Viridian: The Green Guide

Chapter 23: Quirks

Izuku wasn't used to feeling proud of himself. He wasn't used to feeling loved either, but Mom had at least exposed him to the emotion, so it was understandable that the past week had been pretty strange. He had been doing virtual vigilantism every night, and he was getting so much better at hacking! He'd been working up to hacking into all the cameras in front of stores and stuff so that he had eyes everywhere, and it was so much fun!

Not to mention that in some cases, it was actually faster to get heroes to crimes by hacking into their comms. He still couldn't wait to get his cast off so he could help the heroes fight, but...maybe he'd have to spend a few days a week doing it this way, even after he healed. He'd cross that bridge when he got to it, but for now, he finally felt like he was doing something right for once in his life.

Which brought him to the other unfamiliar emotion: feeling loved. He'd thought that maybe Eraserhead was just the exception and only missed him because of his habit of adopting strays. If he stopped to pet stray cats, of course he'd remember an annoying vigilante, so it only made sense that he'd miss Izuku because he was just more caring than normal, but that didn't seem to be the case. Every hero Izuku called seemed happy to hear his voice and said they missed him. They even asked if he was ok! No one asked if Izuku was ok, not Kacchan, not his teachers, not his classmates, but here were actual real life pro heroes who seemed to care!

Izuku knew that they only cared because they didn't know he was quirkless, so he couldn't help but feel a little bit guilty for lying to them. A part of him knew that he should just tell them so that they didn't waste their time on him, and he felt so selfish for keeping his quirklessness to himself, but he...he didn't want to lose this feeling. He knew he didn't deserve to feel loved, but...well it wasn't like he was actually lying to the heroes, right? He was just leaving out some info.

That was part of the reason why he'd been dodging all the questions about what had forced him off the streets. If they knew he broke his arm, or when he broke it, then they might be able to pull hospital records or something and then they'd know who he was and then they'd know he was quirkless and they'd force him to stop and they'd tell Mom and she'd be so worried and...

This was a problem with slow nights. Not that Izuku wasn't glad that no one was out committing crimes, but it left him too much time to get lost in his head. He switched between cameras again, looking for anything suspicious. There were a couple drunks, like there were every night, and some other people wandering about, but no one was doing anything criminal as far as he could see. The closest thing to a problem he could see was a group of teenagers smoking, but they weren't hurting anyone, even if they were loitering.

He was about to switch cameras again and see if he could track down any of the heroes and see what they were doing when one of the teens jerked suddenly, slapping his neck. Within seconds, the others were batting at the air and slapping themselves as well, but beyond that, Izuku couldn't see anything wrong. He really wished the camera he was watching through had audio so he could tell if they were just hallucinating from whatever they were smoking or if they needed help, but that was one of the disadvantages to doing his vigilantism virtually.

It wasn't until they started attacking one another with their powerful quirks that he called the heroes. He debated a minute about which hero would be best before deciding they'd probably appreciate back-up for a fight this big.

"Um, Eraser, Amplifier? A-are you guys busy?"

"Nope!" Amplifier chirped, "We're never too busy for you, cutie!"

Izuku blushed, but concentrated on the task at hand. The fight was going to start spreading soon, if the way the teens' quirks were going out of control were any indication.