Chapter 35
It was the middle of the night when Izuku had an epiphany.
Well, perhaps not an epiphany. A regular realisation – his life hadn't been changed, or at least not yet. But it was something that he hadn't considered before: Knuckleduster was Quirkless. Whether he was Quirkless in his civilian identity or not was another matter, but when it came to Humarise Knuckleduster might actually know something useful. And even if he didn't, it might be something to take to Humarise. Akatani was a bust, especially given that Shigaraki knew the truth, but if Izuku could point Humarise to a heroic inclined vigilante he could score some brownie points. Provided, of course, that Knuckleduster agreed.
Enthused by the thought, Izuku got out of bed and dressed. He might regret it in the morning, but one day of poor sleep probably wouldn't kill him. Besides, he did most of his best thinking at night.
The problem was, Izuku reflected as he sat at his desk and ran his fingers over the cover of his latest notepad, everyone wanted something different. The MLA, presumably, wanted a disaster so they could supplant the government. The League of Villains wanted to kill Heroes. All For One, at a guess, wanted his old strength back. The Eight Precepts wanted to survive. Overhaul wanted to get rid of Quirks? And Humarise, who the hell knew what they wanted. Everyone wanted something different, and didn't that just make it difficult to predict them all? Too difficult. Izuku was getting used to playing things by ear, but the part of him that was still a Bat cringed at the thought. Plans and contingencies and backups, that was the way he'd prefer to work. Ah well. Izuku cracked open his curtains and sat on his bed, looking through the narrow gap into the beckoning night.
Knuckleduster was somewhere out there, probably pummelling some poor drug dealer or mugger. Izuku hadn't known him long enough to have a good read on whether the man was a planner or whether he was likely to patrol and just look for trouble, but he didn't doubt that he found plenty. But, considering his attitude…
"Kinda wish I was out there," Izuku murmured, his lips moving without conscious input. He didn't move, his eyes still locked on the night sky and the shroud of darkness barely lightened by the streetlights. What was it like out there? What was the temper of the streets, the movements of the common criminals? What was the heartbeat of the city? Izuku wished that he knew. But even with his provisional licence, going out and about was probably pushing it too far. For the moment, at least, Red Hood needed to play by some of the rules. Maybe he should create a new identity, a vigilante who could operate truly in the shadows? Part of him wondered if maybe he should tie it to Akatani Mikumo. He suspected that Mikumo's time with the MLA was coming to an end, and dying in some ham-fisted attempt to become a Hero sounded right in line, especially as Chitose had seen him fight, however briefly. But that would burn the vigilante persona, wouldn't it? Maybe not.
He had more than enough identities. But the idea was still a tempting one. The problem would be completely disassociating it from Red Hood, so that the people who would almost certainly realise who he was could have plausible deniability. That put most of the Bat identities out immediately. Hand to hand he could probably stay with, but the gadgets were a no-go. He'd need to completely cover up, as well.
…Green Arrow had a costume with a hood, Izuku remembered. Cover the arms to hide his prosthetic, replace the gadgets with trick arrows? It wouldn't be perfect, but it would be something. And Izuku did know how to use a bow, more or less. Part Bruce's mania for making sure his Robins could use any weapon they might encounter, part Jason's mania for knowing how to use any weapon he could encounter, and part Jason's sort of burgeoning friendship with Red Arrow over in Star City. Looking back, Izuku thought that Jason and Red Arrow would have made a good team given time. But Arrow had only started appearing near the end of Superman's initial rule, and they hadn't had time. Izuku wasn't even sure if Red Arrow had been taught by Green Arrow – the original Green Arrow, not either of the multiversal counterparts who'd turned up – or if he was just a fan. Either way, Izuku didn't think it was too outrageous as a back-up identity. He wasn't up to performing trick-shots while leaping from rooftop to rooftop, but he could probably train himself to manage it. Izuku reached across to an older notepad and flipped to the front, to costume designs created before he knew Red Hood could be accepted. There was a bow sketched there – several bows, in fact, because Izuku had been trying out designs.
In hindsight, a bow that doubled as a pair of batons was probably a little too gimmicky to manage. A staff, maybe if still unlikely, but batons? Probably not. But Izuku could carry a pair of batons and a bow pretty easily, and maybe a wrist crossbow? He'd never found a situation that couldn't be improved by being armed to the teeth. In both lives, come to think of it. Trick arrows with a net, flashbangs? The Adaptive Gel Matrix was proprietary, but he could probably get away with something more old fashioned, a properly designed mix of cloth. It wouldn't be nearly as bulletproof, but so long as he avoided being shot at he'd live. Or he could steal something. That could work.
"I'm not considering this," Izuku told himself, "Not really. Just something to keep me occupied. And something I can do just in case something really goes wrong."
Vigilante Escape Plan, version fifty-six point three. Abandon his old identity and take on a new one. Avenge himself on whoever he felt like. Never go out in daylight again.
He'd need Vitamin D supplements, Izuku idly thought. Maybe he should start stocking up. Just in case.
The next day, once the school day was over, Izuku found himself being dragged into Shinso's latest training session with Aizawa. He didn't mind, really. It was good to give back to the community, so to speak, and it was a convenient way to speak to Aizawa without it looking suspicious. Fully armoured, Izuku made his way onto the Training Ground where Aizawa stood, watching Shinso train in silence. Running laps, in fact. Izuku's calves ached in sympathy.
Izuku didn't get much more than a grunt from Aizawa when he greeted the man, but that was normal and he took no offence. Instead he stood next to him and watched Shinso run. Building up stamina as well as speed, Izuku thought. Shinso had trained his Quirk on his own, and now Aizawa was training his body. That always brought up the same questions for Izuku, though.
How strong, he wondered, was Shinso's Quirk? Could it work like a truth serum? If Shinso could put, say, Chitose under his control, could he ask her to spill every secret she knew about the MLA and have it work? Food for thought.
"You're thinking," Aizawa said, "Stop it."
"I'm always thinking. Sir."
"That must be why I've been having heart palpitations recently," Aizawa sniped in return, draining his eighth coffee of the day and crumpling the can in his fist. Izuku didn't look significantly at him. He didn't really need to. Aizawa made a noise that might have been a laugh, so long as you were hearing it from a distance on a foggy night.
"Shinso looks better than before," Izuku added, nodding at the track where Shinso was running laps. He still wasn't as fast as most of 1-A, but he was a lot faster than he had been. He had a scarf that looked a lot like Aizawa's wrapped awkwardly around his neck and torso, flapping slightly in the wind. Adorable.
"He's almost at the level I'd expect for a Hero student," Aizawa said. Izuku thought that he heard pride in the flat voice – someone else probably couldn't tell, but Jason had known how to decipher emotions in Bruce's field voice. Aizawa still wasn't easy, but there were some tells in the intonation.
