no white flags

Half of you is insisting that it’s not your fault. You’re not the one who didn’t rescue him. How hard would it have been for Bakugou to slow down long enough for Monoma to grab on? Maybe it wouldn’t have been easy, but if Bakugou thought Monoma was worth anything, he’d have saved him. He tossed Monoma into the same pile the rest of you are in, and now you have to watch a fifteen-year-old adjust to the fact that a bunch of villains care more about him than the heroes do.

You tell yourself that, but deep down, you know better. You were the one who helped Shigaraki get to the Sports Festival, where he saw Monoma’s quirk up close. You’re the one who didn’t talk him out of it when he set Monoma as the mission’s priority. You chose not to sabotage the League, first in the training camp attack, then again at Kamino. You might not have been the one who kidnapped Monoma or the one who abandoned him, but he wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.

As bad as the guilt is, seeing what Monoma’s presence brings out in the League is worse. Toga seems happy to have a friend her age, and although you can tell that Monoma doesn’t want to warm up to her, she’s friendly enough that it’s hard for him to ignore. Twice’s bad jokes have landed just enough times that he keeps trying them. Spinner’s hyped enough about the possibilities of Monoma’s quirk to get him talking about it — and about the heroes, whose pedestals are pretty easy to knock down with a few tweaks on Stain’s principles. Magne’s good at reaching out to people — she got through to you, after all — and Compress, the only person other than you who can still go out and about safely, is slowly winning him over through snacks. Even Dabi’s nice to him. For a given value of nice.

Worst of all, though, is Shigaraki. He spends a lot of time talking with Monoma, and you can’t tell if he’s trying to turn him to the villains’ side or trying to make him feel better. He’s weirdly patient with Monoma, more than he was with you or any of the other members of the League, and you don’t know how to handle it. Watching it makes you feel really strange.

So you try not to watch it. You give yourself jobs, like mapping Overhaul’s hideout. And you try to get ready for your next move, which you’re starting to think might be critical. In the original timeline you fucked up, All Might’s reaction to finding out Shigaraki’s real origin was horror, and his first thought was of finding Shigaraki and saving him. Gran Torino talked him out of it, but last you heard, Gran Torino was still in a coma after taking a header in the battle for Kamino. You used to think of Gran Torino like somebody’s quirky grandpa. You feel a lot less friendly towards him after he tried to kick your head off at a hundred miles per hour.

You’re not sorry about what happened to him, and it’s given you an opportunity. In this timeline, there’s no one to talk All Might out of saving Shigaraki, so you need to make it stick. He could be the solution you need. The kind of opponents the League has coming up aren’t the kind you’re any use fighting. As Shigaraki’s options narrow, he’ll be pushed to further and further extremes, until basically getting Nomufied in the pursuit of greater power is the only route he sees to achieving his goals. You can’t let that happen. If he gets All For One’s quirk, it’s game over.

You know how heroes work, because you like them — or used to like them, or something. As soon as All For One takes over Shigaraki’s body even partially, Shigaraki stops being a person and starts being a target, so you have to make sure it never happens. For that, you need someone who wants to save Shigaraki, who’s motivated by something other than standard heroic ideals. All Might’s got a stake in this that goes beyond that. There’s no way around it: You have to find All Might. You have to talk to him. You have to make him listen to you.

And if you can, it’s not just Shigaraki you’ll save. You know Shigaraki won’t leave the League behind. If All Might wants to save Shigaraki, he’ll have to save the rest of the League, too.

You haven’t figured out where he is just yet. You’ve been scoping out hospitals, but you might be too late. Still, if he’s already been discharged, there’s one place you know he’ll show up eventually. The next time you head out, you need to stake out Midoriya’s apartment.

For now, though, the cigarette smoke is starting to make you cough. You want to put it out, but you have to wait for the smoke alarm — and, done. You stub it out on the floor, trying to look guilty rather than relieved, as two of Overhaul’s goons hurry towards you. “What are you doing? How many times do we have to tell you —”

“It’s an addiction,” you protest. “I can’t help it.”

“Take it outside, then,” one of them snaps. Score. “You aren’t made yet.”

“Right,” you say. “Sorry. I’ll remember next time.”

“No you won’t,” the other thug mumbles. “You lowlifes are all the same.”

You’re tempted to point out that you’re not the one serving some child-torturing creep who blows up people who argue with him, but you keep your mouth shut. They gave you what you wanted already. “Which way out of here?”

