Ines Mays

He literally runs into her.

With his time as All Might so limited, Toshinori usually spends his time powered up rushing everywhere he needs to go. Every minute saved is a minute he can spend doing hero work, a minute that can make all the difference when it comes to saving someone’s life. 

Suffice it to say, when he smacks right into the new school counsellor, he feels terrible. His first instinct is to look to the floor, because who can run into a seven foot two wall of muscle and stay standing?

Ines Mays, that’s who. She looks a little gobsmacked, but blinks up at him, stance steady. 

“All Might!” she blurts out, in a perfect West Coast accent that makes nostalgia bonk Toshinori on the head. 

“I’m so sorry-” they both begin to say at the same time, and he feels embarrassment creep up his neck at this terrible first meeting outside of the staff meeting that introduced her. 

“Ah, Miss Mays,” he begins to say in English.

“I’m such a fan!” she says at the same time, and they both dissolve into awkward giggles and dear god, since when has All Might been awkward? 

“It’s very nice to see you,” she says, delicately. She smiles up at him, and it’s so genuine that it warms him. It sends him into his usual over-the-top All Might act.

“Ms. Justice,” he booms out, giving her a blinding grin. “The pleasure is all mine! Stay strong, and go beyond! Plus Ultra!”

And he high-tails it out of there. 

Ugh.

During his time at Yueii, he has learned to relax the All Might act around his colleagues. But old habits die hard, and meeting someone new makes him want to revert to his scripted overconfidence. Running to the staff room to poof down to his true form, he runs a hand through his hair, wondering at the shyness that comes with attempting authentic interactions with people,

He’s been All Might for far too long. 

–

Toshinori is slow on the uptake.

A couple of days after he runs into her, he finds himself outside the counsellor’s office in All Might form, flexing his biceps to psych himself up. 

“All Might-san,” says that perfectly polite, accented voice from behind him, and he almost jumps through the ceiling and out of the prefecture at being caught flexing to himself, of all things.

“Miss Mays!” he whips around, and don’t do the laugh, don’t do the laugh, don’t-

He does the laugh. 

She doesn’t flinch, only widens her eyes and smiles. 

“I can’t believe I’m hearing that laugh in person!” she exclaims, and looks so starry-eyed that he can’t help but congratulate his clearly stellar natural instincts. “It’s wonderful to see you again- I was just heading into my office, would you like to come in?”

“That would be wonderful,” he smiles, and mentally pulls up his reason for coming into her office like this. 

A good ole chat about the States, naturally. 

Toshinori is very, very sure that that’s his real reason for coming in, and he doesn’t realise how warm his face is while he talks to her about his time in California, or how delighted he is when she asks (shyly, trying to blink the stars out of her eyes) for an autograph.

“For my younger self,” she explains. “I think I was, what, thirteen or fourteen when you debuted? You were my first celebrity crush,” she laughs this part off as if the mere notion is ridiculous, and Toshinori is absolutely delighted. 

When he has time to himself, he wonders how long that crush lasted, and how serious it was. He likes the idea of it, of Ines in her room clutching her pillows and staring up at an All Might poster. He likes the idea of her thinking about him, and doesn’t realise how much he’s started thinking about her. 

Toshinori is slow on the uptake, but Mic and Midnight certainly aren’t.

Shortly after they move into the dorms, when the students are all (ostensibly) tucked into bed and fast asleep, Toshinori stays up in the teachers’ lounge, his bright red reading glasses perched on his nose while he squints at his grading. It’s the worst part of his job, really, but he absolutely cannot pass Young Mineta’s awful essay about the history of women’s costumes in heroics.  He’s sighing over the section the boy wrote about Midnight when the woman herself appears at his side.

“Yagi-san~” she sings out, and Toshinori smells a rat immediately. 

“Don’t look so alarmed,” she says, taking a seat beside him on the couch. “I just wanted to ask if you’re free for dinner tomorrow with Hizashi-kun, Shouta-kun, and I.”

“Oh!” Toshinori gives her a smile, a real one, warmth blooming in his chest. “I would love to come to dinner- is there an occasion?” 

“Oh, no, just catching up between friends, really,” Midnight says airily. “You should invite your new friend. Our American colleague,” she winks, and is gone as swiftly as she had appeared. 

Toshinori stares at the spot she just vacated, the warmth in his chest replaced by something very like dread. 

It’s just a work event, he reasons to himself as he shuts his computer, wanting to get this over quick. It’s not like he’s asking her out to dinner with just him, this is…just a dinner with the people he now thinks of as his closest friends. Yeah, yes. A work thing, a friend thing, a date-

He’s at her door, in the slightly darkened corridor that leads to the non-homeroom teachers’ small campus apartments. He debates to himself about welling up into All Might for a brief second, for confidence, but decides he wants to do this unscripted. Like a real person, rather than his larger than life hero form. 

So he knocks, and waits. 

She opens the door in her pyjamas, bright turquoise eyes fixed on him in a way that makes him blank for a second. 

“All Might-san?” she asks, with an adorable tilt of her head.

“Miss Mays,” he starts out, clearing his throat. 

“Just Ines is fine,” she says, smiling. “Would you like to come in?”

“Oh, that’s fine! I was just- um- dinner?” he says, half in English, half in Japanese. Her brows arch, an amused smile playing on her lips. Before she can answer, he blurts out the details, wipes some blood off of his mouth, salutes her for some reason, and is out of there before you can say “Plus Ultra”.

At least he didn’t let it linger. 

She’s far more coy when he’s in his true form, he notices. While almost everyone alters their behaviour between his two forms, he rather likes her boosted confidence when she interacts with him. It’s almost- dare he think it- flirty?