"You're going to bring him into the class, sir?" Izuku asked. Most of the class would probably be fine with it, so long as Shinso wasn't too confrontational. Bakugo could be difficult on both sides, given the Sports Festival, but that was a long time ago now. Bakugo was humbler.
For a given definition of humbler, anyway. Bakugo was still outwardly confident, aggressive, still the loner, but sometimes Izuku thought he saw him pause to actually think about what he was doing. Mina thought that Todoroki and Bakugo might even be becoming friends, glued together by their loner natures and the beating they'd taken from All Might in the final exams. Izuku wasn't so sure, but he didn't want to discount her expertise entirely. Still.
"I haven't decided about bringing him into the class yet," Aizawa said, eyes still fixed on Shinso, "The Hero classes are only supposed to have forty members. It unbalances things. But maybe for future exercises. I have some permissions from Nedzu."
That was a frightening sentence if Izuku had ever heard one. Their in-class exercises hadn't gotten that much more complex yet – hostage recovery again, navigating a crowd, calming a crowd, basic rescue exercises – but Izuku could foresee truly complex simulations in his future. He'd meant to ask Mirio about the exercises the Third Years did, but he hadn't wanted to trigger any sort of PTSD. Aizawa, as though hearing Izuku's thoughts, sighed.
"That should be enough running," he said. He didn't continue, instead walking across the field towards Shinso, and Izuku followed. Aizawa called for Shinso to stop and the other boy slowed, coming to a halt next to them.
"Enjoying yourself?" Izuku asked, nodding to Shinso. Shinso, doubled over and heaving in breaths as he tried to recover from the probably excessive number of laps he'd had to run, looked up long enough to give Izuku a remarkably nasty look. Izuku laughed.
"How come," Shinso said between pants, "I don't see you doing this, Midoriya?"
"I get to run along with the rest of Class 1-A," Izuku said dryly, "Believe me, Aizawa's going easy on you. Seeing Iida suddenly fall over because he was using his Quirk and Aizawa swept us all with Erasure wasn't good for my lifespan."
Shinso looked incredulous. Aizawa looked unrepentant.
"They need to learn not to rely on their Quirks," he said, like the psycho he was.
Shinso transferred his incredulous stare to Aizawa, but didn't say anything. Izuku recognised, in that stare, the look of childhood hero worship shattered. He could relate.
"We've spent most of our time bringing your physical fitness to an acceptable level," Aizawa said, not bothering with petty things like subtlety or delicately changing the subject, "But I've also given you some hand-to-hand training. I've asked Midoriya to be here today so I can properly assess your skills in that area. I've sparred with you myself, but being able to watch instead is more efficient. Take a minute and then we'll begin."
Shinso turned an assessing gaze onto Izuku, who didn't move. He was still fully armoured, although he'd taken his helmet off as they walked across, and now he looked around and set his helmet down. Stretches, basic but effective as he analysed Shinso's Hero costume. It was almost identical to Aizawa's, right down to being more like a jumpsuit than anything else. Aizawa had at least one hidden knife, Izuku thought, but Shinso didn't share that predilection. Nothing else. Not much as armour: Bruce would have been horrified.
"Are there any restrictions, sir?" he asked, glancing over to Aizawa. Aizawa shook his head.
"Shinso, you'll be attacking. Don't hold anything back. Midoriya, stay on the defence but use whatever you like."
Not as fun as it might be, although Izuku suspected that Shinso would have a hard time on the defensive. Like Aizawa, his best defence was to not be there: Izuku's armour would allow him to simply bull through and overwhelm Shinso. So. Fists, feet, grappling if Shinso had any, and the capture scarf. Izuku didn't know how experienced Shinso was with the capture scarf, but it would be interesting to find out. Shinso settled opposite him, one hand tangled into the coils of his scarf and the other held out with fingers spread, and Izuku settled on a basic boxing stance, fists raised. Aizawa lifted a hand.
"Begin," he said, as though bored, and Shinso sprang.
The first attack was aggressive, well-practiced, a high kick to begin with. Shinso's foot swept high, towards Izuku's head, and met Izuku's forearm coming the other way. The scarf floated just behind the foot, an attempt to wrap the fabric around Izuku's arm, and Izuku pulled his arm back under the loop and twisted, striking back. Shinso exhaled hard as Izuku's free fist caught him in the side and lurched back, pulling his scarf sharply back to wrap loosely around his neck again. Not terrible. Attack into binding, if it had worked it might have taken Izuku's arm out of action. Too telegraphed, but solid intent.
Shinso retreated and Izuku resumed his defensive posture. Shinso's eyes skittered over him, telegraphing and looking for weaknesses, and Izuku muffled a smile. Two exchanges later Shinso was no closer to landing a good blow, and Izuku was getting his measure. Shinso wasn't bad, exactly, but he was inexperienced: he always looked exactly where he was going to strike. Still, Izuku would rate him as being only slightly below average by 1-A standards. Definitely not bad.
Five minutes and a dozen exchanges later, when Aizawa called it off, Shinso was sweating and clearly frustrated by his inability to break through Izuku's defences. Izuku shook out his arms, glancing over at Aizawa.
"Good," Aizawa said flatly, "You're improving."
"I thought you wanted to put me against Midoriya to see how I managed against someone closer to my level?" Shinso asked. Aizawa made a quiet noise of amusement.
"At the Summer Camp," he said, "Class 1-A and 1-B held a tournament. Quirkless combat only. Midoriya won. If you'd beaten him or even landed more than a couple of punches I would have replaced him with you in an instant."
Izuku rolled his eyes at Aizawa's dramatics, well used to them by now, and walked back over to his helmet while Aizawa gave Shinso some actually useful feedback. Truth be told, Shinso was fine. He just needed to get used to using his scarf and become more used to actually fighting. He was young yet.
"I'll take that as a compliment, sir," Izuku said when he returned. Aizawa nodded.
"As you should. Is there anything else, Midoriya? I only needed you here to get a better understanding of Shinso's skills."
"If you don't mind, Shinso, I have a couple of questions about your Quirk," Izuku said. Shinso looked to Aizawa and got nothing but a shrug, so he hesitantly nodded.
"I – yeah, I don't mind. What is it?"
Izuku picked up his helmet and tucked it under his arm, using the motion to buy himself time to think. Best to properly phrase the questions to get good answers.
"Your Quirk, Brainwashing. It can make people do what you want, right? Can it make them tell you what you want to know?"
"Looking to bypass normal interrogations, Midoriya?"
"It would make things easier, sir. And I'm fairly sure that the chemicals needed for truth serum are still on a proscribed list."
