#goddammmit

That, at least, was the utter truth. Eraserhead was a name known only to those who lived in rough areas like where Hizashi did, and it didn’t matter if the person was villain, thug, or civilian. When forced to live in the shadows and always watch your back, it was hard to not know about the ones who did good.

The area Hizashi lived in was utter shit with old buildings, poor funding, and a police station that didn’t care about any of them unless they had to please some higher up. The news always started with the latest tragedy that happened overnight and ended with a list of those missing. It was depressing and once someone lived in these types of areas it was near impossible to get out.

Then the news had one day started with a story about how two women had been saved by an unknown hero who dressed in black clothing and used some kind of scarf as a weapon while hiding behind yellow goggles.

“‘S not fair that no one knows about the good he does. I get that he’s underground, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help give him a good image! If that takes three different fan accounts, making my own hero merch, and making stupid online videos, then so be it!” A lot of what he did was just to give him a distraction when his thoughts became too loud for even him, but Hizashi liked to think that his constant social media presence screaming about the good of pro hero Eraserhead was at least doing some good.

“Hey, I didn’t start all this villain stuff just to meet Eraserhead, you know. I did it for more reasons than that.” He had been waiting for some uncaring, high-on-life pro hero to show up that night of his debut so he could make a point, but instead of anyone he had expected, he had been captured in a heartbeat by a scowling man who had made sure all civilians were safely out of the way before giving ‘Present Mic’ any attention. “I can still multitask, though, don’t you think?”

Tilting his head back to face the one he had been talking to, Hizashi frowned as a small, white paw landed on his forehead, a loud meow echoing around his dingy apartment. There was a moment of silence, and then Hizashi felt the hint of claws against his skin.

“If you claw me, then it’s dry food only for the next week, Snowball, and you know I’ll keep my promise.” The claws receded and Hizashi gave a light grunt as his cat, far too large for having been such a tiny, half-drowned kitten a few months ago, jumped onto his chest and settled down. “Thank you for your wise words.” The meow Snowball gave sounded smug. Hizashi both hated and loved it.

“Maybe I’m thinking about this too deeply… Do you think I’m focusing too much on Eraserhead?” It had been a couple months now, after all, and Hizashi had yet to see another pro hero in his area - underground or otherwise. As wonderful as Aizawa was and as much as Hizashi wanted a date with the man, he had to remember his goal. He had to prove just how broken this system of heroes and villains was.

A buzz from his phone had him startling out of his thoughts, Hizashi digging it out before seeing that it was an update on the underground Eraserhead forums he had joined. After a moment of debate, he unlocked his screen and tried not to grin.

It wouldn’t hurt to take a bit longer of a break, and, considering he had nothing pressing to do, Hizashi supposed he could stand to think about Aizawa for just a bit longer.

                                                             ::

“Welcome to Lovely Coffee- Oh, wow, you look awful.” Hizashi had seen Aizawa dozens of times since that first day he had wandered into the shop he worked in, but he hadn’t ever seen him look this bad. The man always looked a few moments away from falling asleep, but right now he looked like he was on the verge of total collapse.

“Aren’t you supposed to be nicer to your customers?” Yes, but what they had was special. Of course, Hizashi couldn’t say that without being found out as Present Mic and, not only would that get him fired, but that would mean he could never hide from Aizawa again. Mostly, though, he just needed to make his rent, this time. “I’ll have my usual.”

“I think I’m legally obligated to stop you from having so many espresso shots. You look like you died and then someone with a Reanimation quirk brought you back to life.” There was a half moment where Hizashi saw Aizawa almost smile before he was glaring at him. Thankfully, Hizashi was near immune to those glares after so much exposure. “Will you at least please order something to eat with your coffee order this time?”

“No. I don’t like eating in the mornings,” Aizawa grumbled, words quieter than they normally were. The man was a pretty quiet person, of course, but this was too quiet.

“You used to always order those cute cat muffins we made here before we stopped making them,” Hizashi complained, starting on the coffee anyways as Aizawa dug his money out.

“Yes. Then you stopped making them.” Yeah, because the boss and owner of the store was an utter cheapskate. “I’ll be fine.”

“No offense, but you really don’t look like you’ll be fine.” Hizashi added only one espresso shot this time, knowing it would be enough to get the man through until lunch and then maybe, hopefully, he would collapse somewhere and get some sleep. “Did you take on too much work or something?”

“You’re nosy.” Ah, his dear Eraserhead was blunt as always. Hizashi supposed it probably did look strange in how curious he was. “And no. It’s just been noisy outside my apartment.” Aizawa must have sensed he was ready to start up a new line of questioning because he snorted as he took his coffee. “Construction work. They’ll be done by next week.”

