Shouta (unknowingly) first finds him in a small cafe. Tari's Coffee — his favorite.

It's an unpopular little place, constantly smelling of baked goods and delicious coffee (and maybe a little like home.) He visits regularly, and because he's an underground hero on top of the fact that the cafe was usually empty, no one recognizes him. They treat him like everyone else, with kindness and warmth that makes Shouta feel normal. It's an amazing place to be able to relax for once, before and after patrols. Oh, and the coffee's great.

The new employee is... Something. From what Shouta's seen, Tommy's aggressive yet is loved by the customers. He has short blond hair and a blue eye, the other covered by a navy blue eye-patch. He's tall and seems lanky, the bandages over his arms highlighting that, which is highly concerning, but Shouta wouldn't be able to get an answer out of him with how stubborn he's seen Tommy can get.

Yet, his body language reveals a lot. Like how Tommy flinches when someone shouts in excitement, or how his hands have a constant shake, or how he's always in full view of everyone in front of him with constant glances behind him, or when he scratches his arms or pulls his hair harshly when nervous. It's alarming.

But he's seen what happens when someone asks. Tommy closes in on himself, eyes dull, and doesn't answer. What would make Shouta any different?

He wants to ask, wants to know who and how and who did this to you, but it's the most logical decision to not prod and wait, and that hurts as a hero.

When Tommy is tense one day, Shouta watches even more than before. His hands are shaking minutely, but they're shoved into the apron he wears. He's fidgeting regardless, staring out the window, waiting.

Shouta sees what exactly he's waiting for when robbers burst from the front and crash through the windows. However, he isn't prepared when Tommy, who should be a regular civilian, manages to beat the leading robber. With what the hero can see is practiced experience. As if he's fought people before and knows where to hit, how to dodge...

Shouta only gets to ask if Tommy's alright before the police call him over. Though, as he glances to where the blond teenager is sorting things away, he stores this event in his memories.

===

Shouta moves with trained agility, feeling his hands flex as he shoots his scarf out and retracts. Dusk is just as quick, if not a little less, though he's only dodging. At some moments his feet fumble, at others he barely manages to avoid the hero's scarf, and if Shouta looks a bit closer he can see how his eye has widened. Regardless, this is impressive — Shouta has night-vision, and Dusk doesn't. This level of spatial awareness (or maybe heightened senses?) is uncommon.

Just when Shouta thinks he's got the vigilante exhausted enough, the vigilante takes a glowing, shimmering purple ax out of thin air and cuts a piece of his scarf. It shocks the hero enough to falter just long enough, and Dusk gets away.

The hero finds the bit that was cut off float down to him from the rooftop, his hand catching it and looking at the ends. It's a clean cut.

Shouta frowns. He calls Tsukauchi, because he situation may be a lot more... complex than it appears to be.

===

Dusk is covered in scars.

His skin is covered in old and new ones, but what's worrying is that the old ones are so... Expansive. Some wrap around his arms, and they're a sharp contrast to the paleness of his unblemished skin, a pale peach meeting warped red in ugly dissonance. What Shouta can be sure of, as he stands upon the rooftop, observing Dusk wrap his arms over and over with shaky hands, is that those scars are most likely not the worst damage he's gone through.

The self-blame, no matter how small, that sets itself on his shoulders is inevitable. He knows that not everyone can be saved — but to be damaged to this extent? To have scars that dark and deep? Shouta feels like he's failed.

So he takes a gamble and asks.

===

...The bandages that were on Dusk had similar coffee stains.

===

It's interesting, when Shouta realizes that the problem child uses a bo staff like Dusk during both the Hero Training and USJ.

===

Regardless of what he thinks of Dusk, Shouta catches him in the end. It's what a hero should do (but is it fine when the vigilante in question has done nothing but good? Is it fine when a vigilante has done more than most heroes — has done their own job better, even?

...A crisis for another time.)

Shouta does so during a regular patrol after his injuries from the USJ incident are healed, when he encounters Dusk tying up some robbers, blood splattered on the ground. He's holding an empty bottle, looking at the white liquid inside with a scowl. Unlike most of the other times wherein he observes the vigilante, trying to piece together the paradox that is Dusk, he doesn't hesitate to try and capture the vigilante with his scarf. His aim will never be the same again, but it's still effective. Predictably, the masked vigilante pivots, dropping the object he held — a bottle? Regardless, Dusk's movement, it's... slower.