"Sorry," Shinso said, "It can't make people do complicated things. It's mostly just, you know. Walk over there. Jump on the spot, maybe, although I think the shock of landing might break them out of it. It can't access higher brain functions, I guess."
Izuku and Aizawa both eyed Shinso, who took a step back.
"Well, Quirks can be trained," Izuku said, "Could you give a specific order to a single person? For instance, could you take over a crowd of people and order one single person to walk out by name? Can you take over crowds? I should have asked that first."
"I can control multiple people at once, but it's harder," Shinso said, "It's difficult to stop them from walking into each other or whatever, and it's fairly easy to break the control. Plus if anyone doesn't get controlled they can quickly break people out. I can probably have a group of people controlled and walk somewhere? Not sure, and I'd have to shout pretty loudly."
"You couldn't use a loudspeaker?"
"My Quirk doesn't work through megaphones, or anything that makes my voice artificial," Shinso explained, "Eraserhead and I tested it, to make sure. And someone who's deaf would just be immune, I guess? I don't think I can improve it to bypass the problem."
Izuku considered. That was a significant downside to an otherwise powerful Quirk, wasn't it?
"That's a pity," he said, "Otherwise we could have wired you up to my helmet and had you use your Quirk from somewhere safe, while I was in the field. It would make some things a lot easier."
Izuku was starting to think, slightly regretfully, that it might be time to reel back on the subtlety. Infiltrations were good and all, but there was something to be said for the Bat-Approved Extra Judicial Interrogation methods. BAEJI, for short. Most people tended to talk when dangled off a rooftop by the ankle. Maybe Izuku could get Knuckleduster to help out? That seemed like the kind of thing the big vigilante would do. Izuku thought for a moment longer before shrugging.
"Does your Quirk fail to apply to people who use hearing aids, as well?" he asked, "If they're just magnifying the signal?"
Shinso half shook his head, opening his mouth, and frowned.
"I…I don't know, actually. How could we test that? We'd need someone with a hearing aid."
Izuku thought about it for a moment, fiddling with the settings on his helmet.
"I might have an idea."
Shinso and Aizawa both watched him as he slid his helmet on, talking as soon as it was in place.
"I love Quirk testing," he said, "I don't get a chance to do it that often since, you know, don't have one myself. But Quirks are just fascinating. Like magic, a lot of the time. I mean some are pretty basic, but stuff like Yaoyorozu's? Atomic manipulation? How could you even begin to replicate that?"
Some crazy woman had once told Jason that he had potential as a magician. Izuku didn't know if it was true, because Jason had never tried, never had time to try, but Izuku sort of wished he had. It would be interesting to see if magic worked in this universe like it did back in Jason's. At the very least, it would have given him another advantage – and Izuku was a big fan of having every possible advantage. Trying to learn magic now, though, would probably cost him his soul. Izuku quite liked having his soul where it was.
Unfortunate, because Izuku foresaw getting dragged into All For One and his villainous bullshit, and it would have been nice if exorcising the bastard wasn't out of the question. The problem was, how did you kill someone like that? Jason had killed a lot of people, powerful people, but... bullets weren't certain, depending on how tough the man was and how fast he could dodge. Like hell was Izuku going to try to fight him with a sword, even if he had a sword that could kill someone who was on All Might's level. Maybe a bomb?
Maybe Izuku could just crash a plane into All For One. If Shinso's Quirk worked, he could even get All For One to stand still and have the plane crash into him. Or they could kidnap him and take him out into the ocean, no-one could swim their way out of the centre of the Pacific. Or drop him in Antarctica. There were so many options, and some of them didn't even involve explosives. Izuku was maturing.
Maturing he may have been, but he'd also been standing in silence for almost half a minute and Shinso was starting to look nervous. Izuku cleared his throat and shook his head, shaking off the daydreams.
"So," Izuku said, "Quirk testing. My helmet has mufflers in it, for if I'm firing my guns close to my head, if I get hit by a sonic attack, if someone tries to blow me up, if I try to blow someone up…lots of things. Normally it's automated, but I can alter them manually. So I'm thinking I'll muffle my hearing, turn on the translator and we'll see if your Quirk still works. Interested?"
Shinso was interested.
"Alright," Izuku said a few moments later, barely to hear his own words through the silencing of his helmet, "Ask me a question."
Shinso looked baffled – Izuku saw him turn to Aizawa, who must have nodded in agreement – but spoke nonetheless. His mouth moved, Izuku reading his lips. Can you tell what I'm saying?
The robotic voice in his helmet repeated the words in his ear, a soft drone, and Izuku answered.
"I can tell," he said, and felt Shinso's Quirk settle over him. He'd been under it before and it was a strange, dreamy sensation, the body and the brain becoming disconnected as the body obeyed. Izuku swayed slightly on his feet, muzzily recognising Shinso's frown of puzzlement before Shinso's mouth moved. It was harder to tell what he said, this time, but again Izuku understood it even before his helmet repeated the words. Take one step forwards.
No.
Breaking out of the Quirk was like a whiplash, like snapping awake from half a dream, heart pounding and adrenaline surging. Falling and lurching back to yourself the moment before you hit the dream ground. Izuku staggered back, hands coming up towards his head, and Shinso recoiled.
"Unmute," Izuku gasped, and sound came rushing back in as the dampening systems switched off. He reached up, pressing a hand against the front of the helmet for a moment before unlocking it and pulling it off, dragging in a deep breath of unfiltered air.
"Midoriya, what?" Shinso said, his voice not quite firm enough for it to be a demand, "What the hell?"
"Quirk testing," Izuku said, closing his eyes for a long second before he opened them again, "Yours. I switched my helmet to a different setting, I didn't hear your voice because my helmet filtered it out and repeated the words back to me. But…"
"It still worked, just not well," Shinso said, "How?"
Izuku, not a Quirk expert despite his theories, looked at Aizawa. Aizawa folded his arms, his usual frown deepening even further.
"Your Quirk," Aizawa said, "It must be a multiple part Quirk. An Emitter, yes, but responding to your question must be the actual trigger."
"Like hypnosis," Izuku suggested, "The question implants the hypnosis, but Shinso's voice actually activates it. Or it could just be some pseudo-magic Quirk nonsense."
"Quirk nonsense?" Shinso asked. Izuku nodded, sitting down on the bench while he shook off the aftereffects and resting his helmet next to him.
"Sure. Take five point activation Quirks, for example. They're called that because they activate when someone with one touches someone with all the fingers on one hand. But is the activation requirement five fingers on one hand? Is it five fingers total? Is it all the fingers on one hand? One of those isn't too hard to test, but the other one needs you to cut people's fingers off. Most people won't go for that. Same thing with a lot of the deeper Quirk testing: it's never going to pass an Ethics board."
