Chapter Text
The second term of their third year rolls around, and Iida Tensei is at a loss.
He’s had a mixed bag of internship and work-study experiences, to say the least. His very first internship-with-training wheels was with his aunt Reika, after she sent him a nomination following his first Sports Festival. It was nice, but nothing to write home about. In his second year, a nomination from Endeavor after that year’s Sports Festival soothed his envy over Aizawa’s offer from All-Might himself, and unlike Aizawa, Tensei had actually taken his. And, all right, so he’d felt pretty useless shadowing Endeavor without his provisional license, but that was to be expected when he was basically a guest instead of a real part of the team.
It took him until his second year to earn his provisional license, and his real internships following that were mostly duds, not because they were unpleasant but because his supervisors knew him through his family already and made no secret of it.
So when an offer for a real internship with Endeavor came at the start of his third year, he was thrilled. With his license in hand, he was sure to have a real experience. No more being ignored and half-forgotten in the background. No more standing to the side and wringing his hands while the real heroes maneuvered around him as if he wasn’t there.
And he was right! Endeavor treated him like he would any other sidekick.
Yet, for some reason, when he considers his internship options for the second term, of which Endeavor’s agency is one… he sort of doesn’t want to go back, and he doesn’t even know why he feels that way.
So Tensei isn’t sure what to do with himself now. He has a few contacts with previous supervisors, but he doesn’t feel like breezing through with one of his relatives or family friends again. This is his third year, his last chance to gain solid experience as a student before graduation. And if he’s perfectly honest with himself, Endeavor is his best option for that.
“What’s the matter with you?” Yamada asks during lunch, two days before the deadline for this term’s internship applications.
“Trying to decide whether or not to intern with Endeavor again,” Tensei says.
Yamada gives him a quizzical look. “Why wouldn’t you?”
And Tensei… doesn’t really have an answer for that. He probably should, because open spots at Endeavor’s agency are exclusive as hell and most hero students would do anything just to get their foot in the door. Tensei’s an Iida; he gets his foot in a lot of doors with his name alone, no matter how uncomfortable it makes him feel. Endeavor is Japan’s top hero, and he’s had the best numbers in crime resolution since long before he claimed the position. Why wouldn’t it be worth it?
“I just want to keep my options open,” Tensei says lamely. “I’m not sure I like him.”
“You don’t have to like him,” Yamada points out. “Just look at Eraser. He takes internships all the time, and he doesn’t like anyone.” He says this right as Aizawa reaches their lunch table. If he takes offense, he doesn’t show it.
“Speaking of,” Tensei says, eager to shift the subject. “Hey Aizawa, what are your plans for this term’s internship?”
“Nighteye again,” Aizawa says, and shoves an entire piece of tempura in his mouth before they can ask questions.
It doesn’t stop them from staring at him, and it doesn’t stop Yamada from asking anyway. “Wait,” Yamada says, spluttering a little. “Are you serious?” Aizawa chews thoroughly, barely glancing at him. “Eraser. You. You don’t like anyone. You’re always going on about mainstream heroes suckling at the teat of capitalism or whatever. You got Major Man banned from sending nominations to UA students. You don’t like anyone.”
“And yet I put up with you.”
Yamada ignores this. “You went to Nighteye last term, grumbling all the way about All-Might, and now you’re going back?”
“How come?” Tensei asks.
“He’s good,” Aizawa replies.
Yamada rolls his eyes. “Well yeah, obviously, the guy kept up with the Symbol of Peace for years. But why do you like him?”
“He wasn’t what I expected,” Aizawa says. “Neither was the work. It didn’t just feel like… grinding. My other internships felt like practicing for being a real hero, going through all the things I already knew just to keep my skills up. With Nighteye I felt like I was actually learning.”
Tensei hums thoughtfully to himself, in order to hide the excitement stirring under his skin. “I might try and get an interview with him.”
This time, Aizawa actually looks up from his lunch tray. “Really?”
“I have to admit, I’m curious.” Tensei stirs his noodles with his chopsticks. “I mean, a mainstream hero you’ve met, who you actually like? I want to at least meet him, even if he doesn’t have any spots available.”
Aizawa stares at him for a moment, then shrugs and goes back to his lunch. “Are you really out of options?”
“Not really,” Tensei replies. “My current plan is to go back to Endeavor.”
“That’s what I’d do if I had that in,” Yamada says wistfully. “Then again, Nighteye sounds pretty cool… I mean, he did work with All-Might for most of his career.”
“You should go for it,” Aizawa says, to Tensei’s faint surprise. “I think it’d be worth it.”
“It’s a little short notice, don’t you think?” Yamada points out. “You only have a couple more days to get an internship approved.”
Tensei smiles wryly. “Somehow I don’t think it’ll be much of a problem.” To Aizawa he asks, “Any advice?”
“Don’t blow smoke up his ass.”
“Okay, cool.”
Next to Tensei, Yamada rocks back in his seat and groans. “Man, I can’t believe I already signed on with Radar. I even got my forms in early this time!”
Tensei claps him on the back. “Second mouse gets the cheese.”
Tensei has mixed feelings about snagging an interview the day after he calls in for one. He’s not exactly surprised; he’s had his whole life to figure out that being the oldest Iida son has certain advantages. Apparently even a hero with Aizawa’s seal of approval still puts value in names.
Still, Tensei has very little idea what to expect from this, mostly because Aizawa, as helpful as he’s been so far, refuses to tell him anything.
He already feels a little better just walking up the steps to the office. It looks like just that, from the outside: an office building that bears little resemblance to the towering, daunting facade of Endeavor’s agency. Tensei remembers feeling dizzy the first time he saw it—as well as the second, and the third, and so on. When he looks at the exterior of Nighteye’s office, the man who stood at All-Might’s right hand for years, he’s almost confused by how understated it is.
On the inside, everything looks sleek and professional: polished floors and a clearly marked front desk, all visible employees either decked out in practical hero gear or dressed for a professional work environment. It lends the place a competent air rather than a forbidding one.
The only downside is that Tensei’s shoes squeak on his way to the front desk.
The smiling secretary points him to the elevator and gives him simple, clear-cut directions to Nighteye’s office—and wow, they’re just getting right into it, aren’t they? No wait times or proxies or middle men or anything. In a matter of minutes, Tensei finds himself walking through the door to Sir Nighteye’s office.
The one thing Aizawa has warned him about ahead of time is the little shrine to All-Might in the corner. He spots it even before he spots Nighteye himself, working his way through a stack of paperwork at his desk.
“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” Tensei says.
“I understand you’re interested in interning with my agency,” Nighteye says, setting aside his pen.
“That’s correct. I apologize for the short notice.”
“Never mind that,” Nighteye says. “What brought my agency to your attention?”
Tensei knows how to answer that question, and other questions like it. Father has been quizzing him with interview questions since grade school. He knows how to spin his education and experiences into a polished verbal resume. He knows how to turn each of his past encounters with heroics into a life-shaping experience. He knows how to make the mundane sound impressive, how to make the negative sound valuable. He knows how to give his interviewers what they want to hear. He’s done it a thousand times before, and has no doubt he’ll do it much more in the future.
But Aizawa said Nighteye doesn’t like it when people blow smoke up his ass, so all that knowledge is pretty much useless here.
“I’ve been looking for something different,” he says. “With a lot of my previous internships, I feel like I’m not learning anything new, just rehashing what I already know.” He purses his lips, hiding embarrassment. “Most of my previous supervisors have been family members, so that’s probably why. I’m trying to branch out, but it’s hard to find opportunities that aren’t relatives or friends of the family.”
Nighteye’s brow furrows. “Family members? Such as…?”
“Last year I did a couple internships with Ricochet—Iida Hajime,” Tensei says. “My uncle.”
“Ah,” Nighteye says absently. “You’re one of those Iidas, I understand now.”
“I… yes?” Tensei says, stammering for the first time. Hadn’t Nighteye already known that? Why else would he agree to an interview on such short notice? “My uncle’s a skilled hero, but I just didn’t feel challenged enough. When I intern with people who know me through my family, working with them feels like going through the motions. But I’m not sure how to look beyond those connections, so when one of my friends told me that he learned a lot from you, I was curious. He usually has pretty good judgment about that.”
“I see,” Nighteye says. “Is this the first time you’ve sought out an internship without taking advantage of your familial connections?”
“No, sir,” Tensei answers. “Well, not exactly. I interned with Endeavor last spring.” To be exact, he didn’t intentionally use his family’s connections to get the spot, but he can’t be sure his family name didn’t help.
“Quite impressive,” Nighteye remarks, his face unreadable. “Did you not request another before seeking me out?”