Shouta frowns, but doesn't stop. It's only when Dusk goes from steady to slipping that his concern rises. He pauses, watching the vigilante sway and sway, movements turning sloppier and sloppier. If the pro hero looks closer, his hands are shaking and Shouta hears the smallest murmur about buying more milk.

...Wait. A murmur? Dusk doesn't speak. Shouta narrows his eyes, moving nearer.

He definitely hears Dusk mutter a vile curse before collapsing, and oh, fuck, there's a diagonal gash in his back.

...That blood on the ground was Dusk's, wasn't it. God damn it — Shouta curses himself for being so ignorant, because Dusk hasn't injured a single criminal he's caught too severely, and he has nothing that could cut anyone besides the axe. Even then, the vigilante doesn't use it often, if not at all or on any person. Only the bo staff is seen.

Shouta shakes his thoughts out his head and hurriedly rushes over, maneuvering the vigilante — what the hell, he's so skinny and light — into a position that doesn't touch his back. One of those robbers must've had a deadly quirk that was supposed to cut deep, but from the looks of it, they only succeeded partially. The pro hero rips off a piece of fabric from part of Dusk's hoodie, one of the pieces of patchwork, and applies some pressure to the wound. But shit, the crimson's already seeping through, and — he needs to call 110.

What if they aren't fast enough, though? What sort of paramedic would be able to get through these dingy, grimy, twisting mazes that are the city's alleyways? Shouta doubts any of them know where he even is, nor how to get there quickly and with the right equipment.

Shouta racks through his mental map of the area. The Musutafu City hospital's a bit far from here, but it's nothing for an experienced underground hero like him.

...There's too much — so much — blood.

Shouta takes at least a quarter of his scarf, cuts it off, and carefully wraps it once, thrice, four times around, making sure the bandages are firm but not tight.* He takes a shaky breath (no, he isn't concerned for the vigilante) and lifts Dusk up into a careful hold. It takes a bit, to climb up without his hands and without making the injury worse, but he manages to get up and onto the rooftops. Then, Shouta adjusts his grip one last time (while skillfully ignoring the vigilante's pained whimper and weak struggles, even as his heart aches), and darts off to the nearest hospital he knows.**

===

The staff recognize Dusk as soon as Shouta comes in, of course they do; fortunately, this hospital acknowledges more of his good deeds than how Dusk is literally illegal and immediately take him in. The pro hero sets the masked vigilante onto the stretcher they provide, and then he's off, following the doctors and nurses as they go into the ER.

Shouta's told to stay out when they get near an operation room, to sit on one of the chairs provided and wait. And that — the mere thought of waiting, of not being able to see if Dusk is alright, if Shouta hasn't failed once more — it's nerve-wrecking.**

But the pro hero concedes, setting his head into his hands, because what else can he do? It's a miracle he's even allowed to wait, because he isn't even one of Dusk's guardians.

(Regretfully, he takes his phone out and dials Tsukauchi. There's... a lot that needs to be considered.)

===

"Did you know," one of the doctors chokes out. It's soon after the operation's been done. Shouta hears the sorrow, the despair in their voice, and braces himself. (It's not enough, in the end.)

"Did you know," the doctor repeats, hand over their heart like it physically hurts, "that Dusk is just a boy, and that he's the most injured patient I've ever had to deal with?" He looks down. "Do not take that lightly, sir. With all due respect, you are a pro hero, but I am a fourty-eight year old doctor, and I've seen horrors you never will. But that — that child? He will be a part of my nightmares, what his body has gone through. What I had to fix."

Shouta forgets how to breathe.

===

"You..." Shouta stares in disbelief at the man before him. The police department feels so very crowded, even though there is only him and the detective. "You. Tsukauchi — you're still going to arrest him?"**

"I—" Tsukuchi swallows heavily. "I have to. Dusk is a criminal."**

"He is a child."