"Interesting to think about, though," Aizawa added, "I've tested if I can activate Erasure with just one eye before."
"Can you?" Izuku asked, suddenly interested. Aizawa shrugged.
"Doesn't work as well, but yeah."
That was interesting. But it was just closing one eye. Would Erasure still be affected if Aizawa was missing an eye? If he was nearly blind, would Erasure work as normal? It appeared to cause accelerated dry eye, but Izuku had never timed how long Aizawa could maintain his Quirk to know. Shinso's expression was somewhere between fascinated and horrified.
"Quirk science," Izuku said with a shrug, "It's one of those things that's a bit awkward."
Truth be told, he was surprised that there didn't appear to be any messed up super-soldier programs or whatever. Could you simply cut some Quirked individuals apart and Frankenstein them into a single monstrous combatant? Then again, wasn't that what the Nomu were? Food for thought. Izuku did wish that Trigger was legal, in some ways. It would be fascinating to see what it could do to the Quirks of his classmates. And, that paranoid part of him added, what it might reveal about them.
Shinso didn't ask anything more, perhaps because he was worried of what the answers might be, and Aizawa wandered away to begin packing up the equipment he'd brought. Shinso lingered next to Izuku, looking as though he wanted to ask a question.
"Can I ask you for some advice?" Shinso said. Izuku shrugged.
"You can ask. Don't know if I'll be any use."
Shinso nodded, looking down at his feet. His fingers toyed with the end of his scarf, scraping across the fabric. He sighed.
"I…I can't think of a Hero name."
Izuku almost fell over from the whiplash.
"You can't – you can't think of a name. That's a lot less serious than I was thinking," he said. Shinso flushed but didn't look up.
"I know," he said, sounding nearly desperate, "But how do you pick a good name? How did your class pick good names?"
Izuku stared. Shinso stared back.
"I – I'm going to be honest, my class did not pick names well. Bakugo still wants to be called Great Explosion Murder God King Dynamite or whatever the hell else it is. Mina hasn't chosen a name. Aoyama's is a paragraph long."
"I…yeah, okay. Okay. But you picked a decent name, right, and so did Froppy and Uravity and a bunch of others. So when you picked your name, Red Hood, you just came up with it?"
"Yes," Izuku reflexively lied. It was significantly easier than trying to explain the whole multiversal, reclaiming the name from the man who murdered you thing. Izuku wasn't even sure where he'd start. He took a breath.
"You're stuck on a name?" he asked, "You could try Hijack, if you're stuck. Or Controller."
"Aren't those sort of. You know, villainous? Sinister?" Shinso asked. Izuku stared at him.
"More than Mindjack or Puppeteer? If you're stuck on the puppeteer thing, you could call yourself Geppetto."
When Shinso continued to look baffled Izuku sighed.
"Geppetto? Guiseppe Geppetto, from Pinocchio? The puppet-maker?"
"I haven't seen it."
"It was a book first," Izuku muttered under his breath before shaking his head.
"Just a suggestion."
Shinso frowned and shook his head.
"I don't know. It's something, at least. Something interesting, and unusual…could work. Ask people if they know where my name comes from, that could be good for my Quirk. Thanks for the suggestions, Midoriya."
Izuku shrugged.
"Happy to help, I guess."
Izuku missed the days when he hadn't been afraid to approach the Support laboratory. Those halcyon days when he'd been young, and his heart was an open book, and he'd said live and let live.
Izuku hummed the chorus under his breath, letting the thought trail off as he tentatively approached the door. Triply reinforced after the last time it had been blown off its hinges, it still didn't look secure enough to Izuku. But, in this ever-changing world in which he lived in, he regularly risked his life. And Hatsume had promised him a new helmet, with fresh gimmicks. Izuku was, much to his regret, a sucker for fresh gimmicks. He pushed open the door, not without a certain trepidation, and entered to the sound of voices.
Voices? It couldn't be other Support students, they were far too frightened of Hatsume to stay after hours. It wasn't Power Loader, because both voices sounded female. Izuku hesitantly advanced, suddenly glad that he was still wearing his costume – just in case – and came around the corner to find Hatsume gesturing happily at a floating image of what looked like a newer, more terrifying version of her Suppressor powered armour. And, nodding along, was a slightly sepia toned image of Melissa Shield. A glint of red caught his eye and Izuku instinctively picked up what looked very much like a newer version of his helmet: like an optimistic, naïve fool he'd left his old one at the door. He cradled the helmet, hugging it to himself in fear as he listened to the conversation.
God help him, Hatsume and Melissa Shield were collaborating. Melissa had begun to confide in Hatsume. Treat her like a best friend. If anything could buy Izuku an express ticket to hell, it was introducing these two lunatics to one another. Maybe he should see if the Pope still sold indulgences.
"It's more control," Hatsume said enthusiastically, in that tone that still made Power Loader twitch for his brand new sonic rifle. Melissa, projected as a hologram rather than opting for anything so pedestrian as a computer screen, nodded along.
"Right," she agreed, "The exosuits can function as armour, but getting the best out of them requires a deeper connection. It would just be too invasive. I know some people tried to design a neural link that wouldn't require any surgery, but in the end they decided it would need psychic powers."
"Which is why Greenie would be such a great test subject! Not perfect, really, but the way his prosthetic connects to his nerves-"
"In theory, would allow him to control an exosuit like his own body. Genius! The only problem is possible interference-"
"From his remaining limbs, right. But the breakthrough! The science!"
Izuku reached for his helmet. He might not be able to get to Melissa, but he could put his helmet on and flood the entire lab with tranquiliser gas to stop Hatsume. Power Loader would understand the necessity of his sacrifice; it was for the good of the world. And for the good of his nerves, too. Maybe he should lobby Nedzu, try to get a Basic Ethics class added alongside All Might's Superhero Banter elective. He was just lifting his helmet towards his face when both girls sighed, in unison.
"The science would be great," Melissa said glumly, "But ethically…"
"Unconscionable, yes," Hatsume agreed, slightly more brightly, "And cutting all of someone's limbs off would make them reliant on the armour. No backups. A shame! Still, a functioning power armour for general use?"
Oh, thank Christ. Maybe he wouldn't need to buy an indulgence after all.
Good thing, too, since he wasn't sure if they still worked on atheists. Or, agnostic, maybe? Probably. Hard to call yourself an atheist when you'd seen footage of Zeus beating Superman like he owed him money, even if the jury was still out on the question of the Big Man in the sky, Alpha and Omega type God. Either way, Izuku gratefully tucked his helmet under his arm and walked further into the lab, clearing his throat.