And there’s that question again. “No,” Tensei says, keeping his face carefully blank. He doesn’t feel like accidentally bad-mouthing the current Number One to the former partner of the previous Number One, so he delivers one of his polished answers instead. “Endeavor is a skilled hero, and it was an honor to work with him. But his agency wasn’t the best fit for me.”
For a moment he half-expects Nighteye to call him on it and demand the truth. But instead the hero simply hums thoughtfully, and the discussion turns to Tensei’s previous hero experience.
He gets a stamp on his application, and the following day Yamada bemoans his solitude.
Tensei meets Aizawa at the train station, his costume case in hand. “Any last minute advice?” he asks, half-joking.
“Smile,” Aizawa says.
That, coming from Aizawa Shouta, is like the platonic ideal of absurdity. “Really,” Tensei says incredulously. “And they’re letting you back?”
“Shut up, Iida. Do you have food?”
“Uh, yeah?” Tensei fishes around in his bag for a moment before coming up with the bento that Mom packed for him before he left that morning. “Why?”
“Then you’re already making a better impression than I did,” Aizawa says, and Tensei has to smirk at the implication.
As they approach Nighteye’s office, Tensei spots the front entrance and makes a beeline for the main doors. He’s barely paying attention when Aizawa makes a noise of disgust, catches him by the elbow, and pulls him to the side. Tensei stumbles. “Hey, what—”
“Keep walking. Don’t make eye contact with the idiot in the bad suit.”
“What—”
“Aizawa Shouta! And—aren’t you the eldest Iida son?” A man in a slightly ill-fitting suit, with a microphone in one hand and a recorder in the other, thrusts himself into their path. Aizawa keeps walking, and the man narrowly avoids being trampled by walking backward to keep pace with them. “You’re the new interns this season, are you not? How does it feel to be working under the late Symbol of Peace’s former sidekick?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy.” Aizawa drags Tensei through a side door in the office and slams it in the reporter’s red face.
“What was that?” Tensei splutters.
Aizawa gives him a look. “What? You interned with Endeavor and you never had to deal with reporters?”
“Not right at the door,” Tensei says. “After he became number one, he got permission to cut off the whole block outside his own building. No internet or phone signals. Even the electricity’s limited. News crews literally can’t function. His office is pretty much an island in the middle of a dead zone.”
Aizawa blinks. “That’s excessive.”
“Yeah, I thought so too.”
“Aren’t there other businesses on that block?”
“Uh.” Tensei purses his lips. “I mean. There were.”
Something like disgust slides across Aizawa’s face, there one moment and gone the next. He doesn’t comment on it, just shows Tensei the intern desks before leading him to Nighteye’s office. Tensei sort of remembers the way, but Aizawa knows this office far better than he does.
The atmosphere is bright and cheery, between the lighting, the color of the walls, and the smiles on every face he sees. Oddly enough, it doesn’t seem forced or unnatural, either. Everyone looks happy to be doing what they’re doing, as if there’s nowhere they would rather be at the moment. It’s a far cry from the heavy, humorless air in Endeavor’s agency—aside from the more gung-ho rookie sidekicks, everyone in that place looked like they were there because they had to be, whether they liked it or not.
Tensei weighs both, and decides that this is a nice change of pace.
“Morning, Eraserhead.” A sidekick with the head and coiled, chitin-plated body of a centipede greets Aizawa as they pass.
“Hey, Centipeder.”
The hero smiles with his eyes. “It’s good to have you back. And Ingenium, welcome.”
“Thank you for having me,” Tensei says, a little bashfully. He’s seen Centipeder a few times on TV; more than he’s ever seen Nighteye, oddly enough. Even though Tensei is less than a year away from graduating and becoming a proper hero in his own right, there’s still a flattering thrill to hearing his chosen name from the mouth of a competent hero.
“Is he here?” Aizawa asks.
“Go right in.” Centipeder’s palps click, and his antennae wave in the direction of Nighteye’s office. “He’s expecting you both.”
It’s only once Centipeder is out of earshot that Tensei mutters, “It’s a really good thing Yamada didn’t try to sign up here.”
“You know he’d take out every window on the first three floors.”
A few other sidekicks call out to them, welcoming Aizawa back and greeting Tensei for the first time. One such greeting, alarmingly, sounds off in his mind rather than his ears, and it’s only by following Aizawa’s exasperated look that he finds the culprit, a sidekick who looks close to their age. She casually salutes them from her desk before turning back to her work.
If it were Tensei alone, then he would attribute it all to the usual overtures from people wanting to make a good impression with an Iida son. But for one thing, Aizawa’s getting the same treatment, and for another, that calculated friendliness is never this casual and loose.
Inside Nighteye’s office, their supervisor greets them brusquely before getting down to brass tacks. “Welcome, Iida. Aizawa, welcome back.”
“Thank you for having me,” Tensei replies, while Aizawa simply inclines his head.
“I will be going over what you’ll be doing over the course of your internship,” Nighteye tells them both, and spreads out a file on his desk in front of them. “Much of my work over the past year has been dealing with the fallout of All-Might’s final battle. As you can probably imagine, there were major upheavals in the criminal underworld as various entities rushed to fill the space left by All For One.”
Tensei nods. There aren’t many underground heroes in his family, but he’s heard plenty about the power vacuum caused by All For One’s death.
“At the moment, my agency is focusing on this particular villain.” Nighteye slides a profile forward, with a photograph paper-clipped to the upper left corner. “Ushijima Kaido, alias Crusher. His quirk is called ‘Minotaur’, and I don’t think I need to explain to you what it is.”
Tensei purses his lips to hold back a flippant remark. The villain in the photograph does indeed have the head and upper body of a bull.
“Since All For One’s end, he’s been gaining territory in the market for illegal weapons,” Nighteye continues. “More recently he’s been moving into Trigger dealing. Your assignments in the coming month will mostly be investigative. Reconnaissance, information-gathering, analysis, apprehending persons of interest. And, if Crusher himself makes any aggressive moves, you will be called on to aid in the response. There’s a non-zero chance that we’ll have enough to make a proper move against him before your internship ends, but I won’t promise anything. Any questions or concerns?”
“No, Sir,” Tensei answers.
“Souzou’s camped out front again,” Aizawa says.
“Yes, I know,” Nighteye replies in a long-suffering voice. “Things must be slow at the office. Hopefully he’ll get bored and leave.”
“Hopefully,” Aizawa mutters.
“It’s handled,” Nighteye says without a hint of irony. “If he’s still fishing for quotes by eleven, I’ll send Relay out to scream knock-knock jokes into his microphone.”
Tensei purses his lips to keep from smiling at the mental image. “Is that a good idea?” he can’t help asking.
“She’s been threatening to do it all week,” Nighteye answers. “I think she’d prefer to publicly call his mother’s character into question, but life is full of little concessions.”
Instinct makes Tensei bite down on a laugh. He’s not quite successful, and feels his face heat when his muffled snort draws Nighteye’s attention. But instead of demanding to know just what he finds so amusing, or reprimanding Aizawa for veering off topic, Nighteye continues briefing them as if nothing happened.
He already knew that Sir Nighteye would be different from Uncle Hajime, Aunt Reika, and all the other family members and friends who have previously taken him on. But now Tensei knows that he’s different from Endeavor, too.
He shouldn’t be relieved. Endeavor is a great hero, it was an honor to learn from him, and it would be an honor to learn from someone like him.
But he is relieved.
Less than a week into the internship, Tensei walks into the agency and tries to play it off as if he wasn’t flat-out sprinting the whole way. The morning has been a mess; first his parents were called away early, then he overslept and missed his alarm, and finally he’s getting situated at the intern desk and realizing that he forgot his lunch. And he hasn’t eaten breakfast.
It’s not the end of the world, of course. In spite of everything he’s still on time. And for all that they tease Aizawa for his eating habits, this wouldn’t be the first time he’s bummed a gel pack off of him. Aizawa’s more likely to have extra energy snacks than extra binder paper.
“Hey Aizawa,” he mutters to his friend before they have their morning meeting with Nighteye.
“What.”
“Do you have any protein bars?” He’ll take a gel pack if he has to, but a bar is less likely to make him gag. Aizawa always buys the good ones with dark chocolate in them.
Aizawa gives him a withering look. “Seriously?”
“C’mon, man, I’ll give you five hundred for one. I just need to get through the day.” Before Tensei can continue, Nighteye enters the room and forces him to sit up straighter and pray that his stomach doesn’t make any noise to give him away.
“Good morning,” Nighteye greets them.
“Hey, Sir,” Aizawa says. “Iida missed breakfast and forgot his lunch.”
Tensei gapes at him, too stunned to even kick him under the table.