“Oh, well, I was going to offer my help, but I can’t really do much about that.” He couldn’t, at least. Present Mic, on the other hand… “Are you sure you don’t want a blueberry muffin or anything? They’re my favorite, personally, but the apple cinnamon is pretty good- Oh! The banana scone is great with black coffee-”

“You talk a lot.” Once again, blunt as always. At least the words were familiar ones in his life. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“Oh- Yeah! Of course!” Hizashi did his best to not swoon, but that was the first time Aizawa had ever actually thanked him like that. He was absolutely in love.

Hopefully Aizawa would be, too, once Present Mic showed him just what he could do and, thankfully, that turned out to be a lot.

It had taken a night of careful following – not stalking - to figure out where Aizawa lived, of course, but it had taken no time at all for Hizashi to steal all the keys to the construction vehicles and hold them hostage from the workers. Half of them had seemed to want to beat the shit out of him, but Hizashi was amused by the older ones who just took an early lunch.

There were spare keys and other types of equipment to deal with, of course, and running anytime the police were brought in, but Hizashi prevailed in the end. Well, really he supposed he ended up delaying progress so much that management agreed to stop in the late evening and pick back up in the morning. The workers looked pleased enough to hear that they would no longer be working nights, though, and Aizawa wouldn’t have to deal with loud noises anymore, so Hizashi called it a success.

His attempt to bring back his coffee shop’s cat muffins was also a success - in a way. Present Mic had threatened his boss, which had felt wonderful, but Hizashi himself was the one who had to show up an hour or two early each shift to now actually make the muffins. At least they sold well to people besides just Aizawa, he mused.

It had all worked out wonderfully well and Hizashi was sure he had gotten away with it all until he found himself hanging upside down from where he was tied up with Aizawa’s capture scarf and dangling from a lamppost.

“Eraser! I haven’t seen you in ages,” Hizashi greeted cheerfully, trying not to let himself get motion sickness as he swung back and forth. “I’ve missed you.”

“Stop it.” Before he could speak again, Aizawa was talking over him. “Why did you stop the construction?”

“C’mon, now, Eraser, you know as my greatest enemy you have to be at the top of your game to defeat me!” Alright, Hizashi may have put a bit too much force and cheer in his words as he swayed in the hold, entire world moving around him. He was finding that he didn’t like being upside down. “Could you at least put me on the ground, please?”

“No. Did you follow me home? Don’t answer. Of course you did. You could have cost a lot of people their jobs, you know.”

“And I should care? I’m a villain, you know.” There was no need for Aizawa to know that Hizashi had worried about that and had upped his presence at the construction site so management would have no excuse to blame the workers for the delays. “Besides, the sounds annoyed me whenever I wanted a nightly stroll.”

“You threatened a coffee shop.” Yes, well, he supposed at the core of it all, he did threaten a coffee shop. Before he could defend himself, he squealed as he fell a few inches in the air, Aizawa stopping his descent just before his head hit the ground.

“Was that necessary?!” Hizashi winced as he could hear his quirk at the edges of his words. He quickly forced it down, trying to keep his words even. “And I just had a friendly chat with them!”

“No more friendly chats. The workers there actually make decent coffee and it’s on my way to my other job.” Aizawa sounded uncaring, but Hizashi knew that he was complimenting his coffee skills. His heart could tell.

Besides, it was all worth it where Aizawa was seeming a lot more perked up and well rested - or at least, as close to it as he could get. His eyes were still bloodshot and there were still bags under his eyes, but he looked better by leaps and bounds since the first time Hizashi had noticed. He supposed the constant exhaustion was explained by the reveal of his other job, Hizashi mused.

“Tell you what, hero,” Hizashi cooed out the last word in English, grinning at the glare he was given in return. “I’ll make you a deal.”

“You’ve been trying to capture me for months and I’ve punched you more times than you could probably count,” Aizawa grumbled, voice irritated. Hizashi let the silence sit, trying not to grin when the man sighed. “What deal?”

“I won’t do any villainy for the next week in exchange for a kiss from you,” Hizashi said simply, almost laughing as he saw shock on the other’s face. He had seen Aizawa surprised, of course, but he had never seen him shocked. “What do you say, hero?”

His answer came in the form of a sudden loss of gravity, Hizashi shrieking as he hit the ground and landed on his back, groaning as the world settled down around him and Aizawa walked up to him without quite making eye contact, “As if I would ever kiss you.”

Hizashi had been right. Aizawa was a tsundere. Cracking his eyes open, Hizashi felt his pain lessen when he saw the edges of what could have maybe been a smile on Aizawa’s face. It disappeared, of course, but it had still been nice to see.

Aizawa shook his head with a heavy sigh before speaking, “And what villainy? You aren’t even a real villain.”

“What? Yes I am! I pull off heists and crimes all the time!” Just because he didn’t recklessly attack people didn’t mean he wasn’t a villain.