"Midoriya," Melissa said happily. Hatsume just waved.
"Oh, you found the new helmet design! What do you think of it?"
Izuku lifted it up, turning it to face him. It was a little more angular than his usual, shaped almost like a skull. Very intimidating. Actually, he was pretty sure this was based on one of his own designs. Hatsume did create intimidating designs sometimes, but he was pretty sure she didn't do it on purpose. This had been designed for that.
"It's a different shape," he said, wondering if she'd get the prompt. Hatsume nodded.
"Yep," she said, "From that notebook you gave me! I thought that it would be boring to just have the same look all the time, so you can use that one while I upgrade your usual!"
Izuku shrugged.
"Okay," he said, "What've you added in?"
He walked towards her as he spoke, deciding that he probably wasn't in danger of being chopped up to serve as the brain of a murder robot. Not yet, anyway. Hatsume turned back to Melissa, gesturing broadly.
"Not much," she said, "It's got all the usual stuff, but also there's a prototype fingerprint scanner added. It'll use finger oils on keys to track which is most heavily used, so you can crack into places better. Melissa designed most of it."
How come Melissa got an actual name, rather than a nickname? Was it some sort of intellectual equal thing? Or was it because, beneath that mild exterior, Melissa was just as crazy as Hatsume?
"Just be aware that it's very new," Melissa butted in, "And we haven't managed to miniaturise a system for calculating passwords using it. The computing power that it would take…I'm hoping to get a proper upload link so that any fingerprints you scan with it can be connected to the police database, though. That could be useful."
"I wouldn't say no to it," Izuku said, "Thank you. You're going to add this into my other helmet, Hatsume?"
"Sure will, when I have the time. Busy these days, Greenie!"
"With the… cyborg stuff?" Izuku asked, taking his life in his hands. Hatsume spun to face him, her pupils shifting as they zoomed in. Izuku didn't swallow or take a step back, but it was a close thing.
"A little bit," Melissa said just as Izuku was starting to consider escape routes, thankfully drawing Hatsume's attention again, "We were talking about powered armour and stuff, and I mentioned what Sam took from the vaults. Or we assume it was Sam, anyway."
"He took more than the Quirk Enhancer, then?" Izuku asked, slipping away from Hatsume while she was distracted and walking around the table. He recognised some of the scattered parts there as pieces of Hatsume's power armour, but there were all sorts of other bits and pieces. Hatsume picked up a gauntlet that was very similar to his and started to tinker with it: some sort of taser attachment, maybe? It reminded Izuku of his old taser knuckles.
"Yeah, quite a lot more," Melissa said, "Some of the other scientists and security people think that he just took designs at random, but I don't know. He didn't plan everything that well, but he did make a plan. Surely he'd have had an idea of what he wanted to take?"
Izuku shrugged.
"Some criminals do, some criminals don't," he said, "I guess he'd have had access, though. I'd have expected him to take stuff that could work with the Quirk Enhancer. What did he take?"
"Mostly weapons. A couple of research pieces on laser weapons, the plans for every set of powered armour there was. Stuff on prosthetics. I guess he wanted to become an arms dealer?"
"Or maybe it was part of his deal with Iron Star. Wolfram was powerful enough that the Quirk Enhancer made him really dangerous, but the rest didn't have Quirks that strong. High tech weapons would be tempting."
Put together the weapons, the armour and the prosthetics, said that part of Izuku's mind that liked to think the worst, and what do you get? Cyborg super-soldiers. Izuku would like to think it wasn't likely, but…
"Are you thinking that he's trying to create some kind of super-soldier?" he asked, "That's why you were talking about combining power armour with prosthetics?"
Melissa shrugged.
"It seems like something out of a bad sci-fi film, I know."
"Story of my life, Melissa. What do you think, Hatsume? Is it possible?"
Hatsume wasn't exactly a criminologist or whatever, but she was pretty likely to see things in the schematics that Izuku and Melissa might not. Melissa was crazy but not Hatsume crazy, and Izuku liked to think that he was sane when it came to technology.
Hatsume looked at him like he was an idiot.
"It wouldn't be that hard," she said, in the tone of someone who really didn't appreciate how hard some things could be, "I know I-Island uses nanites in a lot of designs so they all glue together, but even without them powered armour is easy! I built my first prototype when I was eight, you know."
That explained an awful lot.
"The two power armour prototypes have different power systems," Hatsume continued, "But they can work together. So you add them together, and you can use one to power the armour and one for the weapons. The weapons, obviously, can attach. I don't know about the prosthetics though. I guess you could turn the armour into a prosthetic mech suit?"
"Sam isn't a doctor, though, and he'd need a doctor," Melissa interrupted. Hatsume pointed at her in acknowledgement.
"Right. Because cutting limbs off isn't easy-"
"Unless he's gone psycho," Izuku said, the voice of dour pessimism, "And doesn't care about hacking people up in some back-alley clinic."
"Stopping that's your job, right?" Hatsume said. Izuku sighed.
"Yeah, alright," he said, "That's true. But, just in case and I do have to deal with a bunch of cyborg super soldiers, you think I could make some kind of EMP bullets? Grenades? They're conceptually similar to those prototype taser rounds, right?"
Hatsume was nodding, and she gestured with the gauntlet she was still holding.
"Not just that," she said, "I can even get this working! This newest baby is called the Fulminis Arm!"
Fulminis. Probably like fulminous, said a voice in the back of his head that sounded like Bruce, meaning…resembling thunder or lightning. Unusual name, but –
"I took the name from a video game," Mei said cheerfully, "Hopefully they won't sue. They shouldn't. Anyway. It's basically an upgrade to your old shock knuckles: it's smaller, hits harder! The only problem is you only get one shot and then it needs to reload."
Hatsume squeezed the gauntlet and a pair of prongs snapped out of the knuckles. Taser prongs, Izuku thought, and leaned back as Hatsume enthusiastically waved the Fulminis Arm around. He trusted his armour to protect him in the event Hatsume accidentally jammed the taser into his chest and activated it, really he did, but sometimes discretion was the better part of valour.
"It's got a single fuel cell, mounted in the back of the gauntlet," Hatsume explained, "One zap, and then the cell ejects and needs replaced. But it's a good zap."
Izuku looked past Hatsume to Melissa, in the hopes that maybe this display of eccentricity would have gotten through to her. He didn't have high hopes, but when he saw the excited look in her eyes his stomach sank.
"So it'll knock out a cyborg?" he asked. Hatsume stopped waving the thing around, thank God, but her expression was sharp when she looked over at him.
"Depends on the cyborg," she said airily, but she was already tapping her fingers on the gauntlet again. Thinking, Izuku recognised, although he knew that even Hatsume couldn't pull out a perfect countermeasure in a heartbeat. Still, he nodded.
