire side, he frosts it over quickly with his left hand, before shooting two spikes with a step. It'll be but a moment before the guy dissolves them.
The girl is shaking, curled in on herself.
"Hey," He ices over her acid-burned hand, "It's gonna be all okay. Can you look at me for a moment? I need to ice what hurts before it doesn't do too much damage."
She turns her face towards him and oh god, Shouto's heart hurts. He got her in the face and a bit of the neck and oh, it's already bubbling, this is not good. He presses a cool hand over the heated parts of her skin, laying a thin layer of ice over, not enough to freeze the muscle underneath but to stop the acid from working as quickly. Mina had very good control of her quirk but Shouto still got a couple burns from her. It's the only reason he knows what to do now.
He's gonna kill that fucker .
"What's your name?" He asks, cupping her cheek and letting the frost spread.
"Midoriya Sabuki," She whimpers, screwing her eyes shut. The tears coming out get frosted as well.
"That's a beautiful name Sabuki-chan," His other hand pets her green fluffly hair. He swears he's seen someone one with the exact same. "I'm going to step away and deal with the rest of these guys, okay? Don't burn off the frost with you fire."
He rises from his kneeling position, her little hands catching in his suit.
Shouto steps towards the criminals, ablaze on the inside.
No one hurt his kids.