“Noted,” Nighteye replies. “Try to plan your mornings better, Iida.”
“Yes, Sir,” Tensei says, mortified. When Nighteye’s back is turned, he shoots Aizawa a glare and mouths what the hell at him. Aizawa keeps his eyes on Nighteye, the perfect picture of attentiveness, as he writes you’ll thank me later on a scrap of paper between them. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.
In the end he does give Tensei one of his good energy bars, and doesn’t take any money. That sort of makes up for it, but Tensei’s still a little sore over it. And surprised—Aizawa isn’t usually a snitch, unless he’s trying to throw Tadokoro under the bus for being a dick again. Luckily, nothing seems to come of it aside from the initial embarrassment. Nighteye doesn’t seem too upset about it, so maybe that was just Aizawa’s way of griefing him over not having everything together for once.
The other sidekicks are nice and understanding about it, thankfully. They’re already friendly and easy to get along with, and Tensei loves the vibe they have going, and he can tell that Relay’s keeping his hunger in mind when they’re partnered together for a quick recon patrol. It’s still kind of miserable and his stomach won’t stop complaining, but Relay keeps his spirits up until they get back to the office.
Tensei takes off the more cumbersome parts of his costume before limping the rest of the way to his desk and collapsing into his chair with a sigh of relief. He might have to bum another snack off Aizawa if he hopes to get through the day. His engines need fuel.
When he opens his eyes he finds Aizawa next to him, watching him expectantly. “What?”
“Just waiting for you to notice,” Aizawa says.
“Notice what?”
Aizawa keeps watching. Tensei glances around, and almost immediately he spots what he’d missed before: there’s a bento on his desk that he knows he didn’t put there. It’s not his bento box; it’s wrapped in a cloth with an All-Might pattern. There’s a bottle of grapefruit juice next to it.
“Aahh, lucky,” Relay sighs as she walks by his desk. “You’ve been blessed by the lunch fairy.”
Tensei squints at her. He likes Relay, in spite of the unsettling way she greeted him on the first day. She’s a calm and reassuring presence, and never looks anything but perfectly comfortable and sure of herself, even though she’s only a year older than him. But she’s not above poking fun, and her level-headed poise makes it hard to tell when she’s doing it. “What?”
“Midoriya Inko,” she says with an impish grin. “She’s a friend of Nighteye’s. Sometimes she feeds us baby heroes if she has the time. She’s fantastic. I’d forget my lunch every day, but then I’d lose the privilege.”
“...Oh,” Tensei says, a little stupidly. His engines are crying out for that grapefruit juice, so he opens it and takes a drink.
“You should’ve seen Eraserhead last time,” Relay goes on, ignoring Aizawa’s glare. “He was so pissy about not bringing food, but then he took one look at the rice balls with the little cat faces, not that I’m in any place to judge because I’ll put cats on anything, but—” At this point, Aizawa gets up so quickly he almost knocks his chair over and storms off muttering about the bathroom. Relay laughs, gives Tensei a clap on the shoulder, and saunters back to her desk.
It’s a good thing they both leave, because Tensei is hungry and the bento is delicious enough to make his eyes water.
Tensei gets used to the idea of being a step behind Aizawa. He knows his friend is reveling in it, and knows he has every right to; he joined their class late after placing high enough in the Sports Festival to transfer from General Education, and endured the months of catching up he had to do. Tensei still remembers how prickly and defensive he was, quick to annoyance and slow to make friends. A lot of their classmates joined Tadokoro in the belief that he was arrogant, that he thought he was better than them. But now, feeling the curl of embarrassment when Nighteye introduces new ideas and walks him through procedures that Aizawa already knows, Tensei understands Early Aizawa a little more.
It’s not all bad, though. Actually, there’s a lot more good. Aizawa never told him that Nighteye was funny.
It’s not so obvious at first glance. Nighteye is a serious man with a serious face, and he speaks with so much deadpan gravity that it takes a mental double take to realize when he’s making a joke. Over a week passes before Tensei realizes that the man who encourages smiling in the office does, in fact, have a sense of humor. It takes him a little longer to realize that when he wants to laugh at something Nighteye says, there’s a good chance that Nighteye wants him to laugh, too.
There’s a press release from Major Man’s office in Japan, concerning the incident that resulted in the arrest of a high-profile villain and, incidentally, the impromptu demolition of an entire block of (thankfully evacuated) department stores. Tensei takes a moment away from his usual duties to read it.
He can’t help but snort a little. He’s from a family of heroes, after all. Most of his relatives, close and distant, are in the business. Even his father, whose stint as a sidekick was brief, is still an active member of Aunt Reika’s management team. Heroes and their associates are public figures, and Tensei has always been good at paying attention. There’s a certain language to heroics, to the media surrounding it, and Tensei is fluent.
“What’s so funny?” Aizawa asks.
“Due to unprecedented circumstances,” Tensei reads off the press release in his best snooty-PR-rep voice. “Unprecedented is basically PR-speak for we screwed up, and now we’re scrambling to make it look like somebody else’s fault.’”
Aizawa snorts, too.
“Major Man exercised his best judgment,” Nighteye reads along, suddenly There. “That usually means they had warning, and elected to ignore it.”
Tensei blinks at him. He pauses, unsure of whether this counts as speaking out of turn, then decides to go for it. “They’re using phrasing I usually see when underground heroes are involved,” he says, and when Nighteye looks at him and doesn’t interrupt, he continues. “In this quote here. ‘Major Man exercised his best judgment with the information available, and it is thanks to his many years of hard-earned experience that the incident ended with only a handful of civilian injuries.’ They’re leaning on his experience and making it look like it was the best outcome, while undercutting the information they had.” He wrinkles his nose. “Some mainstream pros do that when they screw up while working with underground heroes. It’s so they can try and look like they don’t need any help from underground heroes and criticize them for not helping more at the same time.”
The corners of Nighteye’s mouth twitch. “They used to be more blatantly critical, until the underground network got better at showing off the numbers to prove them wrong.”
Tensei grins wryly. It’s something he’s heard Great-uncle Keita complain about at family dinners. No one listens to him, because he’s just mad that Uncle Yahiko went underground and refuses to let it go. “They’ve had to get more subtle about it,” he says.
The twitching becomes an almost vicious smile. “Yes, heaven forbid pro heroes learn subtlety.”
This startles a laugh out of Tensei. Then he blinks when the comment actually registers, because… “Wait, but you worked for All-Might.”
He’s mortified the moment it leaves his mouth, leaving him wholly unprepared for Nighteye to roll his eyes.
“Yes, and that man didn’t know subtlety if it jumped up and bit him,” he said. ”I should know; I did the paperwork.”
There’s a touch of something there—something light, almost irreverent about the way Nighteye speaks of All-Might. It’s not something Tensei has ever heard from anyone else speaking of All-Might, or any of his past supervisors talking about their senior heroes, for that matter. It’s almost fond, but before Tensei can try to probe or analyze it further, the businesslike severity returns to Nighteye’s face.
“In any case, you’re correct,” Nighteye says. “They did have warning—from this agency, in fact. The attack was carried out by one of Crusher’s customers. Most of the villains involved had noncombative quirks, and all were armed with weapons and black-market support equipment supplied by Crusher’s organization.” He heaved a long-suffering sigh. “I informed Major Man’s office of this, but they chose to stick to what they knew from the villains’ profiles. They saw non-physical quirks, and therefore no threat.” He gestures to the press release, and the accompanying photographs of the destruction. “This was the result.”
He leaves after giving them their assignments for the day. Aizawa is scheduled for a reconnaissance mission tomorrow, while Tensei will be accompanying Centipeder and a few other sidekicks on a small raid of one of Crusher’s recently-discovered warehouses. For now, they only have their duties of the day to complete before going home.
Once Nighteye is gone, Tensei pauses over his work and turns to Aizawa. “Does Nighteye always joke around like that?” Aizawa gives him a blank look. “Seriously, man, you never told me he was funny.”
Aizawa shrugs, which is just, incredibly helpful.
“I just didn’t take him for the kind of guy who would rag on his former boss,” Tensei says. “You could’ve warned me.” Aizawa shrugs again, and Tensei returns to his work.
“Wasn’t just his boss, you know,” Aizawa says after a moment.
It takes a moment for Tensei to register what he said and look up. “Hm?”
“All-Might. Nighteye.” Aizawa’s voice is low, as if he’s worried Nighteye will come back and catch him gossiping. “They were close.”
Tensei frowns. “How do you know that?” Nighteye has never been a public figure, and the few times their working relationship came up in interviews with All-Might, he always made it sound purely professional.
“Last term,” Aizawa says with a shrug. “I got pissy about all that fanfare around the anniversary.”