"Thank you for looking into it, Mei," he said, "I have to go out. You don't mind me taking this helmet, do you? Giving it a test run?"
Hatsume shook her head, already waving him out, and Melissa waved.
"Be careful, Izuku," she said, "Try not to run into any cyborgs out there."
And just like that, Izuku thought as he waved back and headed out, he was jinxed.
Knuckleduster had called another meeting. Aizawa was tight-lipped as usual, only telling Izuku that as they made their way towards Knuckleduster's gym, but that didn't mean Izuku couldn't speculate. The vigilante, of course, had connections in the underground that Izuku could only wish for. Trigger, again? Stain, maybe – Izuku had heard rumours that Knuckleduster had once run with him. Even Sam Abraham, maybe. The man had gone underground, but people talked. So long as Abraham didn't have a killer robot up and running it would be nice to head his schemes off early.
Yeah, like that was ever gonna happen. Izuku would need to save the world for his karma to equalise enough to get lucky like that – but it was good to have hope.
Well, if they did get lucky enough to go after Abraham, hopefully they'd be soon enough that they wouldn't be seeing any Cyborgs. Regular cyborgs, Izuku meant, not the Hero slash Villain slash Regime Enforcer sellout pig. Not that this world had the tech to make a Cyborg, which was a shame. Before he'd gone all Regime cop on them Vic had been a good Hero. But like the rest of the surviving Titans, he'd been real fucked up from Metropolis. Izuku knew he didn't really have any space to talk about people being fucked up, but…Jesus. Those guys had been great Heroes, once.
He wasn't above being a hypocrite.
Their entrance to Knuckleduster's gym was greeted with a dark scowl. Knuckleduster wasn't wearing his bandanna, busy dabbing cream on a truly impressive black eye, and Aizawa gestured at it.
"Walk into a door?" he asked, and Knuckleduster laughed darkly.
"Ha, ha, ha. Funny, Eraser. Some shitter got spooked when I interrupted his mugging, pulled out a dose of Trigger on me. Only lasted about a minute but for that minute he was like a raging bull."
Knuckleduster didn't wince as he massaged the cream into his bruise, but it must have hurt like hell. Macho, Izuku thought dryly.
"Get your shit together, Eraser, because this Trigger epidemic's only gonna get worse. They're even starting to bring out different variants, and that's never going to end well."
"More variants?" Aizawa asked, getting a nod in return.
"Only one so far. They're calling it Trigger Enhance," Knuckleduster said, "Powder or liquid, though I hear the powder's stronger. It's making a splash on the streets. There's even some talk of a version that you'll be able to inhale, like a gas or something."
"Good stuff?" Izuku asked, tone flattened by his helmet. Knuckleduster snorted sourly.
"Sure, if you like your Quirk goin' fuckin' haywire. Even more than regular Trigger: at least with the regular stuff people still have control. Trigger Enhance is like…well, can't say it's like nothing I've ever seen before. Reminds me of some stuff I saw back in the day. Gave its users black tongue."
That sounded nasty. Very nasty. It said a lot that Izuku was starting to think that it would be safer for everyone involved if he somehow managed to get a supply of Venom into the drug trade. At least that would only lead to an outbreak of roid rage. Knuckleduster, Izuku noticed, was looking around as though he was trying to find someone.
"Looking for someone?" Izuku asked, that familiar flicker of paranoia creeping down the back of his neck. His right arm hung limp, almost like the elbow was broken, a position for a fast draw. His left reached up, a scratch at the side of his helmet disguising the touch of a button that would activate thermal vision. Knuckleduster's expression briefly wavered between worry and dismissal.
"Think someone's following me," he said, "Not unusual. But they're being patient, and they're good. Don't know what they want."
In Izuku's experience, that was a universally bad thing and the only reasonable answer was to waylay your pursuer and beat the snot out of them. Or move to a different city. That also worked, sometimes. Not as often, but it also had less risk. Waylaying someone had the inherent danger of them being better than you, in which case you might be on the receiving end. And Izuku really preferred not to be on the receiving end of a beating.
Izuku started to ask if Knuckleduster would like some help dealing with his stalker, but decided against it. Knuckleduster was a fully grown man: if he wanted help, he could ask like a normal person. Izuku wasn't surprised when Knuckleduster just shook his head and looked off into the night.
"I'll deal with it," he grunted. Izuku might have offered anyway, but something about the set of Knuckleduster's jaw, the way he spoke, reminded him of Bruce at his most stubborn and lit a spark of petty aggravation in Izuku's chest. Goddamn it, Izuku wasn't his babysitter. If he wanted to be an idiot and risk his life because he couldn't accept help, then let him.
"Alright," Izuku said instead, "So, you said you had something for us?"
"Yeah," Knuckleduster said, "I've been talking with some sources, keeping an ear on the underground. This isn't related to Trigger, but it's something you might be interested in anyway. Guy called Sam Abraham: you heard of him?"
Izuku was silent for a long moment, long enough that Knuckleduster turned to him.
"Yeah," he said eventually, "Yeah, I've met him. He was on I-Island, one of the scientists there. He worked with the mercenaries who attacked there. Ran away in the chaos."
"Did he now. I figured him for an egghead type, but maybe I'd underestimated how interested people are in him. And they are interested: my contact said there's at least three groups looking for him. You fancy being a fourth?"
"You know where he is?" Aizawa interrupted, the growl of a detective noir protagonist emerging from the shadows where he lurked. Knuckleduster shuddered slightly.
"Would the two of you quit doing that?" he growled, "Yeah, I know where Abraham is supposed to be. It's not too far away, if you want to go check it out. But we'd better stick together, I heard that Stain might be in the area. I beat him back when he was Stendhal, but he's gotten plenty crazier since then."
Neither Aizawa nor Izuku reacted to that knowledge. In fairness, Aizawa had probably known about Knuckleduster's past with Stain already, and Izuku had been tracking Stain's whereabouts as best as he could. Stain wasn't entirely predictable, but there'd been one attack in the general area so they could expect two more. Heroes were starting to patrol in groups: Izuku expected that it wouldn't be long before they finally admitted Stain really was a problem that wasn't going to solve itself and started actively hunting him.
Izuku was reasonably sure that Stain could be caught. You just needed some really good bait, some pretty good combatants, and a dose of patience. If he was lucky, he wouldn't even end up playing bait. Come to think of it, if Stain knew Knuckleduster, then maybe that was the way in. Get Knuckleduster to make contact, jump Stain afterwards. But that was for the future.
"Can you take us to Abraham's location?" Aizawa asked. Knuckleduster shrugged.
"Sure. You know who's after him?"
