Chapter Text
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More information is better than less.
And in this day and age, it's practically a necessity if you want to survive. Wouldn't you want to know if the shop space you're thinking of renting is smack in the middle of some clans' turf war? Or if the neighborhood you're planning to move your family to just became some up-and-coming villain's new HQ?
Knowledge is power. Information is liberating.
And if you make a killing selling it, that's just good business.
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Your quirk doesn't particularly help you with your work as much as your affinity for gadgets, your mediocre parkour skills, and your stunning ability to look completely and absolutely forgettable. You can walk into a crowd or a street and disappear instantly, because you're just that easy to overlook. It's both incredible and slightly depressing.
Payment sent, says the encryption on your phone screen. Keep in touch.
It always feels so good to get paid. Better still if you can complete the entire transaction online, anonymously. You like the information trade. It's not actually illegal, just comfortably grey.
Your phone buzzes again. Ugh. Sometimes clients still insist on meeting in person, so you grab your helmet from the small black hole that is your quirk. Nondescript, undetectable, small-to-mid item storage. You call it Item Box, and it makes you feel like you could have either been a great RPG character or a great drug mule. Wearing the heavy motorcycle helmet makes you look like a kid playing hero dress-up, but you do what you gotta do to not reveal your face- it's not so forgettable once it's been caught on camera.
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The customer this time is some two-bit marriage fraudster, checking if his mark is suitably rich and suitably stupid. Easy peasy, but he demanded a face to face. At least he pays your rates without complaint.
You meet him in the dark, quiet, cartoon-level-suspicious alley he specifically requested. He's actually skulking in a corner, like you're selling contraband instead of simple information.
"You got it?" he says, and you want to laugh, but your policy is no face, no voice, no identifiable traits. You nod, which triggers your helmet to flash YES on its modified visor. You hand him the file, which you've placed in a completely cliché brown paper bag just for his benefit. He looks delighted. No one will ever say you don't go the extra mile for customer satisfaction.
He hands you the cash. It looks about right, and you tuck it into your jacket (Item box. Shh. No one needs to know). He spins on his heel and starts to walk out into the street.
The wall beside him explodes, shattering into pieces and sending debris hurtling out into the alley.
Your client screams. You gawp at the huge bag of cash currently sticking out of the hole in the wall, gripped in one gigantic hand. The rest of the body is obscured by dust and smoke, but you don't need to see the rest of him to know who that is. You spin around, clamber up a fire escape ladder, and haul yourself onto the roof before even turning to look back. The dust settles, and he steps out from the wreckage.
Insanely tall. Built like a tank. Unnecessarily spiky shoulder pads. Gravity-defying bangs.
All Might throws back his head, laughing, as whichever hero is on patrol that day comes barreling towards him. Reporters and police rush to the scene, lugging recording equipment and riot shields respectively. You don't need that. The camera in your helmet records everything.
You watch literally everyone get their ass kicked. It only takes a minute, it's just that one-sided. You spare a thought for your client (ex-client?), probably either buried in the rubble or injured in the ensuing battle.
All Might finishes, the last man standing as usual. You stay seated on the roof, trying to be the most nondescript you can possibly be, keeping your camera trained on him. He leaps into the sky at an unbelievable speed, and it's a perfect time to test your new auto-tracking function. You watch as he gets smaller, further away-
Your jaw drops as he loses speed, drops like a stone, and crashes onto the roof of a building not too far away. You look around, down at the alley, out onto the street. Surely someone must have seen it too. You're not crazy.
No one looks up, or even in that direction, too busy trying to recover from the man-made disaster. You clutch your helmet. You recorded it. You're not seeing things.
It's a good thing you're wearing gloves, or you'd be scratching lines down the sides of your headgear with how hard you're grabbing at it. You wouldn't go chasing after a super-villain. You're not insane. You don't have a death wish.
But you do have a line of work that would get an incredible boost if you could get info on All Might, and you're nothing if not dedicated.
---
You stumble up the last few flights of stairs, completely winded. Physical exertion is not your strong suit. The door to the roof is locked with both a door lock and a heavy chain, but it's nothing a lock pick and bolt cutters won't fix.