Tensei’s mouth forms a perfect ‘o’. “Did he chew you out?”
“Not… really? Sort of. A lot less than I expected. But he said they were friends. And I think he was kind of messed up about the anniversary coming around. I couldn’t tell before because he was being professional about it.”
“Oh,” Tensei says, and leaves it at that.
There’s a lot to Nighteye that he doesn’t know, and Tensei finds to his surprise that he wants to know. The fact that Aizawa knows more that he’s not letting on only feeds Tensei’s curiosity. He’s never been curious about most of his other supervisors, because they were all relatives and allies that he already knew personally or through family gossip. He was curious about Endeavor but would never have dared to act on it.
But Nighteye’s the first pro hero outside his family that Tensei thinks he might actually want to get to know.
Inevitably, Crusher decides to take things up a notch.
They’re closing in; Tensei has enough experience to know that much. Every day, Nighteye’s agency and its allies carve pieces out of Crusher’s organization, getting closer and closer to the villain himself. He doesn’t have the power and resources to defeat the heroes in open war. Evidence indicates that he’s scrambling to shore up his defenses and replace the men that the heroes capture.
So he does what most villains do when they’re getting desperate: he lashes out.
The Musutafu City Museum is a popular spot for hero buffs, thanks to its proximity to UA and frequent special exhibits. The most recent is the All-Might exhibit, first featured at the beginning of summer and drawing crowds in ever since. The exhibit’s run is almost over, so the museum has been more crowded than ever with fans eager to get one last look before a different exhibit takes its place.
Crusher, who until this point has been sticking to arms dealing, plants explosives at the base of the building. No one is killed in the initial explosion, but the end result is a partially-collapsed museum full of panicking civilians..
To Tensei’s surprise, Nighteye leads the response team himself. Aizawa’s just as confused as he is, so apparently this isn’t business as usual.
When they reach the museum, the entire block is chaos. Police perimeters keep civilians back while heroes from multiple different agencies move in for the rescue operation. More explosions go off in the streets rather than the building, and from a distance Tensei can see fights breaking out and ending, over and over. It’s slowing down rescue efforts, but the steady stream of evacuating civilians continues.
Nighteye catches a police officer as he rushes past. “What’s going on?” he asks. “Is the building under attack?”
The youngish officer looks startled to be addressed. “No, not the building,” he answers. “Just the heroes.”
“What do you mean?”
The officer sets his jaw grimly. “After the bomb went off and heroes showed up to evacuate the building, villains started attacking them. Just quick, guerrilla-style ambushes, and only against the heroes. We’re trying to keep them away from the ones stabilizing the building.”
Nighteye’s face is grim. “So setting off the bomb was just baiting a trap for heroes?”
The officer nods. “They’re trying, at least. We’re doing our best to detain and occupy them so you all can keep rescuing the people inside.” Someone calls out to him, and he turns. “Please excuse me!” He takes off running toward a cluster of police cars; Nighteye’s hand, still outstretched, brushes his shoulder.
A moment later, Nighteye lunges after him, grabs the back of his vest, and drags him backward, seconds before a translucent, basketball-sized gelatinous mass splatters to the ground where the officer would have been standing. Immediately it bursts into flame, including a drop that landed on the hem of the officer’s sleeve. Without missing a beat, Nighteye produces a pair of scissors from somewhere and cuts it off.
The officer is gaping openly when Nighteye tosses the burning scrap aside. “You’ll be fine for the rest of the day,” Nighteye says. “If you happen to find the villain throwing Greek fire around, don’t get it on your clothes, as it’s very hard to put out. Thank you for your time.” The officer nods dumbly and takes off running again, while Nighteye turns to the rest of them. “Good news, and bad news. They’re both the same: Endeavor will be here soon.”
Tensei feels his insides lurch at the news. “That’s good and bad?”
“It’s good because he can suppress any villains that come at him,” Nighteye explains. “Bad because this is a very delicate situation, and Endeavor doesn’t handle anything delicately. We need to help with the evacuation.” Briefly he locks eyes with Tensei, and the intensity in his stare is terrifying. “Spread out, and be careful. Get civilians to safety, and don’t destabilize the parts of the building that are still standing. Understand?” Everyone nods. “Good. Relay?”
Relay’s voice responds, not out loud but in Tensei’s head. Testing one, two, three. Thumbs up if you can hear me. Everyone raises a thumb.
Tensei takes off running without another word. A lot of the heroes are gathered around the collapsed section of the museum, carefully pulling civilians out before taking them to the guarded areas around the ambulances and paramedics. There’s a clear path to safety, and every available hero is fighting to keep it that way.
A villain leaps at him, propelled by a pair of what look like roughly assembled rocket boots. In midair his arms turn into bristling clusters of blades, one of which swings straight at him. Abruptly the blades vanish and turn back into normal arms, and a look of shock registers on the villain’s face before Tensei meets him head on, smashes one of his boots with an armored kick, and sends him flying. Once the villain is screaming away with only one working boot, Tensei turns to Aizawa in time to see his red eyes turn black again.
“I could’ve handled that myself, you know.”
Aizawa barely gives him a glance. “Shut up and keep running. I’ll watch your back and keep the villains off you.”
There are plenty of gaps in the rescue efforts, so Tensei throws himself into one of them and starts pulling people out of the rubble. There are injuries, but no worse than that. Buildings are designed around villain attacks these days, structured so that if they come down, there will be space for people inside to take cover instead of getting buried. It’s not perfect, because one wrong move could collapse it further, but it buys time to get people to safety.
Aizawa stands watch as Tensei laboriously pulls civilians free. When he sets the injured on his back and and transports them to the waiting medics, Aizawa stays close and fends off any villains that try to stop him.
They’re on their way back to retrieve more civilians when a sound like a distant explosion rocks the entire street. Tensei stumbles, nearly falling, not just because it’s unexpected but because it’s familiar.
“What the hell was that?” Aizawa looks around with red eyes. “More villains?”
“No,” Tensei grabs him by the forearm and tows him along, slowing his pace so he won’t drag Aizawa off his feet entirely. “Endeavor’s here.”
“How do you—oh right, you worked for him.”
“Yeah, he knows how to make an entrance.”
As if on cue, Tensei feels a gentle chime in his skull as Relay speaks directly into his mind. Heads up, everyone, Endeavor’s coming in from the southeast. Mind the stability around you!
Beside him, Aizawa picks up speed. “We need to get those people out of there before he brings the rest of the damn building down.”
Tensei wants to protest because Endeavor’s still a hero, even if he’s rash and has a temper and likes making an impression when he shows up to a fight. But Aizawa’s right about what they need to do, and Tensei can argue about how unfair he’s being later.
Together they venture further into the rubble, searching for gaps and escape routes where people might be hiding. Without warning, Aizawa grabs his arm and pulls him in one direction, and before Tensei can ask him what’s wrong, he hears the high-pitched, plaintive cry as well. There’s a child crying, and Tensei quickly overtakes Aizawa to reach them.
They find the gap, just barely wide enough for a person to fit through, and the sound of sobbing tears at Tensei’s chest. If he closes his eyes and listens a certain way, it could be Tenya crying instead of some stranger’s child.
He puts his hand up to the gap. “It’s all right,” he calls down. “Is someone down there?”
“Yes!” a woman calls back. “Please, there are children with me, can you get us out?”
“Move,” Aizawa says, and shines a small flashlight down into the hole.
Six pairs of eyes stare back. There’s a woman huddled down in the dark, surrounded by five elementary school-age children. She holds the sobbing toddler in her arms, shielding his head in case more rubble comes down. Upon seeing them, her eyes light up with hope, and she rises up and lifts the toddler toward the gap.
“Take him first,” she urges. “Please hurry, get him out first.”
Tensei lifts the boy out and cradles him against his armored shoulder, handling him like it’s second nature. He’s a small kid, a little baby-fat chubby, with freckles on his face and startling blue eyes. His hair is so dusty that Tensei can’t tell what color it is, but he doesn’t seem to be hurt. His cries soften to whimpers as Aizawa starts feeding the end of his capture weapon down to the others still trapped. This time Tensei keeps watch for villains as, one by one, each of the older children is fished out of the hole. They’re all dressed in filthy school uniforms, probably from a field trip, and they sniffle and fight back their own tears as they’re lifted out to freedom.
“We’ve almost got you out,” Aizawa calls down to the woman. “Are you injured?”
“Just my foot,” she answers. “It might be broken, I’m not sure.”
Slowly, gingerly, they lift her out. The battle beyond them continues to rage, with pillars of orange fire broadcasting Endeavor’s position. Most of the villains are either fleeing or fighting to escape; none of them are stupid enough to think they can win.