“Oi, oi, do you even know how to get labelled as a villain?” Aizawa knelt beside him, not worried about Hizashi fighting back considering he was still wrapped up in the capture scarf. He couldn’t even wiggle. “A villain is labelled after repeated use of their quirk in public spaces for nefarious purposes.”

“I do nefarious things in public spaces,” Hizashi defended as quick as he could, knowing it was a losing battle as all the others had been.

“You don’t use your quirk,” Aizawa said simply. Hizashi… Well. Aizawa had a point. He didn’t use his quirk, at least, not in his villain work. He used it in self-defense when he needed too, but he couldn’t just go around using his quirk all the time. It was dangerous.

“Who says I need to use my quirk to cause trouble?” Hizashi shot back. While Eraserhead may have been the only hero he liked and Aizawa was a decent person, he didn’t get to sit there and lecture Hizashi like he was some misbehaving kid. “I can be just as dangerous without it.”

“Dangerous?” Aizawa raised an eyebrow, looking amused. “You’re just loud.” No, he wasn’t. “It’s noisy, but it’s not that bad.” Liar. Hizashi knew what his quirk could do. It was dangerous. It was dangerous. It might as well have been a villain’s quirk. “C’mon. Police station.”

“I didn’t even do anything tonight!” Hizashi whined, not fighting as he was pulled to his feet and properly cuffed.

“Disrupting construction work and threatening the owners of stores is a crime, you know, and those two you haven’t been charged for, yet.”

“Didn’t even get my kiss,” Hizashi grumbled to himself, not fighting too much as he was dragged away. As nice as it was of Aizawa to try and ‘save’ him, there was little point in it.

Hm. Hizashi would have to prove just how pointless it was and show Eraserhead just how much of a threat Present Mic could be. First, though, he needed to remember to call his boss and let him know he’d be running late for work.

Being a villain was exhausting, he was finding.

                                                              ::

“So, I hear you’re the new villain stirring up trouble around here!” Startling at the hand that touched his shoulder, Hizashi carefully glanced to his left to see a man who looked entirely unassuming and had a polite, neutral smile that would be well suited to someone in business marketing.

“Nice to see my name is getting out there!” Spinning around in his chair, Hizashi put on a dazzling smile as he took a quick second to scan the room. The club he was in that night was a busy one and so the music was covering up their voices nicely, drowning them out to anyone who would be trying to listen. The path to the door was obscured by a crowd of moving and dancing bodies and at least three people were casting glances over at them. All of them looked like they could fight. “Oi, oi, if you know I’m a villain, shouldn’t you be running away?”

“On the contrary. You see, I’m someone who likes to help aspiring people such as yourself reach their lofty goals.” The man’s voice was average. Everything about him was average and it was so wrong. This man was dangerous, and that much Hizashi knew for certain. “Tell me, Present Mic, what are you in the business for?”

“I need a reason to have a little fun?” Hizashi laughed loud and bright, trying to keep his posture loose and relaxed even as he shifted his weight around so he could run if he needed to. “I got bored.”

“No one becomes a villain by just being bored, Present Mic.” This one was too smart. He didn’t like it. “I have an offer for someone with a quirk like yours.”

“You need someone to do some screaming?” Hizashi said, tilting his head in feigned cluelessness as he tried to calm his racing heart. Not many knew what his quirk was - and for good reason. “I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of people out there who can scream.”

“Not like you can. Your quirk would be… advantageous to those I work with if you’d be willing to hear more.” Ah… A villain’s quirk, huh?

“And what makes you think I want anything to do with those you work with?” Hizashi hid his fear as he had always done, putting on a pout and pitching his voice into something whiny and childish. He had a feeling his masks didn’t work in front of this man.

“Let’s just call it… belief.” The words were near lost in the thrumming of laughter and singing and screaming in the air, the bass pumping out a rhythm that Hizashi mirrored in the tapping of his fingers. “We’d be willing to help you in return, of course.”

“Help, huh? Who says I need any help?” Before he could move away, a business card with something attached to it was slipped inside his jacket pocket. 

“Well, we could all use a little help. How would you like to make that quirk of yours stronger?” Stronger? Like hell he wanted that! His quirk was already strong enough to bring down buildings if he wasn’t careful.

“Look-” A wild scream from behind him had him turning around quickly, Hizashi sighing in relief when he saw it was just someone who couldn’t hold their drink and had fallen to the floor. Looking back to the man, Hizashi blinked as he saw he and the people who had been watching them were gone.

“Help, huh?” Turning back around in his chair, Hizashi carefully pulled out the card with the napkin his drink had been resting on, wary of touching something that could be laced with who knew what.

It took a few moments, but he managed to see that it looked like a plain old business card that was white enough to shine in the dim lights of the club. On one side was a number and on the other was a single word, along with what looked like a sealed piece of candy at first glance.

Looking the word over, Hizashi frowned as he shoved the card back into his pocket. A stronger quirk…