"Not everyone," Aizawa grumbled, "But some of them, yeah. Conspiracies. Better that you don't know."
"Huh. Heard that one before. But fine, don't tell me. It's about twenty minutes away on foot, come on."
The three of them got moving, taking a combination of back-alleys and rooftops to avoid being seen as much as possible. Aizawa and Knuckleduster didn't say anything, alert to the night, and Izuku followed their lead. It was relaxing, really. With any luck they could snatch up Abraham and wrap up the entire Quirk Enhancer threat right here, right now. That would be nice. Izuku didn't actually voice his hope, though: who knew who or what could be listening.
They made surprisingly good time through the city. It was quiet this night, criminals hopefully staying home, and there wasn't much to block them. Izuku and Aizawa alone could probably have made better time, their higher quality gear allowing them to cross larger gaps, but Knuckleduster was proficient with his own grappling hook. Izuku wondered if his own homemade grapple was better than Knuckledusters: the Bat designs tended to be very good, but there was no shame in trying to upgrade. Stealing designs was a time-honoured classic, after all.
"Place isn't anything special, where Abraham is hiding," Knuckleduster said as they got closer, "It's a mixed district, residential and offices. I think it's a residential home, but who knows what changes might have been made. Poorer section of the city, you know. Fewer Hero patrols."
Tale as old as time. They kept going, finally landing on a roof, and Knuckleduster pointed out the house that they were looking at it. They'd come here with the hope of scoping the place out, but when Izuku looked his heart sank.
"Ah, hell," he said, "Look at the door."
Aizawa hissed, very softly, and Knuckleduster squinted before cursing. Neither of the reactions were out of place: where a door should have been there was only a gaping void, black against the feeble glow of an aging streetlight. They were too late.
"We're going to check it out, right?" Izuku asked. Knuckleduster cracked his knuckles, nodding. Aizawa held up a hand, typing briefly on his phone.
"Police have reports of a disturbance, about twenty minutes ago," he reported, "They're still putting together a response team. This is a low priority area, so…we'll go in first."
Twenty minutes? Faster than Gotham police, anyway. There wasn't likely to be anyone left anymore, but at least they'd be able to get a first look at the scene. The three of them descended to ground level and clustered in the shadows opposite the door.
"I'll go first," Izuku said, not giving the other two time to argue, "I'm the one with the armour."
The advantage of factual statements like that was that it was hard to come up with an immediate refutation.
Aizawa set his jaw like he wanted to argue, but Izuku saw the sense that he was making get through to him. Knuckleduster chuckled, low and dark.
"Looking to get killed, kid?"
"You can go first, if you're feeling bulletproof."
In all fairness, Izuku had to admit that maybe – just maybe – Knuckleduster brought out a worse side of him. The man just seemed amused.
"Nah, I don't. You can go right ahead, kid."
Izuku eyed the door, drawing his left and pistol and taking it in a careful two-handed grip. He could and often did shoot one handed, but this was always more stable. Aizawa ghosted up next to him.
"What bullets are you using?"
"Concussion rounds, sir. In the house they'll disorient anyone who's right next to the impact, even if I miss. Do you have earbuds in?"
Izuku's helmet would block the sound, preventing it from causing damage, but he liked to at least try to remember that not everyone had that luxury. Aizawa, however, had the advantage of his own Hero equipment and so he pulled a pair of reactive earbuds from inside his belt and slipped them into place, offering another pair to Knuckleduster. More suitably equipped, the three of them stole across the street and flattened themselves next to the door. Aizawa sniffed.
"Blood," he said, voice pitched so low Izuku could barely hear him. The smell wasn't strong enough to pass through the filters on Izuku's helmet, but he took Aizawa's word for it.
"On three," he whispered, sliding up next to the door, "One. Two. Three!"
Izuku wasn't exactly a SWAT team, but Jason had done this sort of thing plenty of times. The places changed, the enemies changed, but the tactics were the same. Izuku swung through the doorway, pistol levelled and sweeping from left to right as he scanned the room, never stopping. Don't stop, the worst thing you could do was get everyone jammed in the doorway, get through even if there are bullets flying.
There weren't any bullets flying. There weren't any shouts, any screams, any pleas for help. There were only two bodies, and blood splashed on the walls. Izuku didn't say anything, but they were familiar – the flak armour and faceplates were the same as the mercenaries who'd attacked I-Island. That lent credence to the idea that Abraham had been here, at least. Neither of them had gotten a shot off and Izuku kept moving, through the adjoining rooms. There were only three rooms on this bottom floor: living room, kitchen, and the third. Whatever the third room had once been, it had been converted into a workshop: a desk once littered with machine parts had been thrown down, and a computer sat silently in the corner. There was another body in here, pistol in hand. Another Iron Star merc.
"Ground floor clear," Izuku said, voice soft even through his helmet vocaliser, "Upstairs?"
Aizawa nodded, gesturing for Izuku to take the lead. He took the stairs as quietly as possible, though one of them creaked under even his careful tread. A straight stairway, up to the top and a turn onto a short corridor with three rooms adjoining. There were bullet holes punched through one of the walls and Izuku carefully nudged the door to the room open with his foot. A bedroom, a bunk bed. A corpse. Another mercenary. Another bedroom, an empty bathroom, and no sign of Abrahams.
Izuku stepped out of the bathroom, back onto the landing, and holstered his pistol.
"Four dead mercs," he said, "No dead scientist, and no blood except from the mercs. Whoever did this was a professional."
Aizawa didn't say anything, but Knuckleduster's growl of agreement sounded distinctly unhappy.
"Want to bet that there's nothing left on that pc?" he asked. Izuku shook his head.
"No bet," he said quietly as they made their way back down, into the back room. Izuku surveyed the scene, absently cataloguing a scorch mark on the wall next to the door, before righting a fallen chair and sitting down in front of the computer. It was still on, but it had been long enough to lock itself – or maybe had been locked before whoever was last on it left. A tap at the keyboard and the screen asked for a password.
"One of the new things Hatsume added to my helmet," Izuku said, "Is a scanner that detects fingerprints. It's mostly made for keypads, really, since people type on keyboards. But in theory you could use the most used keys to help crack a password."
As he spoke Izuku reached under the computer desk, feeling about. He was rewarded with the feel of paper under his fingers, withdrawing a single sticky note.
"This way's much easier, though. ScientistSupreme, number substitutions, added special characters."
"The weakest part of any security system is the human element," Aizawa said, finally speaking, "You've said that before."
"Listen, kid, no offence," Knuckleduster said as Izuku typed in the password, "But where did you pick all this shit up? Literally where?"
"I read a lot," Izuku reflexively deflected as the pc accepted the password, "It's enlightening."