“There’s no one else down there,” the woman tells them as they finally help her out into fresh air. She’s a petite woman with dark green hair and scratches lining her face. Her shoes are gone, and her right foot is swollen and purple. The little boy reaches for her, and she reaches back to let him grip two of her fingers.
“Are these kids with you?” Aizawa asks.
“No. We were just in the same area when the building came down.”
Aizawa helps her onto Tensei’s back, then corrals the school children. Together they hurry through the rubble and head straight for the nearest medical station.
For the life of him, Tensei has no idea why the villain chooses to go after them. Maybe it’s frustration, maybe spite, or maybe he sees potential hostages in them. Either way, a hulking four-armed villain comes barreling toward them, clutching weapons in three of his hands. Tensei is carrying the injured woman on his back and her child in his arms, and Aizawa is still holding a little girl he had to carry over a tricky bit of terrain. But before either of them have the chance to panic, Nighteye is just there.
The woman on Tensei’s back gasps aloud as his internship supervisor charges the four-armed villain and knocks him clean off his feet. Her arms tighten around his shoulders, but there’s really no cause for alarm because if the fight before them is one-sided, then it’s entirely in Nighteye’s favor. Not bad for a guy who dresses like an accountant.
Centipeder shows up shortly afterward and accompanies them the rest of the way, By the time they drop them all off at the medical station, the tide of the fighting has fully turned. The villains are either detained or on the run, and more and more heroes are swarming over the museum, evacuating the rest of the trapped civilians.
Someone helps the woman down from Tensei’s back, and he passes her son into her arms. She thanks him with no tears in her eyes, but something about her level gaze pins him in place for a moment before he’s finally pulled away.
Aizawa keeps shooting looks over his shoulder as they walk away. “What’s the matter?” Tensei asks.
His friend looks back one last time. “I’ll tell you later,” he says.
Things wrap up fairly quickly after that. The villains who haven’t managed to disappear have been swept up; there are quite a few, but later reports will show that the majority of them escaped capture. Final sweeps of the museum are completed, rescue dogs are brought in, search quirks are deployed, and after two hours, the area is finally cleared of all victims. It’s late, long after the time Tensei would have gone home, when he and Aizawa are making their way back to Nighteye, and a familiar voice stops him.
“You there.”
Tensei freezes when he feels Endeavor’s eyes on him, then turns and stands as attentively and professionally as he can manage.. It shouldn’t feel so terrifying and awe-inducing after he’s already worked with the man, but still. The number one hero in all of Japan is addressing him. “Yes sir,” he manages to say without stuttering.
“I remember you,” Endeavor says. “The Iida boy. You were decent enough at my agency.”
It’s a compliment, Tensei decides. “It was an honor to work with you.”
“Strange,” Endeavor continues, with a considering look. “I didn’t see you among those fighting villains.”
Shame floods him, and he ducks his head in embarrassment because holy shit, the number one hero thinks he wasn’t pulling his weight. “I didn’t get the chance,” he says, glancing at the ground. “I was assisting in the rescue efforts, by my supervisor’s direction.”
Endeavor actually snorts. It’s a short, dismissive noise that, strangely, reminds Tensei of their difference in size. Endeavor is well over six feet, and he feels dwarfed by the man. “You’re almost finished with your education, and he had you ferrying civilians? This place was swarming with villains to fight when I arrived. I would think your supervisor would know what a proper learning experience looks like.”
Tensei doesn’t know how to respond. In the end, he doesn’t have to.
“Hey, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, or anything,” Aizawa cuts in, blunt and rude in the face of the country’s most powerful hero. “But this wasn’t a training exercise. We didn’t come here to score extra credit points. He put us where we were needed.”
Endeavor barely acknowledges him, but continues to scrutinize Tensei. “It’s something to bear in mind,” he says. “You should consider the value of your experiences. No one ever became a proper hero through coddling.” He turns on his heel and leaves before even Aizawa can shoot back a response.
Tensei wants to answer. He wants to defend himself, to defend Nighteye, because Nighteye’s given him nothing but good experiences since Tensei set foot in his office. He’s a good hero and a good teacher, and his time with Nighteye has left him feeling so much better than Endeavor did.
But…
Is that the problem?
Just because something feels good, just because it’s fun and pleasant, doesn’t mean it is good in the long run, especially for the life that Tensei intends to lead. His journey has been a hard one. Every victory and milestone have been won with his own sweat and the ache in his muscles. It hasn’t been easy, and it hasn’t always been pleasant, but it has always been worth it. Every ache and pain, every injury, every late night was worth it because it made him stronger.
So maybe Endeavor has a point, about the value of experiences.
Aizawa snorts disdainfully, apparently unaware of Tensei’s disquiet. “What a prick,” he says. “Come on, Iida, let’s go report back.”
“Uh, right,” Tensei says distractedly. “Right, right behind you.”
His troubled thoughts stay with him for the rest of the day.
According to intel, they have Crusher on the run. His organization is crippled, his resources depleted, and apparently even villains avoid him for fear that associating with him will bring the hammer down on their own heads. To Tensei, it feels as if they’re all waiting on bated breath. With villains, more desperate means more dangerous. While Crusher scrambles for resources, the heroes pool their own.
It comes to a head when he walks into the office to find the relentlessly cheerful atmosphere gone. It’s as if a few dozen candles have been snuffed out. Smiles are scarce. The bullpen is mostly empty.
Tensei puts his things down and finds his way to Relay’s desk. She’s finishing up some paperwork from the previous day, and seems completely calm while she does it. Looking at her, Tensei can hardly tell anything is amiss.
“Did something happen?” he asks, a little scared to know the answer.
“We’re working with Endeavor until Crusher’s taken care of,” she answers grimly. “He showed up just before you came in, with a couple of his sidekicks. They’re with Nighteye now.” She gestures to the empty bullpen around them. “Endeavor things smiling is unprofessional, so everybody went to go be cheerful somewhere else.”
“Oh,” Tensei says. “Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? If the number one hero’s working this case, then Crusher doesn’t stand a chance.” Another thought occurred to him. “Plus it’s not the first time Nighteye’s worked with the top hero in Japan, so he’s probably used to it. The publicity of it, at least.”
“That’s true, but that was All-Might,” Relay reminds him. “This is Endeavor.”
“That shouldn’t matter,” Tensei says. “A hero is a hero, and you can’t discount Endeavor just because he isn’t All-Might.”
To his surprise, she laughs. It’s a quiet, rough, humorless sort of laughter. “Oh, trust me, I’m not discounting him because he’s not All-Might,” she says. “I’m discounting him because he’s Endeavor.”
“What?”
“Look, I know I haven’t been a hero for long,” Relay says. “But I’ve done some asking around, and from everything I’ve heard, he’s… difficult. To work with.”
“As long as he gets the job done, right?” Tensei says.
Looking at Relay, he gets the distinct feeling that that was the wrong thing to say. Something about her face seems to close off. “Maybe,” she says, and turns back to her paperwork.
Aizawa is already at his desk and already in a sour mood, so Tensei doesn’t bother with him beyond a quick greeting that his friend barely acknowledges. As he returns to the work he left off yesterday, Tensei bites down on his newfound annoyance.
Honestly, he’s never understood Aizawa’s disdain for the current number one hero. He was always openly critical of All-Might, and Endeavor is everything that All-Might was not. He doesn’t bother with fake smiles, he focuses on taking down villains instead of mugging for cameras, and he’s a devoted hero in spite of his rough personality. He doesn’t even do much of the branding stuff that Aizawa hates, beyond a scant handful of sponsorships here and there. By all accounts, Aizawa should like the guy.
His thoughts are interrupted by Nighteye’s office door opening and shutting followed by a set of footsteps. Tensei looks up expecting his supervisor, and instead finds a young woman heading out into the main bullpen. She casts about for a moment, looking uncertain, until she spots an empty seat and carefully lowers herself into it.
Tensei doesn’t recognize her. She’s a young woman, as young as Relay, with teal blue hair cropped at her shoulders. Her hero costume is a little plain but it’s still clearly a costume, and she seems to be fiddling with a bit of support gear attached to her wrist.
Curiously, Tensei watches as Relay gets up from her desk and approaches her. At her approach, the woman starts quickly out of her seat and stands up straight with a wince.
“Sorry for intruding! I’m from the Endeavor Agency—I’m Pinpoint.”
“Nice to meet you! I’m Relay.” Tensei’s at just the right angle that he can see Relay’s smile. She looks… terse? “Would you like some coffee, or tea. The break room’s just around the corner. You look like you could use a cup.”