The roof is empty. What? You check twice, three times. That can't be right. You're sure you saw him crash-land right here-
Suddenly you can't breathe. You look at the huge hand wrapped around your throat and realize, hey, your legs aren't touching the ground anymore.
"How did you find me," All Might growls, and all you can think is I knew I was right. Not a bad thing to have carved on your tombstone, all things considered. His grip tightens, completely cutting off your airflow, which honestly seems a little counterproductive if he wants to start asking questions. Too bad you can't tell him that. Well, live fast, die young. You had a pretty good run-
Something in his face changes. You barely have time to register it before your entire vision is obscured by a huge cloud of smoke. The hand around your throat spasms, clenching and unclenching. Someone, and you're pretty sure it's not you, is apparently hacking up a lung.
The smoke clears, and you have to check one more time that you're really, honestly not going crazy.
The person standing in front of you is wearing All Might's costume. They have the same hair color, and they're holding the same bag of cash you saw earlier in their other hand. But that's not, couldn't possibly be, not under any circumstances, All Might.
You stare at them. They stare back. The hand around your throat tightens, just for a second, but this time when you pull back (look at that, your feet are back on solid ground), whoever this is actually lets go. Or rather, collapses into another coughing fit and drops to the floor.
You reach out on instinct, but just because you try to catch someone doesn't mean you can actually hold their weight. You both end up crumpled inelegantly on the ground.
"You-" he starts to say, but he coughs again and holy crap, that's blood, this All Might cosplayer is going to die on this roof and you're going to be blood-spattered Murder Suspect Number One. You grab a bottle of water, remove the cap, and jam it into his mouth.
After the initial sputtering, it seems to help. It helps enough that he grabs it out of your hand and shoves you away, anyway. Wow. You're welcome.
You watch him drink. His costume really is very well made. Almost too good to be just a cosplay outfit. Almost as if.
"You're really All Might," you say, your voice coming out muffled and robotic, thanks to the modulator in your helmet (You put a ton of shit in there. You’re surprised your head still fits). Endless ideas running through your head. This information. This information could make you filthy rich, could open doors to almost anyone in Japan, and it's not like you're in need of even more cash, but who in their right mind would turn down an opportunity this big, this lucrative-
He growls at you. You snap out of it, raising your hands peaceably.
"I won't tell anyone," you say, still muffled by the helmet, which immediately flashes $‿$ over the visor. God damn malfunctioning piece of crap.
"It'll be the last thing you ever do," the skeleton wearing All Might's skin says, but it's not that terrifying coming from someone who looks like telling you this could be the last thing he'll ever do. He takes another swig from the bottle, and you take the chance to study him a little more.
He really looks like shit. Like, so fucked up you're kind of impressed he hasn't already dropped dead. But what really makes you uncomfortable is the constant mix of anger and exhaustion in his face, like he's constantly walking on shards of glass. He finishes off the bottle, tossing it to the side.
You offer him another one and a towel, even though what he really needs is an ambulance.
He glares at you again, but grabs what you're holding out.
"What do you want," he says, cracking open the bottle.
To leave this roof in one piece? To not have the life choked out of you? A private jet and a boatload of cash? A rideable alpaca? He stares at you, and you realize you've been counting off your wishlist on your fingers. You raise your hands again.
"I won't tell anyone, really," you say, and your helmet flashes a :). Not the most reassuring emoji, but it's better than dollar dollar signs. He doesn't look convinced. Fine. You have to come up with a believable trade, because the last thing you want is for him to come finish you off when he's back in roid rage mode or whatever. You think for a second.
"Your phone number?" you say, and it sounds so incredibly stupid, even to you. All Might stares at you incredulously. You know how he feels. But now that you think about it, it might not be such a terrible idea. You could find out where he is. You could ask him for information. All this assuming he actually replies and doesn't crash through your door like the kool-aid man to choke you to death in your sleep, but it's still worth a shot.
You hold out your hand expectantly. Your helmet flashes a winky face, not helping whatsoever. So much for being good with gadgets. A long, awkward, very uncomfortable silence stretches. Your arm's getting tired.
All Might grabs your hand and shakes it once. "Fine." He rattles off a series of numbers, almost too fast to catch, but it's for these kind of scenarios that you spent all those sleepless nights jamming a proper video camera into your helmet.
