Izuku Midoriya

By now, everyone knew what had happened to Izuku Midoriya. After the Paranormal Liberation War, he had left U.A. and started operating on his own, hunting villains connected to All For One while keeping his distance from everyone who cared about him. He stopped answering messages, stopped coming back to school, and became increasingly difficult to track. Class 1-A was already trying to find him, but you'd been looking long before they knew you were doing it.

For weeks, you'd been quietly paying attention to reports of villain attacks. You started noticing patterns in the locations, the timing, and the aftermath. Whenever a particularly dangerous villain appeared, there was a strange tendency for the incident to end with them unconscious before the police could even arrive. Rumours about a green-haired vigilante had been spreading for a while now, and after enough digging, you managed to make an educated guess about where he might appear next. You didn't know if you were right, but there was only one way to find out.

The area was relatively quiet when you arrived, with most of the streets nearly empty. You kept your guard lowered and tried to look like an ordinary civilian who had simply ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. You wandered through the area without appearing to search for anything, occasionally glancing around as though you were trying to figure out where you were. You didn't have to wait long.

You barely noticed the villain before they were already behind you. A massive hand suddenly grabbed you and yanked you backward, sending your body crashing against the pavement. The villain was enormous, their Quirk having transformed their body into something much larger and stronger than an ordinary human. They didn't bother saying anything. They simply grabbed you again and hauled you off the ground before throwing you aside like you weighed nothing.

You hit the pavement hard, rolling before you could stop yourself. You tried to push yourself back up, but a heavy foot suddenly came down against your back and pinned you to the ground. The impact knocked the air from your lungs. You struggled against the weight, your hands scraping against the pavement as you tried to find enough leverage to move, but there was simply too much force pressing you down. You could fight. You knew you could. But that wasn't why you were here.

So you kept struggling just enough to make it believable.

The villain pressed down harder before grabbing you by the back of your clothes and dragging you upright. Your feet barely touched the ground before you were thrown aside again. Your body ached from the impacts, your breathing becoming increasingly uneven as you tried to recover. For a moment, you wondered if you'd made a horrible mistake.

Then the villain was on you again.

A massive hand closed around you and lifted you effortlessly from the ground. You struggled against their grip, but it barely made a difference. Your feet kicked uselessly against the air as the villain raised you higher, and for the first time, the possibility crossed your mind that Izuku might not come.

Then a sharp crack cut through the air.

Blackwhip shot from somewhere above, wrapping around the villain and violently tearing them away from you. You dropped to the pavement, barely managing to catch yourself before collapsing completely. A familiar figure landed between you and the villain, green, battered fabric hanging from his body, a worn mask covering part of his face, messy green hair falling around his eyes, and black tendrils still curling around his arms.

Izuku.

You were too exhausted to properly follow what happened next. There was a blur of movement, a flash of green, the sound of something hitting the pavement, and then silence. It couldn't have been more than a few seconds. When you finally managed to lift your head again, the villain was already down.

Izuku barely gave the unconscious villain another glance before immediately rushing toward you. He dropped down beside you, one knee hitting the pavement as he looked you over with obvious concern. His eyes darted across your face, your arms, and anywhere else he could see, quickly checking for injuries. "Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" His voice was quiet but urgent as he tried to make sure you were still conscious.

He carefully helped you sit up, keeping one hand near your shoulder in case you lost your balance. "Can you breathe okay? Are you dizzy? Did you hit your head?" The questions came quickly, his concern obvious despite how exhausted he sounded.

Once he was satisfied that you were conscious, his expression shifted. He glanced toward the unconscious villain before looking back at you. "Why didn't you fight back?" He asked, genuinely confused. "I know you could've done something. Even if you couldn't beat them, you could've tried to get away or called someone."

You hesitated.

You didn't answer immediately, and Izuku waited while watching your expression carefully. When you still didn't respond, his confusion slowly turned into suspicion.

"...Wait." His eyes widened slightly.

He stared at you for another moment as the pieces began falling into place. The location, the villain, the fact that you hadn't really tried to escape, and the way you'd been looking around before the attack suddenly made sense.

Most importantly, you were one of the people who had been trying to find him.

Izuku's expression fell. "...You did this on purpose."

It wasn't really a question. He looked at you in disbelief, his expression caught somewhere between worry and frustration.

"You knew I'd come."

For a few seconds, Izuku said nothing. Then he seemed to make up his mind. "Okay. We're not doing this here."

He shifted closer and carefully slipped one arm beneath your knees and the other behind your back, clearly intending to pick you up. "I'll get you somewhere safe. There should be a medical team or some pros nearby who can take care of you." His voice was quiet but firm, already slipping into that focused, practical tone he used whenever he was trying to solve a problem. "You need to get checked out."

He started to lift you.

You immediately grabbed his wrists.

Izuku froze.

Before he could react, you pulled him back down, forcing him off balance. He landed against the pavement with a startled grunt, and you quickly pinned his wrists beneath your hands before he could push himself back up. His eyes widened as he looked up at you, clearly caught completely off guard.

"Wait. What are you doing?"

He tried to shift one of his wrists free, but you held on tightly. Izuku glanced toward the street, then back at you, clearly realizing that you were not going to let him simply pick you up and leave.

"I need to get you somewhere safe," he insisted. "You could be seriously injured, and I don't know how badly you were hurt."

He tried again to move, but you tightened your grip.

Izuku went still.

His eyes dropped to your hands around his wrists before slowly returning to your face. The realization that you were deliberately keeping him there seemed to settle in.

"You really aren't going to let me leave, are you?" His voice had lost some of its urgency. Now he just sounded tired.

Izuku looked away for a moment, exhaling quietly before looking back at you. "You went through all of that just to get me to show up, didn't you?"