“Oh, thank you very much, but I wouldn’t want to impose!” Pinpoint smiles brightly, which looks odd on someone who supposedly works for Endeavor.
“It’s not an intrusion,” Relay assures her. “You’re very welcome here.”
For a moment Pinpoint looks perfectly happy to follow her, but a quick glance back at the office door seems to deflate her a bit. “Thank you, again,” she says without losing her smile. “But I’d better stay here. I’m here with Endeavor, and he hasn’t quite dismissed me yet, so…” She fidgets as she speaks, and Tensei can’t help but sympathize. Endeavor is a stern taskmaster. He doesn’t appreciate his people lying down on the job, and just because his eyes aren’t on you doesn’t mean you have a pass to slack off.
“No offense, but you look pretty dismissed to me,” Relay says with a wry grin. “If your boss sent you out of the office so the grown-ups could talk, I figure he won’t mind if you take ten steps down the hall to have a drink.”
“Oh, er, it was actually Sir Nighteye who asked me to leave,” Pinpoint says with a sheepish smile. “I’ll probably get called in later.”
“Well, I’ll bring you something then,” Relay says, and steps past her to head for the break room. “Tea or coffee?”
“Coffee, thank you,” Pinpoint says, and laughs a little sheepishly. “That’s all I’ve been drinking lately.” Relay brings her back a mug, and the two of them sit and chat quietly. Tensei hesitates, wondering if he should warn her. She must be really new to Endeavor’s agency, because Tensei only spent one internship there and even he knows how risky it is to look idle when there’s only one doorway between her and Endeavor.
In the end, he lets it be, tunes out of their conversation, and goes back to work.
Eventually the door opens again. Tensei looks over just in time to see Pinpoint almost spill her coffee scrambling to her feet, and winces in sympathy again. Luckily, it’s Centipeder at the door instead of Endeavor, who beckons her back in. Before he shuts the door, his head swivels to the rest of the office.
“Ingenium and Eraserhead,” he calls. “Boss wants you two sitting in.”
Tensei sets his work aside and rises, trying to quell the sudden shaking setting into his body. It’s just nervousness, not fear, but having a high-energy quirk means more noticeable physical reactions to stress. It’s a desperately mortifying trait, especially with Endeavor in the room. One mustn’t show obvious weaknesses as a hero, says Endeavor.
A sharp nudge to his ribs shakes him out of his thoughts. “Relax,” Aizawa says flatly. “We work for Nighteye, not Endeavor.”
Strangely, the reminder actually helps.
Nighteye’s office is spacious enough that even with Endeavor, Centipeder, Aizawa, Tensei, Pinpoint, and another of Endeavor’s sidekicks present, there’s still plenty of room to give Endeavor’s flames a wide berth.
For a moment, Endeavor’s hard stare passes over Tensei. He keeps standing tall, hands locked behind his back in a professional-looking parade rest stance that just so happens to hide their shaking.
“Really, Nighteye?” Endeavor frowns first at him, then at Aizawa, then at Nighteye himself. It does absolutely nothing helpful for Tensei’s nerves. “We’re about to discuss important details about this investigation. Are you sure you want interns sitting in?”
“Endeavor, those two have been working for me longer than Pinpoint has been employed to you,” Nighteye says flatly. “She has a place at this meeting, and therefore so do they.”
“That sidekick is integral to the investigation I’m conducting, Nighteye,” Endeavor says.
“As are they. Please continue. You were talking about Pinpoint’s efforts in locating Crusher.”
Endeavor, who looks perfectly happy to argue further, opens his mouth, only to be cut off when an impatient Centipeder rattles his mandibles. He goes red in the face but doesn’t argue any further. Instead he rounds on Pinpoint and orders, “Make your report.”
She looks surprised and faintly alarmed by the attention, but recovers herself well. “Oh, right! Well, ah, see, my quirk allows me to locate and monitor people, so I was brought on in order to—”
“Get to the point, I already told them that,” Endeavor snaps. Pinpoint jumps, winces, and fidgets nervously with her wrist guard again.
“She’d have no way of knowing that,” Nighteye says pointedly. To Pinpoint he says, “Endeavor tells us that your quirk allows you to locate people, and that you have been using it in an effort to track down Crusher. Is this correct?”
Pinpoint looks relieved, though she doesn’t stop nervously fiddling with her wrist guard. “Yes, sir. I’ve been joining Endeavor and his sidekicks on patrol, in the hopes of finding Crusher. See, I can locate people with my quirk, up to one hundred at a time, but I can’t identify them unless I’ve met them personally. For a while I was patrolling so that if we—I mean, if Endeavor couldn’t—if the villain couldn’t be detained immediately, then I could still find him.” She glances at Endeavor’s other sidekick, an older man in similarly understated gear. “Two days ago, I was on patrol with Thunderwave when we were attacked. We, uh, couldn’t detain him.” Endeavor levels a glare at both of them, and she sticks to looking at Nighteye as she continues. “But I can locate and identify him now, so we—I’ve covered most of this city and the next, since then. My quirk has a range of fifteen kilometers, so as long as he’s within that range, I can find him. But he must have moved out of the area, because I haven’t been able to.”
She looks like she can say more, but Endeavor cuts her off there to address Nighteye. “I was hoping, with your specialization, you could narrow it down.”
“I have people working on it as we speak,” Nighteye says. “We have solid intel that just needs to be analyzed, which will take time. Ms. Pinpoint?”
She jumps again. It’s not out of fear or skittishness, Tensei realizes. She just has a lot of energy. “Yes Sir?”
“I suggest you take the time to allow your wrist to heal until we have our ducks in a row. And the rib, if I’m not mistaken. You’ve done very well, but ignoring injury and exhaustion will only lower the quality of your work.”
Tensei does a double take. That’s not a wrist guard, he realizes. It’s a splint. And the reason she’s been twitching and wincing with every sudden movement is that she’s injured. And she’s been patrolling enough to cover almost two cities in as many days, in that condition?
He looks at her again, really looks at her. He thought her cheery smiles seemed strained, but had chalked that up to nervousness over Endeavor’s displeasure. But now he takes in the weary hollowness in her eyes, the dark circles beneath, the subtle sagging that she’s trying desperately to hide. He remembers her comment to Relay about drinking coffee.
“Thank you for your advice, Nighteye,” Endeavor says curtly. “It will be taken under advisement. Who should I speak with about the intel you do have?”
“If you’re willing to wait in the bullpen, then I can go and fetch our senior analyst,” Centipeder says, motioning politely for the door.
Tensei waits until he and Aizawa are dismissed, then heads back to his desk with unease squirming in his stomach. The visiting heroes are waiting in the bullpen as Centipeder requested. Tensei can’t see Endeavor’s face, but he can see the uncertainty on Pinpoint’s, and he picks up on their conversation as he approaches.
“As soon as we have what information they can give us, we’re acting on it,” Endeavor says gruffly. “If all goes well, we won’t need to wait for them to finish up with legwork before we have results. I expect you both to make up for your past failure.”
Tensei’s heart sinks. He’s not surprised, though. Endeavor already knew Pinpoint wasn’t at her best, so it’s obvious that he’s not going to ease up on her just because Nighteye said so.
Thunderwave is nodding, but Pinpoint seems to gather up her courage before speaking. “But sir, Nighteye just said—”
“When last I checked, Pinpoint,” Endeavor cuts her off. “I do not take orders from Sir Nighteye, and neither do you.”
“Well, I know, but,” Pinpoint stammers. “I also know my own limits, and I think I might be more successful—especially if we do find Crusher—if I’m not injured.”
It takes a moment for Endeavor to answer. Tensei is frozen where he stands, watching Endeavor’s back, wondering how the hell he’s going to react to a sidekick—especially a sidekick as new and green as Pinpoint—contradicting his orders. From across the bullpen, he sees Relay watching tensely from her desk.
“Is that what you think,” Endeavor says at last. “Do you also think that the villains are going to sit around, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for you to be ready? You’ve met Crusher before; did he break your wrist, then step back and let you recover before he cracked your rib?”
Pinpoint quails under his severe stare, but recovers some of her nerve. “Well, no, but we’re not really fighting him right now, just looking for him and gathering information, so I don’t think—”
“That much is obvious,” Endeavor remarks.
Relay looks ready to get up from her desk.
“You took on a responsibility, accepting your current position,” Endeavor informs her. “You haven’t been a student in quite some time, and I would say your no-rank agency days are behind you. Either you take your work seriously, or I might reconsider my decision to gamble on you.”
“I do take it seriously, sir!” Faint panic flashes across Pinpoint’s eyes. “I do! It’s just—this is more than I expected, and I need to adjust—”
“Then do so on your own time,” Endeavor snaps. “You are working at the top agency in all of Japan. Do you know what that means? Do you know what it means to follow the example set by All-Might?”