The guards escort you, and you spend the rest of the walk back to the League’s corner of the compound trying to fix the route in your head. Once you’re back in the main room, shutting the door behind you, you head straight for the map. The only other person in the room is Monoma, who’s holding a Nintendo Switch and staring at nothing. “Hey,” you say, once you’ve drawn in the new portion of the map. “How are you doing?”

Monoma shrugs. “They say Bakugou’s going to lose an eye,” he says. “I saw on the news.”

“I heard about that,” you say. According to the news, the light you blasted at him was so intense that it was basically a laser, and it flash-boiled all the liquid in his eyeball and cooked everything else. When you read about how you apparently did it, you almost threw up. “How do you feel about it?”

“I don’t,” Monoma says. You keep looking at him. “What do you want me to say? That he deserved it? He didn’t deserve it. Nobody deserves this.”

He’s getting there. “You don’t think he deserved it. Maybe he didn’t deserve it,” you say, although you’re damn sure he did and you’ll do it again if you have to. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel good to see somebody who hurt you get hurt.”

“Heroes shouldn’t feel that way.”

“After what you’ve seen, do you really want to be a hero?”

“I’m not stupid. I know there are things wrong with heroes,” Monoma says. “But that doesn’t mean I should become a villain.”

“Fair,” you admit. “I’m going out in a second. Need anything?”

“You’re going out?” Shigaraki sticks his head out of one of the rooms. “Why didn’t you ask me if I needed anything?”

“I wasn’t sure you were awake. I was going to check.” You glance back at Monoma, who shakes his head, and decide you’ll bring him something anyway. “I need to get dressed. I’ll check back with you before I go.”

“Get dressed? What do you mean, get dressed?” Shigaraki is following you. “You have clothes on.”

“Get disguised,” you correct yourself. “I’m only safe to go out as long as they can’t tie me to Kamino.”

“I know,” Shigaraki says. He follows you into the room you share with Toga and Magne, neither of whom are there, and sits down on your bed. “What are you waiting for? Do whatever you’re doing.”

“Why are you in here?”

“I want to talk to you,” Shigaraki says. You were hoping he’d make up a reason. Something about a mission or a plan, not just — that. “Do your disguise thing. We can talk while you do that.”

“Okay.” You hid most of your costume kit outside the hideout before Kamino, and going back to get it was as stressful as things have gotten since the training camp attack. Almost as stressful as coming back with it and having to invent a reason why you hid it offsite in the first place. “What do you want to talk about?”

It’s quiet for a second. “The kid,” Shigaraki says. “Do you think we should give him back?”

That’s not what you were expecting. You pause in the middle of sorting through your wigs. “You want to give him back? After everything we went through trying to get him?”

“He’s an asset if he’s on our team, and he’s a huge liability if he isn’t,” Shigaraki says. “If he’d picked going with us, that would be one thing, but since he didn’t —”

Shigaraki trails off. You go back to sorting the wigs. “We’ve got enough problems already. More coming up, too,” Shigaraki says finally. He’s careful about alluding to Eri. Everyone is. “If he’s not on board, we should let him go.”

“He might not be on board yet,” you say. What are you even saying? You want Shigaraki to let Monoma go. You want Monoma to have a normal life. But something’s still nagging at you, gnawing on you, and it takes you a second to figure out what it is. “I think you should let him decide.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” You pick up a hot pink wig, one you don’t wear a lot because it makes you look sweaty, and start brushing it out. “He might want to go back. I probably would, if I was him. But it should be his call. Otherwise we’re just one more group of people saying he doesn’t matter.”

It’s quiet for a little bit. You resist the urge to glance over at Shigaraki, to try to figure out what he’s thinking. It was a lot easier to look at him when he had the hand over his face. He was harder to read. Now you know him well enough to see what’s on his mind almost before he says it. “That’s what I was thinking,” he says. “He might pick us. Don’t you think it’s weird that he hasn’t tried to escape?”

“Escaping is high-risk, low reward as long as we’ve got Kurogiri,” you say. That was how you thought of it, anyway. You haven’t thought about escaping in a while. “And this place is a maze. I wouldn’t want to get lost in here if I was him. I don’t even like getting lost in here when it’s me.”

“I’d come get you,” Shigaraki says. “How come you’re wearing that one? You hate that one.”

He’s pointing at the pink wig. “What makes you think I hate it?”

“You never wear it,” Shigaraki says. “The only other one you don’t wear is that one.”

He reaches into the box and taps the navy blue wig with one finger. “How come?”

