Chapter Text
He was running, barreling through the crowded streets of Sternbild like it was crumbling down around him.
Ivan wasn’t a hero.
He was a coward, a horrible friend, and a murderer.
If he had just moved that day. If he had done anything other than watch in horror at the events unfolding before him Edward would be here. Standing in Ivan’s place, the place where he belonged, with the people who were supposed to be his coworkers.
His feet carried him away as quickly as they could. He needed to get away from that school. From Barnaby and his stupid fan clubs. From Principle Massini. From anybody who didn’t understand what he was going through. What he did.
Sure, Ivan didn’t pull the trigger but he might as well have.
For the past couple of years, Ivan had been living a life that wasn’t his. All of the sponsorships, all of the fame from HeroTv, everything should have been his.
Edward should be here, he thought every time he arrived at a scene late or read a hate comment in his blog, I should be in that cell, not him.
Ivan wasn’t a hero.
Edward could have been.
And he took that way from him.
Suddenly, the air from his heaving lungs was knocked out of him as he hit a solid wall. He was almost knocked on his ass when a pair of strong hands gripped his shoulders, keeping him afoot.
The chest in front of him formerly clad in a white dress shirt was stained dark, it smelled of hot coffee and hard liquor. Who would be drinking at this time of day? It was barely the afternoon.
“Oh god- I’m so sorry I spilled your-” Ivan lifted his head to face the man he ran into, “Wild Tiger?!”
“How did you-” Tiger floundered, patted his pockets until he thought better of it, and dropped his hands to his sides, “You know what, whatever. Never mind that. What are you doing here?”
“Running away from my problems,” Ivan’s shoulders sagged, he never really stopped running now, did he?
—
Internally, Kotetsu was at a war with himself. He could already feel his skin reddening from the heat of the coffee he had so gloriously spilled on himself, the cup long gone and crushed in the road.
He could just walk away, leaving an obviously distressed kid to deal with his demons alone. Or he could herd the young hero to the nearest coffee shop and see what was bothering him.
The latter, he realized, he was already doing.
“Well, uh, how about we both walk away from your problems to the nearest Starbucks,” he gestured to the cafe right across the street.
Sullenly, Ivan nodded, his gaze downturned and pensive.
Thankfully, he didn’t find a Starbucks, and more of a hole-in-the-wall cafe with a warm interior and, hopefully, a nice restroom.
They seated themselves at a table, “you want anything?” Kotetsu asked, more to fill the silence than anything else.
Plus he needed napkins.
When Ivan bumped into him, what spilled all over his new third favorite vest was not, in fact, coffee. Sometimes, he broke the rules he set for himself. He was only human. One time wasn’t enough to fall back into old habits, especially when half of his whiskey was soaking through his button-up to his tank top. He could feel the liquid cooling and fabric sticking to his skin. He probably smelt like a bar.
Ivan looked anywhere but at him, fiddling with the edge of the table, “Hot chocolate. If you wouldn’t mind.”
Kotetsu nodded, a smile spread across his face more for the kid’s sake than his, “Gotcha, I’ll be right back, after I clean up this,” he gestured to his chest.
“I’m so sorry-”
“Don’t sweat it, kid, accidents happen.”
Ivan’s shoulders seemed to sag, “I can help.”
Kotetsu waved him off, “Don’t worry about it.”
With that, he was off. He didn’t know what was troubling Ivan but from the cloud that seemed to be metaphorically hanging over his head, he guessed it was something big.
Usually, Ivan kept to himself with his coworkers, it took a lot to drag him somewhere. The fact that it was this easy to get him to follow Kotetsu was already a concern.
Once he gave up on his vest, after dabbing at it with toilet paper only for small clumps of paper to stick to the fabric like glue for a total of five minutes, he got their drinks, he ordered himself another cup of coffee and Ivan’s hot chocolate with extra whipped cream. That’s what kids liked right?
“I’m surprised you’re not trying to arrest me right now,” Kotetsu laughed nervously, as he sat himself down. Whipped cream was spilling over the edges of Ivan’s mug like a cone of ice cream on a sunny day. Maybe extra whipped wasn’t the way to go.
“What’s the point? You’re stronger, more skilled, and more experienced than me,” Ivan paused, slurping the innards of his drink, pointedly ignoring the whipped cream. “It was a surprise to all of us seeing you go off on your own like that, you know.”
“It’s not like I had a choice,” Kotetsu shrugged.
“But you did though!” Ivan set him with a determined glare, which was undermined by his chocolate mustache, “You could’ve just left the hero business entirely, but you didn’t. Why?“
What was with people and their whys? He wasn’t a complicated guy, he thought his answer was obvious.
“People still need savin’. The rest is bureaucratic nonsense, and I don’t know if I’m really in the hero business anymore,” Kotetsu waved the question off. It was tougher to say than he’d liked to admit.
He made a promise. He planned to keep it.
It was as simple as that. At least, that was what he kept telling himself.
“Tell me about it, I’m supposed to be at the Hero Academy with Barnaby right now,” Ivan sighed, resting his cheek on his fist.
“You were with Buu-arnaby?” Kotetsu’s eyes widened.
Back at his apartment, a neatly folded black pullover rested on top of his dresser. Bunny had lent it to him when his shirt had been melted to a crisp. It was made from a soft, expensive material that somehow managed to be both warm and thin at the same time. It irritated him that he was forced to admit that it was comfortable. Too comfortable, he might add.