He shakes his head to physically get rid of the thought. What is with him? He doesn’t typically overthink his interactions like this. Well, perhaps he overthinks the ones with Aizawa-kun (he’s been hoping to graduate into calling him Shouta-kun, or perhaps even take the leap and call him Energy Saver Shou-chan like Mic sometimes does), but that’s always different. He finds himself thinking about the very words Ines uses, the lilt of her accent when she addresses him, every single look she gives him, like he’s trying to decipher a subtextual meaning and he doesn’t know what he hopes to find. 

He’s terribly distracted training Young Midoriya the next day, really only snapping to attention when the boy mentions having an appointment with the school counsellor. 

“You- are going to see Ines?” he says, eyes wide. 

Midoriya nods, mentally noting his mentor's use of the counsellor’s first name and filing it away. Toshinori is oblivious to this, of course, not having yet caught up to the fact that Midoriya is as perceptive of him as a person as he is of All Might. 

“Aizawa-sensei says they’re mandatory appointments,” he shrugs. “Kacchan went first, snarling and biting, you know, like he usually is, but he was terribly quiet when he came out. I wonder what she said to him.”

Something akin to guilt wells up in Toshinori’s heart as he puts a large hand on Midoriya’s relatively small shoulder. 

“Let her take care of you,” he says, gently. “I trust she will do a good job.” 

He knows what his commendation of a person means to Midoriya, and is glad when the boy gives him a relaxed smile. 

—

Oh dear lord she’s stunning and when he sees her standing at the bar with Nemuri, laughing and positively glowing, Toshinori realises what subtext he’s been looking for. 

“You like her,” Aizawa says matter-of-factly, and Toshinori is so resigned to the feeling that he doesn’t even spit up blood. 

“Is it obvious?” he asks, all gloom and doom. 

“Nemuri plans for Mic and I to leave early so you guys can have a date,” Aizawa says, looking for all the world like he doesn’t care, but Toshinori knows by now that his way of averting his eyes and frowning means he’s talking about something that’s important to him. 

“We want you to be happy,” Aizawa concludes, scowling at Toshinori with a ferocity which from him is equivalent to a warm hug. 

Toshinori smiles back faintly, heartened by his colleagues’- his friends’ - good intentions. But isn’t the road to ruin paved with good intentions?

He’s so awfully nervous when Ines and Nemuri join them at the table, and he notices every attempt by the other three to herd him and Ines into a conversation of their own. On her part, she looks flustered, shooting glares at Nemuri which the younger woman returns with mischievous grins. 

“I’m taking a smoke break,” Aizawa announces, leaving the table. Mic and Midnight follow him, and the wink that Midnight sends Ines’s way has Toshinori convinced-

“They’re not coming back, are they,” says Ines, rolling her eyes. “Yagi-san, I apologise, this looks like a very obvious attempt to set us up,” she says, with a clarity that would make it seem she was unperturbed, although the faint blush on her cheeks gives her away. 

“I’m so sorry-,” they both say at the same time, and both break off into awkward laughter.

“You shouldn’t apologise,” she says. “I’m sure you’re inundated with people who like you, and Nemuri-san was just very insistent that I- that we-” she breaks off, biting her lip.

“Why are you apologising?” Toshi asks, wide-eyed. “I should be the one- why, I sincerely hope I haven’t made you uncomfortable-”

“It’s me!” she says in reply, widening her own eyes. “I- I’m the one with the silly crush on you, I-”

“-I like you, but I would hate to make you uncomfortable-”

“-wait-”

“-you have a crush-”

“-you like me?”

They both blink awkwardly at each other, and then Toshi does the brave thing and reaches for her hand across the table. 

“Are you certain?” he asks, and he puts the weight of everything on his mind into the question. It is unspoken that he is no longer the pillar he used to be. Unspoken that he still has enemies. Unspoken that any relationship to him comes with media attention, backlash, and an unfair amount of societal pressure. 

So when she simply lifts his hand to her lips in reply, his shoulders slump in relief. 

“I want to get out of here, Toshinori,” she whispers, and before he knows it, he’s tossed an obscene amount of cash on the table and is halfway to his car, her hand still in his. 

Instinct makes him drive not to the dorms, but to his own Musutafu apartment, a penthouse in a heavily guarded private building, with a back entrance just in case. 

“Tea?” he asks, as he lets them both in. She blinks at him like he’s an idiot, and pulls him to her by his jacket. “You,” she says, simply, kissing him as his arms wind around her waist. 

She pulls back for a second, as if she’s nervous at her own forwardness, but he chases her lips, arms not leaving her waist as he nudges them towards the couch. 

“Movie,” she suggests between kisses, and Toshinori agrees. Now if only he could stop kissing her for a second to put something on-

Her hands are on his chest, and he shivers against her touch. She pulls back a little as things get heated, and there’s an awkward beat before Toshinori sighs and pulls her to him, resting his head on top of hers. She melts into his arms, and he feels her laugh slightly against him. 

“I’m on All Might’s couch,” she looks up at him, and that little starry gaze of her makes him heat up. 

“You could be in All Might’s bed, if you wanted,” he says with a solemnity that belies his not-so-innocent meaning. 

“My, you’re bold,” Ines replies, but she seems amused. Neither of them make a move, content to stay wrapped up in each other for a while. 

“Movie?” he brings up in a while. 

“As the youngins say, Netflix and chill,” she nods. 

“I don’t think that phrase is as innocent as it would seem at first,” Toshinori frowns, but pecks her lips as he reaches for the TV remote.