“Uh —” You didn’t realize Shigaraki paid that much attention to your disguises. “That’s the one I had on at USJ. People saw me follow you through the gate, even if they didn’t get footage. If I wear that, I match the description the cops have of me, even if I contour the hell out of my face.”

“I like that one,” Shigaraki says. You set the pink wig down and decide to do your makeup first. That way you have something to look at other than him. “You should wear the same one for every mission. If your hair color keeps changing, people are going to figure out how you’re disguising yourself.”

You probably should have thought of that. You nod in agreement and get to work on your makeup, wondering if Shigaraki will find it boring enough to leave. No such luck. He stretches out on your bed instead, head on your pillow. No matter how you zero in on the mirror, you can still see him in your peripheral vision. “When are we going to read again?” he asks abruptly. “Are you reading it without me?”

“No,” you say, offended. “I wouldn’t. Just, like — when are we supposed to do that? And where?”

“Whenever. Here.” Shigaraki’s giving you a strange look. “Like before. Why are you acting weird about it?”

“I’m not,” you say. “I just — I share a room with people now. People will see.”

“So what?” Shigaraki asks. You can’t tell if he’s being dumb on purpose, or if he honestly can’t figure out why hanging out on your bed with you while you read out loud to him might not be something you want other people to see. “I want to find out what happens. Don’t you?”

“Yeah,” you admit. “Okay. Fine. We can read it when I get back. Do you want anything?”

“Some kind of snack. The food here sucks,” Shigaraki says, projecting his voice. The first thing you all did when you moved in was check the place for bugs, and while you got all the cameras, microphones are easier to hide. “Otherwise, be careful. They’re looking for you a lot harder than they were before.”

“I’ll be careful,” you say, and it crosses your mind that you’ve got an opportunity. “I might be gone longer, then. It might be smart to go further away.”

Shigaraki nods. You’re expecting him to get up and leave, but he doesn’t. Instead he flops back on your bed, making himself comfortable, and you finish doing your makeup faster than you’ve ever done it in your life.

On the way out, you check in with Monoma. “Are you sure you don’t want anything?” He mumbles something. “Say again?”

“Chocolate.”

“No problem,” you say. “What kind?”

He wants a specific kind — something foreign — which gives you an excuse to go even farther out of your usual way. You sneak out one of the less-used entrances to the compound and make your way down the street to the train station. As you wait for the train, you decide you can give up on checking hospitals. It’s been too long, given that Recovery Girl’s quirk is a thing. Your best bet is to stake out the Midoriyas’ apartment and wait for All Might to show up. Overhaul’s hideout is in Osaka, while the Midoriyas live in Shizuoka. It’s not a short trip. You probably need all that time to think of how you’re going to get through to All Might.

All Might didn’t get a good look at you. Not at USJ, not at Kamino. If you approach him, he won’t see anything but an ordinary civilian. But that could work against you, too. Just like there are weirdos in your world who fangirl over criminals, BNHA has people who freak out over villains. An ordinary civilian isn’t someone All Might has to listen to. Shigaraki’s right-hand villain definitely is.

Part of you wonders if just leveling with All Might is the way to go. Telling him who you are, why you’re there, and why you think Shigaraki can be saved. It’s tempting, and maybe before Kamino, it would have worked. Now, though — if you out yourself as Shigaraki’s ally, the first thing All Might will think of is what you did to Bakugou. Nothing you say is going to matter after he realizes that you maimed a kid.

So confronting All Might directly is a nonstarter. Your best shot is to find a way to leave him a message and hope he actually listens to it. There’s a good chance, maybe, if you say it right. And you’ve got the whole trip to figure out how to say it right.

The first thing you have to do is establish your credibility. Tell All Might something you shouldn’t know, to prove that you’re worth listening to. The trick is going to be doing that without tripping your seizures. What’s not common knowledge in universe, but well-known in the fandom? It only takes a second to come up with the answer. Everybody knows All Might had to retire. How many of them know it’s because he lost One For All? How many people know that he’s quirkless without it?

That’s it. You open the Notes app on your phone and start typing.

Two sentences in, you get a text from Toga. Your phone is full of groupchats — there’s a League-wide chat, a League minus Chrono and Rappa chat, one that’s just you and Shigaraki and Kurogiri. Since you moved into the Hassaikai compound, you’ve been added to another one — League of Villainesses, that’s you and Magne and Toga and occasionally Chrono, who keeps getting removed by Magne if she misbehaves and added back in because Toga thinks she’s fun to mess with. The text from Toga is the Villainesses chat, and it’s mostly not a text. It’s a picture. Of Shigaraki, fast asleep on your bed.