"...Yes. Yes, he is. But — the law is the law, and — "

"No." Shouta pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. It feels like there are boulders on his shoulders. "No — never mind." He weighs rationality with emotion, something he hasn't had to do in years because he always chooses the former. It makes sense, for Tsukauchi to still arrest Dusk, for Dusk to go to prison. It makes sense.

It feels wrong. It feels wrong, because Dusk is a child who probably never got to be one.

Shouta sighs once more and buries his face in his hands.

He doesn't know what's right anymore.

===

Shouta is able to see the vigilante unmasked once, and once is enough.

Because. Because it's Tommy laying there, respirator over his lower face, breathing, his vigilante clothes set aside and still soiled. It's the same hot-headed, single-blue-eyed blond who'd playfully bicker with customers and make the dark coffee Shouta likes the best. It's Tommy, the same Tommy who fucking works at Tari's Coffee, someone Shouta sees literally every time he goes there.

And under those coffee-stained bandages were. Monstrosities of scars, curling and winding and bursting like stars, and Shouta should've trusted his fucking gut because Tommy is Dusk is Tommy. It — he —

Tommy (Dusk?) is probably an abuse survivor or something, someone who knew the dark and grimy parts of this society as soon as he was born and who wanted to fix it, even if by his own hands. Tommy is who may have needed help, and he was right there — and Shouta. Shouta knows the signs, and he. Did. Nothing. For. Months.

He does not visit again until he's forced to.

===

With each passing day since Dusk has been captured, the problem child looks worse and worse. It peaks when he reads something on his phone.

Shouta frowns.

(Izuku stares at the front headlines on the vigilante news forum, eyes unblinking. He knows he looks disheveled, but Tommy hasn't contacted him, and —

Oh, shit.)

===

Days after Dusk — Tommy has been captured, the boy, because that's exactly what he is, is still knocked out when Nedzu invites Shouta and Tsukauchi for some tea in his office.

"I have a proposition for Dusk," he says, sipping his tea, "when he wakes. I would like you to come with. If all goes right, Dusk will not have to be arrested."

Tsukauchi blinks.

Shouta freezes. He sets his cup down. "What."

Nedzu only smiles with that maddening glint in his eyes.

...There's no arguing with that, so Shouta is forced to agree.

===

Tommy wakes to bright, fluorescent lights and white, and the first thing he thinks is oh, fuck, he's so screwed. Izuku's gonna revive him just to decimate him for being careless. That one wanker with the knife quirk did the blond in, hiding his quirk until the last moment when Tommy was sure that he was knocked out.

And then, that other fucker had a — a sleep influence quirk or some shit. He just looked into his eyes and then everything became fuzzy and heavy. Ran out of milk a while ago so there wasn't much he could do to combat the effects.*** Prime damn it.

The second thing he thinks as he sees three faces is that he's definitely dreaming. Because seeing the face of a white, humanoid(?) rat (mouse? Small bear???) looming over him in Aizawa's scarf, along with Aizawa's face and a random, brown-haired stranger's assures Tommy that this isn't heaven. He isn't dead.

It's both reassuring and dreadful simultaneously.

Tommy closes his eyes, because like hell is he gonna have to deal with this shit now. Not when he still feel lethargy cover him like a warm blanket, and maybe... maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he just slept a bit more.

So he does, even if that small pinch in his arms almost doesn't let him. Take that, you fuck.

===

The next time Tommy wakes, he immediately tries to sleep again. What? It's the best he's had in months, maybe a year or so. No nightmares, just drifting. It's fuckin' nice, alright?

"Shit!" Tommy curses, drooping eye (oh, they let him keep his eyepatch!) launching open once more as a sharp jab of pain shoots through his arm. As quickly as it happened, it's gone, and the vigilante looks at the white-furred menace that gave him the pinch. Because he was so rudely taken out of sleep, he hisses as the light assaults his eyes. Tommy, in lieu of a large sling of curses, says, "Wha' th' f'ck, man?" His voice is hoarse.

The stranger gives him a glass of water from the counter on his sude, of which is carefully held to his lips, and fuck no. Tommy scowls, snatching the glass out of the man's hand and holding it himself, despite the shakiness of his fingers. "Ca' hol' th's shit m'self, b'tch," he says, before taking a few sips. His throat feels a lot better immediately. "Don't need your fuckin' pity." Tommy keeps his eye open, watching them all warily.