“I-I didn’t mean—”
“It means you sacrifice whatever is needed,” Endeavor continues. “It means no matter how many bones you break, how little you sleep, how little you eat, you work until the job is done. Any less effort than that is worthless.” His eyes narrow. “The man sacrificed his life and still won. Surely you can sacrifice a nap, Pinpoint.”
“I beg your pardon?” Nighteye barks from behind Tensei.
Pinpoint startles visibly, and it takes all of Tensei’s self-control not to do the same. Instinctively he looks to Endeavor, and almost misses the look of surprise on the hero’s face. Apparently, Endeavor didn’t know that Nighteye was in earshot.
He recovers himself quickly. “It’s no concern of yours,” he says, glaring at Nighteye. “I was advising this one of the realities of hero work—”
“Don’t give me that, Todoroki.” Tensei backs out of the line of fire as Nighteye comes storming into the bullpen, yellow eyes flashing with anger. “Do you honestly think I didn’t hear that—that poison you were filling her head with?”
Endeavor meets him head on, flames leaping higher from his shoulders. “You don’t tell me how to handle my underlings, Nighteye. I am not All-Might, and I don’t have to put up with your uninvited opinions.”
“At least we agree on something. You couldn’t be further from—” Nighteye cuts himself off as if to keep from screaming. “How dare you. How dare you put his name on that poison.”
Endeavor’s lip curls with contempt. “I would call that hypocritical, Nighteye. I know perfectly well that there’s no greater admirer of All-Might’s legacy than you.”
“Yes, I admire his legacy,” Nighteye retorts. “What I do not admire is that twisted, bloated thing that people like you have spun out of it.”
“Come now, Nighteye.” Endeavor’s voice takes on a tone that is nothing short of condescending. “Surely you appreciate the new standard he set for how a proper hero should behave. A standard built on strength leaves no room for willful weakness.”
“It was built on compassion,” Nighteye spits. “A concept that you clearly don’t understand.”
“Don’t talk to me of compassion when you know perfectly well that sacrifices must be made for the sake of the peace--”
“You are sacrificing nothing!”
The bullpen is dead silent, leaving nothing to drown out the way Nighteye’s sudden shout ricochets like a bullet. Nighteye is standing at his fullest height, the usual angular hunch of his shoulders nowhere to be seen. For a split second, even Endeavor looks taken aback.
When Nighteye speaks again, his voice trembles with restrained fury. “Forcing burdens on someone else is not a sacrifice. It’s cowardice.”
Endeavor bridles. “You should watch yourself, Nighteye--”
“I am not the one with the burden of every spotlight in the country, Endeavor,” Nighteye cuts him off. “You are. I know that the only admiration you’ve ever held for All-Might’s legacy is envy. If you keep treating your fellow heroes this way, the only legacy you’ll leave is relief that you are gone.”
Tensei can’t tell if Endeavor’s lack of a response is anger or genuine speechlessness. Both of his sidekicks are staring at him as if he’s a bomb about to go off. But he doesn’t explode, doesn’t even interrupt Nighteye when he speaks in the coldest voice that Tensei has ever heard.
“So help me, Endeavor, if you ever exploit my friend’s memory to justify your own selfishness again, I will bury you.”
Their glares mirror one another, Endeavor’s burning rage against Nighteye’s cold fury. After another tense moment, Endeavor turns his back scornfully.
“We’re done here.”
“I’ll have the necessary files sent to you,” Nighteye replies, with almost mocking civility.
“Don’t think you’ve won anything here,” Endeavor says.
“I suggest you let her rest properly,” is Nighteye’s parting shot. “Unless you’d rather be investigated by the Commission. I’m sure, with your current position as Number One, you can afford the inconvenience.”
Endeavor barks an order at his sidekicks, who hurry to follow him out. Pinpoint’s wide eyes meet Tensei’s won last time, and then the three of them are gone.
The office is silent. There aren’t many of them present, just Tensei, Aizawa, and Relay; not even Centipeder is back yet. Nighteye sighs, a deep and heavy whisper of anger, and some of the tension bleeds from the room.
“I’ll be in my office, if anyone needs me,” he says quietly, and turns back. Moments later, the door shuts behind him.
No one takes him up on that for the rest of the day.
The Crusher case comes to an end with what Tensei can only call an anticlimax. Between the patrolling heroes gathering information and the analysts hard at work at the office, the Nighteye agency is able to put together a short list of likely locations for Crusher’s hideout, which is then sent out to all the other agencies working the case. Tensei isn’t even there to witness the villain’s arrest; Endeavor ferrets him out, probably with the help of Pinpoint’s quirk, and the villain is in custody by the end of the day.
The arrest heralds the end of Tensei’s internship with Nighteye. He has a few more days as all of the case’s loose ends are tied, but for the most part, his time with Nighteye’s agency is finished. He’s not sure how to feel about it.
He hasn’t been sure of a lot of things, since Endeavor’s visit to Nighteye’s office.
On his penultimate day, he goes to deliver something to Relay’s desk and finds her on her scheduled break, grinning at her phone. “Good news, I hope.”
“The best,” she says. “So, me and Pinpoint exchanged numbers when she was here. And she found a loophole in her contract with Endeavor that lets her get out of it early. She’s getting the hell out of dodge, so, all’s well that ends well.”
“Oh,” Tensei replies, and the tangle of confused emotions within him makes itself known again.
Relay tilts her head at him. “You good?”
“Yeah, of course,” Tensei replies automatically.
“It’s not ‘of course’ to me,” she says. “My telepathy only goes one way. You sure you’re all right?”
“Just have a lot on my mind,” Tensei admits. “Ever since Endeavor was here, I just… I dunno.” Relay’s face is open and sympathetic, so he feels all right with continuing. “My last internship was with him.”
“I’m so sorry,” Relay says, so solemnly that Tensei has to laugh.
“It was just weird, seeing that happen,” Tensei says. “When I was there, it was pretty clear that whatever Endeavor does, whatever he says, you just… take it. Take your lumps, you know?”
“Mm.” Relay pulls a face. “I’ve got horror stories from old classmates who snagged an internship with him. He’s awful to work with and worse to work for, and from what I’ve heard, he only got worse after he defaulted to the number one spot. His mistake the other day was throwing around All-Might’s name. Nighteye doesn’t care for that at all.”
Tensei doesn’t know how to reply to that, so he simply nods and returns to his desk.
He stays a little late that day. Aizawa offers to wait for him, but Tensei waves him off because he’ll probably be at this for a while. He’s trying to tackle most of his work so that he can spend his last day asking Nighteye for a one-on-one evaluation. At some point well into the early evening, he takes a bathroom break and comes back just in time to see Nighteye’s office door close. He must be in, then.
Tensei looks over the spread of work he still has left to do. There isn’t much. It can be left for tomorrow.
He gets up from his desk, crosses to the office door, and knocks hesitantly. “Sir Nighteye? It’s Iida.”
There are voices inside—multiple voices. He must be having a meeting. Maybe it’s someone from the management team, discussing the closure of the Crusher case. “Come in,” Nighteye calls back.
Nervously, Tensei opens the door. “Sorry for intruding,” he says. “If you’re having a meeting, it can wait—” He stops short.
The woman sitting by Nighteye’s desk is not a manager, or a pro hero, or an analyst, or a support technician. As a matter of fact, Tensei recognizes her. He also recognizes the child sitting on the floor by one of the shelf sets, playing with a little All-Might figurine from Nighteye’s collection.
“Mirai, you should have told me you were busy,” the woman says, and it takes a moment to realize that she’s addressing Nighteye by his given name. “I can step out, if you…” She meets Tensei’s eyes, and recognition clicks. “Oh. It’s you.” She rises to her feet so that she can bow properly. “Thank you, for rescuing us before. I don’t know if you remember me.”
“I do,” Tensei replies. “I’m Iida Tensei—Ingenium.”
The woman’s eyes light up. “Oh, well in that case it’s a pleasure to put a face to the name. I’m Midoriya Inko.”
“Oh!” That’s a name he recognizes. “Oh, you’re—the bento. I mean, you’re the one who made the bento.”
She smiles kindly at him. “I hope it did the job.”
Over her shoulder, Tensei sees the little boy pull himself up to try to climb the shelves, and is very surprised when Nighteye swings him up into his arms, with the practiced ease of someone who handles children regularly. The boy greets him with a delighted squeal of “Nighteye!”
“Oh, dear, was he trying to climb the—” Midoriya takes her son from him. “Thank you, Mirai.”