He had been planning to get it back to him eventually, but now, it felt wrong to just show up on his roof again without some type of forewarning, which was weird because they didn’t have each other’s contact info, for obvious reasons. Hell, Bunny didn’t even know his real name. Still, it still felt wrong to continue this stalemate when that damned shirt kept staring at him.
“Yeah?” Ivan shrugged, “Since Agnes knows we went to the Hero Academy when we were kids.”
“Really? I guess that makes sense,” the know-it-all attitude, bomb diffusing techniques, and the pompous, loner schtick he had going for him. Honestly, if Bunny were ever set up with a partner, Kotetsu would bet his entire Mr. Legend Limited Edition cassette tapes that they’d keel over on the spot, and complain to management.
Ivan muttered something under his breath.
“Sorry, what was that?”
“I just said he was at the top of his class.”
“Oh, uh, well, that also makes sense,” Kotetsu took a sip of his boring coffee.
“He even had a fan club,” Ivan folded in on himself, hunching his shoulders tighter and tighter with every word that came out of his mouth. Kotetsu could see why he called himself Origami.
“Yeah, well, fans aren’t the end all be all of being a hero,” Kotetsu leaned back, shrugging.
“Easy for you to say, you’ve never been all that popular. I’m getting bashed left and right.”
“Ouch, you really know how to kick a guy when he’s down,” Kotetsu took a sip of his drink, mourning the slight burn of alcohol he would have felt if Ivan hadn’t run into him. “Look who you’re talking to, kid,” Kotetsu gestured to himself, “You don’t see that stopping me, and it shouldn’t stop you either.”
“Maybe it should stop you.”
“Hey! Now wait a second!”
A sigh, totally ignoring Kotetsu’s indignation, “I wish I could be as confident as you, but I just know that I don’t deserve this. Not after everything I’ve done.”
Kotetsu shook his head, Ivan had not met his gaze this entire conversation, “don’t say that. I’m sure there’s something only your power is capable of dealing with.”
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me,” Ivan rested his cheek on his fist, and his hot chocolate was left untouched, “That doesn’t change the fact that I should have never become a hero.”
“You’ve been given this responsibility, you deserve it. It’s not about the points or the fans-”
“I know that!” Ivan snapped, slamming his fist on the small table and drawing a couple of eyes, then he lowered his voice, “It’s not about- I made a mistake. I froze when someone needed me the most, and then,” Ivan’s voice trembled, “he paid the price for it, and so did an innocent bystander,” his lower lip trembled, his eyes wet with unshed tears as he ducked his head down to stare at his clenched fists. “A woman is dead because of me. I know for a fact that I don’t deserve to be where I am, heroes don’t freeze, they don’t hide. And that’s all I can do,” his nails dig into his palms, “hide. Like a coward.”
—
“That doesn’t change the fact that you are a hero,” Ivan jolted to meet Tiger’s eyes, surprised by the intensity of his dark gaze.
For once he wasn’t teeming with energy or righteous fury, but a calm determination. Ivan had never seen him like this before, it was odd, as though vigilantism had tempered his resolve to a cool steel than the red-hot iron it had been before.
“The way I see it is,” Tiger leaned forward, “you’ve gotta responsibility. You want it. And you don’t know how to live up to it.”
Ivan opened his mouth to speak.
“Maybe you chose wrong before,” a pause, “Everyone has. I’ve-“ Tiger pursed his lips, “Failure is a part of the job.
Ivan narrowed his eyes, refraining from the instinct to cross his arms over his chest, “I didn’t peg you as the heartless type.”
“I wasn’t there when someone needed me- When a lot of people needed me.” Tiger shook his head, “We learn. As heroes, that’s all we can do. We can’t change the past, but you have a choice now. You shouldn’t be asking me questions. You should be asking yourself; are you going to make the same mistake again?”
Ivan was breathing heavily, his chest heaving, his mouth agape. He didn’t know whether to run or to hide.
Are you going to make the same mistake again?
Was he?
It seemed so easy. So tempting to run away and hide underneath yet another face, another excuse, another fear, all this time he had been trying to protect himself by wearing his sponsorships like armor and using his powers like they were a gimmick.
Maybe the reason he didn’t feel like a hero wasn’t because of the public or the comments on his stupid blog but because he knew deep down he wasn’t acting like one.
He made mistake after mistake after mistake, he thought that it was out of his hands. There were people like Barnaby and Blue Rose who just seemed born for the spotlight. People like Sky High, Fire Emblem, Rock Bison, and Dragon Kid who took to combat like fish to water. Or born to save people like Tiger. He had always lagged behind.
Ivan wasn’t a fighter, a celebrity, or a rescuer. All he could do was hide in plain sight, misdirect, and hope that his opponent got dizzy enough to fall into handcuffs of their own accord.
Ivan wasn’t a hero.
Edward was.
Maybe it was time to stop trying to emulate everyone else. Maybe Tiger was right. Despite what the masses or the media say, being a hero wasn’t a race, it was a choice.
As though he jolted awake from a dream, he looked at Tiger. He nodded his head once, and a wry smile tugged at the edge of Tiger’s lips, “You already know what to do, don’tcha?”
Are you going to make the same mistake again?
Was he?
He could. It was easy. Ivan wasn’t a hero. He was a coward and a sneak. It’d be so easy to let Tiger do this. He’d fight Ivan’s demons better than he ever could.
Was he?
Origami’s chair squealed as he pushed it back with his legs.
“I do.”