Knuckleduster muttered something that probably wasn't a compliment, but he leaned over Izuku's shoulder as the pc granted access. He watched silently as Izuku ran through the files, finding the same thing on all of them: nothing.
"Abrahams must have had it set up to delete," Izuku speculated, "Or he had the time to delete it."
"Can you recover anything? I know you're not a tech specialist but you're the closest thing we have at the moment," Aizawa said. Izuku shrugged.
"These days not much is ever permanently deleted," he said, "But it'll take a while. I'll set up a recovery process and we'll see, but odds are we won't get anything out of it."
"At least try. If not, we'll hand it over to the tech specialists, but I'd like us to have a go first."
Izuku nodded to Aizawa, clicking through until he'd managed to set up a recovery program. He tapped the screen, watching the progress bar slowly crawl towards completion, and shrugged.
"That's it for now, sir. We'll have to see what it gets."
Izuku wasn't particularly hopeful. It didn't come through his tone thanks to the vocaliser, but Aizawa must have heard it anyway.
"Alright. I'll call in what's happened and see if I can get anything out of the security system – Midoriya, you're more used to guns. Go and check over the guards, see if you can reconstruct anything of what happened. Knuckleduster, stay with him."
"Not your dogsbody," Knuckleduster grumbled, but he stuck with Izuku when he left to check the front door.
"Wants to make a phone call in private," Knuckleduster said, "Paranoid bastard. What's there to reconstruct, they got jumped and they all died."
Izuku shrugged, stoic, and Knuckleduster sighed.
"Alright, kid. Walk me through what you see."
Izuku crouched next to the door, rubbing idly at his chin.
"The guards were Iron Star mercs," he said, "Same people who attacked I-Island. From facing them there, they weren't the cream of the crop but they were pretty decent soldiers. They didn't even get a shot off, mostly, so they must have been taken by surprise."
He rubbed the door hinge thoughtfully, feeling the smoothness beneath his gauntlet.
"The hinges were cut by a laser," he said, "Clean. Quiet. Then, when the door was only being held by the deadbolt, they kicked it in. Flashbang through the entryway, came right in. Two man breach team. First one had a pistol, rushed the closest guard. Shoved him against the wall, and…"
Izuku mimed pointing and shooting a pistol. Knuckleduster nodded. Izuku looked over at the other dead guard and assessed his injuries, rising back to his feet and lifting an imaginary rifle.
"The other. A rifle…no. Something shorter. An SMG? Burst in with it already in his shoulder."
Izuku imagined the guard standing, measuring his height with a glance, and levelled his imaginary gun. Knuckleduster nodded again.
"Wasn't used to the recoil, or didn't care to control it," he said, "Aimed centre of mass and held the trigger down until he dropped. That's why the bullet pattern rises up."
"That's my guess," Izuku agreed, "So that's the first two. The others must have heard something, the door falling in at least, so the breach team has to be fast. They must have had this whole place scoped out before they ever made a move."
He looked around and started off again, through the open door.
"The Iron Star guys would have reacted, surely, but even then they were still taken by surprise," he continued, "Same thing with these two bodies. They've both been killed with a pistol, though. Large pistol. Armour piercing rounds, probably, and at close range. That's some good work."
An indifferent grunt from his companion. Izuku didn't mind. They kept going, into the lab where the last body waited. Izuku paused next to the door and rubbed at the scorch mark on the concrete.
"Someone fired back, maybe the guard. Maybe Abrahams. Either way, he didn't do it with a regular weapon, given the scorch mark."
"Something exotic," Aizawa said from his place next to the computer – he must have finished his phone call, "A laser, maybe?"
"It looks that way. Something he was working on, maybe? My guess is they came right through, whoever shot the laser got one shot off, and then…they made sure to take Abrahams alive."
Izuku paused, unlocking his helmet and taking a breath. He hummed faintly at the taste of the air before he sealed his helmet again.
"Some kind of gas or smoke," Aizawa confirmed, "Threw it in, fired at the Iron Star guard. But there's no bullet holes on the other side, the computers aren't damaged, so they were being careful. Very careful – they've deleted the security footage, and the files on the computer. The recovery program hasn't managed anything, even though it's complete."
Izuku nodded, leaning on the back of the chair he'd sat in earlier. He looked at the keyboard, looking the whole set up over.
"This security system automatically backs up," he said, "Uploads a live stream of the data to a cloud server. If we're lucky, we might be able to find the footage there."
Aizawa nodded.
"That's a task for the tech specialists, though," he said, "Can you see anything else?"
Izuku sat in the chair again, spinning slowly. Aizawa and Knuckleduster waited patiently, although Izuku could see them looking around as well.
"This place, it's the lab of a mad scientist," Izuku said, "But it doesn't look like it. It doesn't look anywhere near as bad as the Support labs."
Not that that was saying much. But still.
"Abrahams," Izuku continued slowly, "Was a little bit old fashioned, when I met him on I-Island. He kept notes. And there's torn paper. Man like that, in a rented house…"
"He'd want somewhere to keep his notes, somewhere safe," Knuckleduster said, looking around. Aizawa slowly turned on his heel, scanning the walls. Painted a boring cream, with a couple of amateur landscapes. Nothing interesting, unless…
"There's scuff marks near the wall on that painting," Aizawa said thoughtfully, walking over to it and hooking his fingers under the edge of the painting. He pulled it off the wall, revealing the flat, small front of a safe with a keypad on it.
"Looks like you'll have a chance to try out that fingerprint scanner you were boasting about anyway," Knuckleduster said, shuffling over as Izuku walked across, "Looks like an eight-digit safe."
Izuku tapped at his helmet, activating the scanner. The fingerprints glowed a sickly yellow through his eyepieces, clustered most thickly around two numbers.
"Eight number code," he said, "Six numbers used. Two replicated. So…his password."
Aizawa plucked up the sheet of paper, reading the password.
"One three one five three. Last three numbers, though?"
Izuku rubbed his chin, looking at it. Pattern recognition, he thought, because people did tend to move in patterns. Even Izuku was guilty of it. Which meant…
"One three one five three nine seven six," he murmured, tapping the code in. A breathless moment where Izuku wasn't sure his guess was correct – and it was a guess, all the clever words in existence couldn't take that away – and then the door clicked and the safe swung open. Izuku grinned under his helmet.
"Huh," Knuckleduster said, reaching a now gloved hand in and pulling out a file. He flipped it open, rifling through the contents, and his lips pursed.
"What the hell is Project Iron Man?" he asked. Looking around the room, at the scattered weapons and prosthetics, Izuku thought he might know.
Better get those EMP weapons prepared, he thought, because he had a strong feeling he was going to need them.