A Hero's Dirty Work (Villain Deku / Vigilante Deku au)

Questions

Midoriya was supposed to stay in the hospital overnight, but he wasn't having it. The thought of leaving Eri for a whole night was enough to make him throw away the casts and walk home on broken legs, if need be. Luckily it didn't need be, but the sentiment was still there.

Eri, of course, was ecstatic to see him, but his bandages almost made her cry. "What happened?" she asked, her eyes welling with tears. "Big brother, are you okay?" 

Shigaraki fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair, looking away. He was still frustrated that All Might hadn't been beaten, but he was feeling strangely guilty for making Eri so worried. As for Midoriya, he knew there were no hard feelings. Midoriya got to be a hero, and his injuries were nowhere near as painful as training with All For One. Shigaraki would know.

"There was a big bad guy, and I had to save someone from him," Midoriya said, winking at Shigaraki. He rolled his eyes. "Don't worry, I'll be able to take it all off in a couple of days."

"Okay," Eri said in a tremulous voice. "Does it hurt?"

"Only a little bit, don't worry. I'll be better before you know it. You can help take care of me tomorrow, okay? School got canceled because some crazy hooligans attacked us." Shigaraki buried his face in his hands, suppressing a groan. Midoriya was really pushing his luck here.

"After I get better, if you want, you can meet some of my friends! We'll only do a couple at first, so you don't get too overwhelmed," he said, trying to change the subject. Her face lit up. Honestly, it was a surprise that she even knew what the word 'overwhelmed' meant.

"Yeah! Who can I meet first?" she asked excitedly. Midoriya considered.

"I don't know, who do you want to meet first? Denki is really exited to meet you, but Shoto might be more your speed. What do you think?" he asked. He wanted to crouch down to her eye level, but his casts made that impossible.

"Well, I want to meet the one with the crazy ice powers. He sounds super cool! And the pink one, and the ponytail one, and the one with the cool things on her ears, and the one with the electricity..." she trailed off. "I can't choose," she admitted, biting her lip in concentration. "I just want to meet all of them!"

"I'll choose for you, don't worry. You can meet my teacher, too; he's the one that can stop any quirk just by looking at it. He's a great teacher, and a great hero too."

"Really?" she asked, eyes sparkling. "Heroes are so cool!" She hesitated. "Well, I think they are. That's okay if uncle Shigaraki doesn't think so."

Shigaraki did a double take, his mouth falling open. "Uncle?" he said incredulously. "Midoriya told you to call me that, didn't he?"

She looked at him with wide eyes, the picture of innocence. "Big brother told me that I could call grown-ups that if I like them, so it's like they're in my family. He says since we don't really have a family, I can choose mine."

Shigaraki hesitated, his heart aching in an unfamiliar way. He glanced at Midoriya. "That's right," he eventually said. Did he really make that big of an impression on little Eri? "I was just surprised that you chose me for your family, since you didn't tell me before," he said faintly.

"Oh yeah, I forgot..." she said. "I'm sorry."

"That's okay."

What was going on?

*                *                *

Aizawa sat on his couch, fingers steepled together as he thought about the events of the day. Villains, inside the USJ. They most likely got that information from the break-in with the news, and there wasn't much they could do about the information they gained.