Toga: ?????????

????????? is right. You might go so far as ???????????????????, because you feel like you’ve gotten punched in the stomach. Maybe lower than the stomach. You’re not sure. What the hell is he doing? You know he was in there hanging out while you got ready, but you assumed he’d leave, not that he’d flop over and take a nap. What the hell. Part of you wants to call him right now, wake him up, and tell him to find somewhere else to pass out.

But at the same time, you know Shigaraki doesn’t sleep well. Even if it wasn’t basically canon, you’ve seen it for yourself. He’s restless, tossing and turning constantly, waking up for the smallest sound. There were times back at the hideout where he came out of his room to snap at you for closing the bathroom door too hard. Right now, though, he’s sleeping hard enough that Toga could sneak up on him to snap a photo. And he’s not tossing and turning. He’s curled in on himself slightly, face turned against your pillow, expression calm. You feel that punch in the stomach again, stronger this time. There’s a word for this, isn’t there? It’s —

Magne: aww, they’re so cute when they’re asleep

Chronostasis: not when they’re on your bed

Toga: you’re just jealous because your boss won’t cuddle with you

Magne: has he figured out you’re a girl yet?

Chronostasis: Shut up

You sort of want to point out that you’re not — cuddling — with Shigaraki. You’re not even in the same town right now. Cuddling is the last thing on your mind, or it was, until Toga said that. Now you’re thinking about it. Shigaraki really would be terrible to cuddle with. He’s mostly skin and bones, and even after his canon glow-up, his bulk is all muscle, which isn’t comfortable, either. Not to mention the bit where he could easily kill you by accident. So why is your stupid face heating up when you read Toga’s message? Why are you wondering if there’s a way to make cuddling with Shigaraki safe?

It’s academic, you decide. Evaluating if the Shigaraki fans are onto something, or if they really are just that hyped to bruise themselves and maybe get Decayed. If you were going to do it, spooning him would probably be the way to go. He’s already sort of curled up. And there’s less of a chance that he’d grab you by accident.

Question answered. You don’t need to think about it anymore. You go back to your All Might letter, but not before sending a response.

Aspera: can someone put a blanket on him?

Magne: you got it, honey. I’ll make sure he knows it’s from you :)

God. You think about removing yourself from the chat, but you just close it instead. Letter to All Might. That’s what’s important here.

You haven’t put a ton of thought into All Might as a character, but you review what you know. All Might wanted to be a hero to be a Symbol, to set an example, way before he knew about All For One. All Might picked Midoriya to be his successor because of how Midoriya threw himself into harm’s way to help Bakugou. Selflessness is a quality he admires, and Shigaraki has that — but not at this point in the story, not in a way that someone like All Might would see and recognize. You’ll be better off talking about who Shigaraki is to All Might. His master’s grandson, kidnapped and tormented by All For One because All Might wasn’t there to save him. All Might’s already got the guilt. You just need to trip it.

By the time you get to Shizuoka, you have a draft of the letter ready to go. You stop in a convenience store, buy most of what you need for the others along with a card and a cheap pen, and sit down in a park to write it out. You make a few edits here and there, then hit a wall when it comes time to sign your name. Your real name won’t mean anything to him. The name the person whose life you landed in will tell him exactly who you are, just like your villain name will. But you should give a name, so that if you have to talk to him again, he already knows you can be trusted.

You come up with a name, sign the card, and hesitate over a name to put on the outside of the envelope. Maybe this is another spot where your extra knowledge will come in handy. The whole world knows All Might. Not a lot of people know Yagi Toshinori.

You seal the letter, rearrange your purchases in your bag, and steel yourself. Time to find the Midoriyas’ apartment.

That part is pretty easy. Easier than it should be, probably, which makes you wonder why All For One didn’t just send somebody to kidnap Midoriya directly. You’re thinking you’ll tape the letter to the Midoriyas’ front door, so All Might will see it when he goes to knock, but when you get there, you’re not the only one who’s just arriving. There’s a black car idling at the curb, and All Might is already climbing out.

Fuck. There goes your plan. You could still try it, but everyone would notice you sprinting there and back, and it’ll be clear who left the letter. Unless — you wait until the black car pulls away to circle the block, then break into a run, past the point where the car was parked. You wing the letter at the ground ahead of you, stumble to pick it up, and call out. “Sir! Um, sir, wait —”

All Might glances back, puzzled, just in time for you to lose your balance and tip over. Not on purpose, but if it was, it would have worked. All Might turns around and hurries towards you. “Young lady, are you all right?”