“One of these days we’ll turn around and he’ll be sitting at the top,” Nighteye says in a long-suffering voice.
“Of those display shelves?” Midoriya asks. “If I remember how much you spent on the things, then we have nothing to worry about. They’ll stand up to anything.”
There’s an easy camaraderie between them that, coupled with their similar shades of green hair, marks them as siblings. Tensei hadn’t known that Nighteye had an older sister, but with the way Midoriya Inko looks at him with teasing fondness, she can’t be anyone else.
While the grown-ups bicker, the child spots Tensei and points to him, leaning out as far as his mother’s arms will allow. Tensei reaches back and taps their fingertips together, and the boy looks at him in awe.
Midoriya smiles when she sees this. “This is my son, Izuku,” she tells him. “You know, I wish I’d known I would run into you today. He’s been trying to draw you ever since you saved us. I’d love to show them to you.”
Tensei feels his face heat. “Oh, well, I was just doing my job—that’s quite a grip you’ve got there.” Izuku squeezes Tensei’s finger and, inevitably, starts to draw it toward his mouth.
“Oh, sorry about that.” Midoriya laughs quietly and backs up. It takes quite a bit of tugging to get Izuku to let go.
“It’s all right, my little brother’s about that age," Tensei laughs. "He grips like a baseball player.”
“Oh that’s wonderful.” It doesn’t sound like a platitude; she sounds like she really means it. To Nighteye, she says, “Is it too soon to invite you to dinner, Mirai? You’re looking thinner than usual. We’re having curry tonight.”
“Of course, Inko, I look forward to it.”
“You’d better.” Midoriya smiles one last time at Tensei. “Lovely to meet you, Ingenium,” she says, and walks out. Izuku waves over her shoulder, and Tensei waves back.
When he looks at Nighteye again, the change is kind of startling. His supervisor looks to be in much better spirits than he was… just this morning, actually. A visit from his sister and nephew must have done the job.
“Did you need something, Iida?” Nighteye asks.
“I…” Tensei starts, and finds his voice sticking in his throat.
Does he need anything?
Nighteye looks at him carefully. “You’ve been out of sorts since Endeavor… visited,” he says. “I apologize for that—that you had to see that. It was rather unprofessional of me, to lose my temper at another hero.”
Another hero. Like Endeavor is just any other hero, and not the number one.
“I was wondering about—about what you said,” Tensei admits. “About, um. All-Might’s legacy.”
Nighteye goes still. “Ah. Right.”
“It’s just…” Tensei presses his lips together, uncertain. He’s skirting sensitive territory.
“I am not Endeavor,” Nighteye says bluntly. “If you want to debate a point or ask for clarification, I’m not going to bite your head off over it.”
Tensei braces himself. “Is Endeavor… really… wrong? I mean…” He hesitates. “Heroes should give their all, shouldn’t they? Because that’s… that’s what All-Might did. And All-Might was the greatest hero of all. Right?” This feels dangerous. Aizawa told him they were close, back when the Symbol of Peace was alive.
True to his word, Nighteye does not get angry at the question. He simply sighs. “I can see how that would get twisted,” he says. “And yes, Heroes should give their all when protecting the innocent. But.” He locks eyes with Tensei briefly. “The problem with Endeavor was that what he was asking of Pinpoint was more than she could reasonably give.” He pauses. “What does it mean to you, Iida? To give your all?”
“Giving all of your strength for the sake of doing good,” Tensei answers readily. “Doing everything you possibly can to help.”
Nighteye nods thoughtfully. “Mm. And how do you navigate a fight? Just an average physical altercation with a villain.”
Surprised by the shift in subject, Tensei takes a moment to think. “I mean, it depends on who or what I’m fighting,” he says. “I have to judge my strategy first, by observing the villain. In an average fight, I usually just fall back on self-defense training to overpower them.”
“That’s odd,” Nighteye remarks. “You have special moves, don’t you? Your Recipro Burst and Rocket Charge, and that interesting one where you overtorque your engines to fuel a lightning-fast barrage of punches.”
“...Yes?”
“Why not open with those, then?” Nighteye asks. “If it’s your responsibility to give all of your strength and do everything you possibly can in any given moment, why not use your most powerful moves first?”
“Backlash,” Tensei answers. “My engines overheat, or stall. I have to save those for when I know I can afford to deal with the reaction from my quirk.”
“Why not keep fighting while overheated or stalled?” Nighteye presses. “I’m sure, if pressed, you could find a way to overcome such obstacles.”
“I mean, maybe, but… it wouldn’t be a sure thing, and I’d…” Tensei’s voice trails off.
“You would hurt yourself,” Nighteye finishes for him.
Guilt swims in the pit of his stomach. “But… that shouldn’t matter, should it?” he says, half to himself. “Heroes get hurt all the time.”
“It’s an unavoidable part of the work we do,” Nighteye says. “But you save your strength because the harm you would do to yourself otherwise is avoidable. Because if you don’t avoid it, then you’ll waste yourself at the wrong moment and be left helpless for the rest of the fight. Because if you carry on that way, you’ll end up in, at best, an early retirement. At worst, an early grave.”
There is weight to those words as he speaks them.
“Endeavor… does that a lot,” Tensei says softly. “He doesn’t always say it outright. But you just… you just know he expects it, without him having to say anything.”
“Endeavor holds himself to impossibly high standards,” Nighteye says coldly. “That’s all well and good. But it becomes a problem when he imposes them on others. He should not have forced them on Pinpoint, and he should not have forced them on you.”
Tensei takes a deep breath, and lets it out again. It feels like he lets a lot of other things out along with it.
“Would you like to know something interesting about All-Might?” Nighteye asks.
Tensei nods, perhaps more vigorously than is proper.
“It’s a well-known fact that he was a cut above the rest in terms of raw power,” Nighteye says. “Quite a few cuts, in fact. Everyone knew it. He knew it, too. And he fought the way he did because he knew that his strength would allow him to do things that no other human being, no other pro hero, would be capable of.” He pauses. “He didn’t do the things he did because he wanted other heroes to see him and copy him. He did them because he didn’t want anyone else to have to.” His mouth tightens, not with anger, but with sorrow. “I lost my temper with Endeavor, because I couldn’t help but imagine how he would feel if he saw a young hero being treated that way. In his name, no less. I cannot forgive that.”
“I always thought—” Tensei’s voice catches. “I thought there was something wrong with me, when I didn’t want to go back to his agency. I already—my foot was in the door, with my family and the fact that I already worked there, but I just… didn’t want to. I thought that, maybe I just wasn’t ready for real hero work.”
“You are,” Nighteye tells him.
“I didn’t feel like a person there.” It’s an odd thing to admit, especially when he’s only just realized it himself. “I felt like… like I was a tool to him.”
Nighteye nods. “You’re a hero, Ingenium. Not some tool to be broken.”
A lump forms in Tensei’s throat, and he nods.
“For what it’s worth,” Nighteye continues, “You have some areas of improvement, but I’ve been very impressed with you. I’m happy to have taken you on. If you’d like to apply for a sidekick position after you graduate, it would be a pleasure to have you, but I think you have a good chance of making it on your own before too long.”
Tensei stares at him, speechless.
Nighteye smiles. “Did you have any more questions?”
“I… no,” Tensei answers. “I mean, yes, but none that are… relevant.”
“Oh?”
Tensei can only bite down on this for so long.
“Is it true that All-Might slept off Toxic Chainsaw’s venom, or did he have to go to the hospital?” he asks. “Yamada—a friend of mine swears it’s the first one, but Toxic’s venom was supposed to have the potency of a king cobra, so unless All-Might had a secret mongoose quirk nobody knew about, I don’t see that happening.”
It is a gratifying thing to see Nighteye blink owlishly behind his glasses, because it means that Tensei has surprised him, and in a good way at that. And then—
Nighteye laughs. It’s surprisingly bright and energetic for man who, until this point, has appeared coolly professional at all times. When Nighteye laughs, Tensei can easily imagine him standing alongside the smiling Symbol of Peace.
“He didn’t sleep it off, exactly,” Nighteye says. “He wanted to, and loudly insisted he was fine until we managed to bully him into the back of an ambulance. When he finally passed out, he took out two fire extinguishers and a mobile ventilator on the way down.”
And, okay, now Tensei’s laughing too. This isn’t how he expected the conversation to go, but he’s not complaining. He never would have laughed like this working for Endeavor. He never would have felt safe to make jokes and smile. Here, it’s as easy as breathing.
And… that’s a good thing. That’s worth a lot.
He’s here to become a hero. And that means making the world a safe place for regular people like Midoriya Inko and little kids like Izuku to smile and make jokes.
To make that happen, there’s no effort too small to be worth something.