"Nice," you say, already backing away. "I'm just gonna go now. Quietly. Without telling anyone."
He's not even looking at you anymore. You dash down the stairs, feeling like you just knocked, like, five years off your lifespan.
When you get back to your apartment, the first thing you do is replay the video and punch in the numbers into your phone.
Self-preservation instincts aside, you can't wait to test it out.
---
It takes a week for you to work up enough nerve to send a text. It's just the lock, key, and zipped mouth emoji, in that order. You figure it's enough to get your point across.
It takes almost an hour for the first reply.
wjast dj y wnt
You stare at it, because what the fuck is that. It takes another half hour for the next text, and you know because that's how long you spend gawping at your phone.
what do u want
Jesus, was he typing that the whole time? Did he spend thirty minutes just trying to type eleven letters on his phone? Also, you don't actually want anything. You maybe should have thought of that before you made the guy with the baseball-mitt-sized hands type messages into what you assume is an itty bitty smartphone. Your phone buzzes again while you're trying to think of a reply.
WJAT, it says, which is equal amounts intimidating and hilarious. You honestly don't know how to reply. Maybe a peace offering. You send him your gps location, which is currently a bench on the muncipal beach. You like it at night- darkness hides all the trash and garbage.
He shows up within five minutes, just enough time for you to realize that a beach at night is the perfect place to dump a body. You try not to scream when someone sits down on the bench beside you.
“What,” he says, and you realize it’s All Might, and he’s still a skeleton. Can he not turn back?
“Can you not turn back?” you ask in your tinny robot voice, your visor displaying a giant ? , and he looks you over venemously.
“Of course I can,” he says. The wind howls, and you’re pretty sure you see him shiver. Sure, buddy. Apparently you’re much, much braver when you’re facing Skeletall Might instead of normal, overpowered, super-villain All Might, because you drag a blanket out from your jacket (Shh. Magic Bag. 4D Pocket.) and offer it to him. He looks between it and you incredulously, so you just go ahead and toss it over his shoulders.
“Do I look like I need it,” he growls, and, yes. Yes, pal, you do, you really, really do. A blanket is literally the least of your needs, please call emergency services before you disintegrate into dust. Your helmet pops up a :) again. You dig into your jacket and bring out a thermos flask. Hot soup! You’re really proud of your hot soup. Who doesn’t like hot soup?
All Might, that’s who, because he snorts derisively when you twist the cap open. Killjoy. You pour it out anyway, handing the cap-turned-cup to him. He stares at it and you roll your eyes, which you can do in confidence because your face is still completely helmeted.
“It’s not poisoned,” you say, and he huffs, drinking some as if you dared him to. You wait. Expectantly. Your helmet throws up ??? and !!! and a thumbs-up symbol.
“It’s alright,” he says grudgingly. It’s fucking awesome is what it is, but you’ll take your victories where you can get them. He glares again.
“So what do you want?”
“Just to talk!” you say, because apparently he gets tetchy if you don’t want something specifically, and you don’t want his tetchy hands on your throat again if you can help it.
Predictably and annoyingly, he immediately stops talking. Fine. You can sit here in this game of silent chicken as long as he wants. You’re not the one who’s going to freeze to death.
After some time, the silence begins to feel less combative and more benign. Almost relaxing. Almost comfortable. You lean back, watching the waves. If you’re going to be stuck here, you might as well enjoy it.
All Might stands abruptly, the blanket falling forgotten onto the bench, and turns to leave. You win, you cheer to yourself. You’ve long come to terms with your outstanding level of pointless competitiveness.
“Bye,” you say. Your helmet displays a cheerful : D. He pauses, just for a second, his head turned almost in your direction.
In a split second and a giant cloud of smoke, the All Might you were getting used to is gone, and the All Might who could actually murder you is back. You blink. You could swear he glances back at you, smugly, so fast you almost missed it. And then he’s gone, already in the air, disappearing into the darkness.
“Can you not turn back?”
“Of course I can.”
You sit for a few minutes more, listening to the relaxing sound of the wind and the waves, before setting his contact in your phone as the eye-roll emoji. Showoff.
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