The brunet stranger looks like a detective. Dressed exactly like one. Whatever quirk he has isn't a visible thing, so not a mutation — mental, perhaps? Emitter? Maybe he can transform? No, no — his outfit's too... non-versatile. If it's really just made of normal fabric. There's no opening for wings or a tail or any other extra appendages.

Tommy glares when the man meets his eye. The stranger looks away.

Next, the... hybrid. He's dressed in a classic suit fit for his size. The one with a red tie and a white undershirt or whatever. There's a scar over one of his eyes. Not a chemical burn maybe, 'cause its a bit indented, so perhaps from a weapon. A thin one.

Hmm. The hybrid looks at Tommy with a sharp smile and intelligent eyes — not like Henry's or Friend's, but... different. The blond's positive he doesn't wanna make an enemy from him.

And then Aizawa. Tommy does not look his way. Can't, especially because he doesn't have his mask anymore.

"Who the fuck are you two," he says instead, setting the glass down. Tommy only drank a quarter of the water, because it could be drugged our something.

"I'm Nedzu," the hybrid cheerfully introduces, a paw to his chest, "the principal of U.A."

"Tsukauchi Naomasa," the brunet stranger says, "a detective."

Tommy snorts. "Like I couldn't tell. Anyways," he continues, "I understand you and Eraserhead being here, but why the hell are you here, Nedzu? You're a principal. I am a vigilante. You shouldn't be dealing with this."

(Shit, he's surrounded. One underground hero who specializes in close-combat, another a principal at a definitely high-ranking school. Are there body guards around here? He can't tell; no, he doesn't have to, because if someone from the police force is here, that guarantees that there's more officers around in case Tommy does something.

The room is suffocating.

...There's no way out of here, is there?

As panic bubbles in his chest, something immediately dulls it. Feels like a — a Quirk, or something. Regardless, it makes Tommy stop fiddling his fingers for just a second; gives him a clear mind a little more.

If... If they truly believed he was a threat, he'd already be in jail or something, right? Yet here he is: being healed in a hospital, even with how its walls and the people in front of him make his heart race. So he'll be fine, won't he? He'll be fine.

...Whatever the hospital has him on is—something, if he can think like this without lashing out in a frenzy. Think that these people don't consider him as much of a threat as others, enough to be this close. It might be his saving grace, really, because he isn't too sure what they'll do to him if he fought them right now.)

The principal sips his tea, which. Where? Did he get that from? He says some vague bullshit about explaining later — Tommy doesn't really care since his mind feels foggy enough to not comprehend a lot — right as Tsukauchi asks for a quick interrogation to take place. But can they just... not? Tommy just woke up, like, just now, he's not ready for this shit in the slightest. Especially because he still feels whatever drugs he's on.**

"You could just be sent to jail, instead," Nedzu chimes.

(A mask. Cold obsidian.)

...Maybe 's not as bad as it could be, though.

Tommy ponders it. Jail could be free living quarters, as well as food, water, and more, but it's too...

(There are eyes staring at him from across the cell. There is a bloodied potato on the ground.)

...closed. Stuffy. The food wouldn't be that good, either, nor would the water. It'll all be shared or something as well, probably.

...Ugh. Let's just get this fucking over with.

"Glad to have your cooperation," Nedzu says, in a tone that leads to nothing good.

===

Tsukauchi says some shit about being able to know of Tommy's lying, taking out a clipboard and a pen before finally starting. "What are your motivations for being a vigilante?"

Wow, straight to the point. Alright.

...Quirks all have flaws. Izuku's told Tommy this who knows how many times. A single weakness, or maybe multiple. Tsukauchi has a lie-detector quirk or some shit. So, what if that's just black-and-white? What if...

"My motivations are to help," Tommy says, nothing more, nothing less. Tsukauchi raises an eyebrow. "Elaborate," he says.

"That isn't a part of the question, sir."

Tsukauchi frowns; Nedzu... smiles. Oh, shit. What did Tommy do?

"What do you mean by 'to help?'" Tsukauchi says instead.

"To help heroes and people."

"How so?"

"By saving, dickhead."

"Saving, meaning..?"

"Helping."