“I’m okay. I just tripped,” you mumble awkwardly. Even in scarecrow form, All Might towers over you. His hands are huge as he helps you to your feet. “I don’t mean to bother you, but — um — I think you dropped this.”

You hold out the letter to All Might, who looks at it blankly. “It fell out of your pocket when you got out of the car,” you say. “I didn’t want to just leave it there, in case it was important.”

All Might’s poker face isn’t great. You can see the wheels turning in his head as he tries to decide how likely is that he straight up forgot a letter someone gave him. It looks like he thinks it’s pretty likely. It doesn’t look like he’s thinking that you might be pulling one over on him at all. “Thank you, young lady,” he says finally. “That’s very kind of you. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I definitely am. You’re here,” you say. All Might looks startled, at which point you realize how insensitive you sound. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to — make fun of you —”

“You weren’t,” All Might says. He smiles. “Thank you for the reminder.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t need to put on a costume to make someone’s life a little easier,” he says. “There is still good for me to do.”

A lot of it. Way more than he knows. If he reads your letter, if he listens, he could stop a war and see All For One destroyed at last. “There is,” you say. “Thank you, sir.”

You turn to leave, and so does he, but you check back over your shoulder once. Your letter is tucked securely into his pocket, and you breathe a sigh of relief. This isn’t the first time you’ve messed with canon, but it’s the first time you’ve done it for the better. Now you can grab Monoma’s fancy chocolate and head back to the hideout. Hopefully Shigaraki’s not sleeping on your bed when you get there.

You check your phone on the train and find that Magne’s sent another picture of Shigaraki — still asleep, but this time with the blanket draped over him.

Magne: I tucked him in for you

Magne: he really is cute when he’s asleep

Toga: and Chrono really is jealous

Chronostasis: I’m not jealous!

Aspera: thanks

Aspera: I’m on my way back. need anything?

They add one or two things each to your list, which means you need to make one last stop on your way home. Maybe you need it. You’re not ready to face Shigaraki just yet. You might not have betrayed the League with your letter, but that doesn’t mean he’d be happy you sent it. Are you happy with what you wrote? You open the Notes app to study it again.

Dear All Might,

I’m going to tell you something most people don’t know about you, so you’ll believe me when I say I know things: I know you were quirkless before you got One For All. And I know that you’re still grieving for your master. I bet it’s worse now, because you know that her grandson was kidnapped by All For One. If you’d been around, you could have saved him. I’m here to tell you that it’s not too late.

Other people might tell you differently. They might tell you that there’s nothing you can do, but there is. Shimura Tenko still needs you, even if he says he doesn’t. All For One has had fifteen years to brainwash him. It’s not going to get fixed overnight. Please keep trying. Please don’t give up on him. I think you might be his only hope.

Sincerely,

Astra

It still looks okay. You got a little Star Wars at the end, but that’s probably not the end of the world. You made it sound urgent, because it is. You guilt-tripped him, because he should feel guilty. You told him that it won’t be easy, because it won’t. All you can do now is hope that All Might’s the kind of hero everyone says he is.

There’s still a while left in the train ride. You put away your phone to save battery and take out your Shuffle. It doesn’t occur to you to dread what you’ll hear until after you’ve pressed play. The dawn is breaking, a light shining through; you’re barely waking, and I’m tangled up in you…

It had better be kidding. You press the skip button a few times, knowing it won’t work, and the stupid song actually seems to get louder. Your efforts to turn it down get you through most of the first verse and the whole chorus, and by the time the second verse starts, you’ve resigned yourself to getting incorrectly roasted. I’m quiet, you know. You make a first impression. I find I’m scared to know I’m always on your mind —

Your phone buzzes in your pocket. You ignore it, and you cross your arms over your chest, staring out the window. Of course Shigaraki’s on your mind. He’s your friend, you spent the whole day trying to figure out a way to save him, and the asshole is sleeping on your bed right now. It would be weirder if you weren’t thinking about him. You wonder if All Might’s read your letter yet. What he thinks about it. What it’s going to take to make him see what you see when you look at Shigaraki and the League of Villains. Don’t stop here, I lost my place, I’m close behind —

God. You rip your headphones out of your ears. Even knowing that you’ll be right back where you started the instant you put them in again, you’d rather spend the rest of the trip back to Osaka in silence.

<- Chapter 12

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