Chapter Text
Tuzi scaled the side of a building swiftly. He hauled himself over the edge, ears swiveling to catch any unusual sounds. He looked up to see one of his favorite people, pro hero Eraserhead, standing on the other side of the roof looking out over the city. This wasn't a surprise, of course, they had planned to meet here, but Tuzi still smiled to himself in some relief. It never felt real that he essentially had a partner for patrols, even after all this time. The underground was dangerous, Tuzi knew that from experience. How many times in the last thirteen years had he gotten hurt while out here? Too many to count.
"You just going to stand there bunny?" Eraserhead's voice broke through Tuzi's thoughts. Damn, Tuzi was hoping to sneak up on him this time. They were both masters in stealth but Eraserhead was still just a little bit better at situational awareness. And he liked to scare the crap out of Tuzi whenever he had the chance to "help him get better". Tuzi knew better. Eraserhead was just an asshole who liked to make people jump in his free time.
"I don't know old man. Think you can keep up with me on patrol tonight? Don't want to leave you in the dust again…" Tuzi teased.
"For the last time, I'm not old. I was twenty when you started this bullshit. I'm thirty-three now. I can keep up just fine," Eraserhead bit back. Thankfully Tuzi was well familiar with his moods by now. Eraserhead might sound pissy but there was an undercurrent of amusement for all that his voice and face were completely deadpan.
"Right. That's why I ended up two blocks away and got into that fight with the rhino mutant on my own last week," Tuzi responded, voice loaded with sass and sarcasm. He knew Eraserhead had not been supposed to patrol at all that night due to an injury and he was not about to let the man make the same mistake any time soon. Tuzi would rather go back to patrolling alone than see Eraserhead get seriously injured.
"I'm all healed up now kid. No need to worry." Suddenly Eraser's voice was soft. Like he actually cared that Tuzi might be concerned for him. Tuzi knew better. They might work together but if he could, Eraser would arrest Tuzi in a heartbeat, put him in jail, and throw away the key. Tuzi was a vigilante after all. And a quirkless one at that, not that Eraserhead knew that bit of knowledge.
According to the underground, Tuzi was a rabbit mutant that had been operating as a vigilante for thirteen years. They only knew his name and pronouns due to some of the very first victims he had saved at the beginning of his career. Not that they were right, exactly, but it helped him keep his civilian and vigilante lives separate so he went with it. Well, the pronoun part. The name was just stuck to him by a little girl and it never went away once the police got ahold of it. Apparently one three-year-old calls you rabbit in Chinese and you never get called anything else ever again. At least it wasn't Deku.
Tuzi purposefully ignored the shift in Eraserheads tone, instead settling on his heels and looking out over the city himself. His rabbit ear tech swiveled from side to side on each ear independently, feeding sounds down into the earpieces in his real ears. Nothing so far. The rabbit tail stuck to the base of his spine flicked and abruptly pointed up into the air, exposing the supposedly fluffy white underside. That bit of tech was a little more sophisticated than the hearing enhancers. It allowed Tuzi to connect to the internet and any tech systems nearby. Even closed-circuit cameras or security systems. It twitched and flicked on a regular basis to look like a real tail but when he crouched like this and kept still it would stand up and connect to everything in a two-block radius. The interface for accessing any of the systems it connected to was programmed into a panel on his arm that he built a holographic display into. He can make it dim so it doesn't stand out in the night but he can expand it to be able to do a lot more with the hologram than he could on a tiny screen on his arm. Of course, everyone thought that it was the interface itself that did the connecting and storing of info so it was often subject to attacks from desperate criminals who knew Tuzi could get all the incriminating data off their phones just by being nearby.
"Whatever old man. We going? We do have a patrol to get to tonight. Sounds quiet so far but with our luck that will change soon." Tuzi said pointedly, now ignoring the expression on Eraser's face. There was no way he was actually fond. Eraser was loud about his annoyance with Tuzi the first couple of times they interacted. It's not like much has changed on Tuzi's end since then. He was still a sarcastic, sassy, vigilante who shouldn't be doing what he was doing.
"Yeah kid, let's go," Eraser replied easily, falling in step as Tuzi moved to the edge of the roof towards the start of today's patrol route. Before they started working together, Eraserhead's route was a little more predictable. He was younger then, just getting into the underground hero scene, and did not realize how dangerous it was to be predictable in his line of work. Tuzi changed that as soon as they started to work together. Their joint patrol route was randomized based on the date, day of the week, and moon cycle. It made for a complicated system that took a long time to teach to Eraser but it was worth it. Tuzi was not going to let the best underground hero who actually cared about protecting minorities and those who couldn't protect themselves be killed by a villain who was just a little smarter than the average bear and able to figure out where and when Eraser was going to be and attempt to ambush him.
Hours later they were in the local police precinct, having hauled in the last criminal of the night. And this idiot was only a criminal. They caught him trying to sell drugs to a teenager, the drugs were quickly discovered to be powdered sugar by a scanning piece of tech Tuzi used that connected to his wrist interface, and the idiot never used his quirk to try to get away or harm the teenager. So an idiot, especially for trying to sell even fake drugs to a kid in Eraser and Tuzi’s territory, but not a villain. Tuzi was careful to make that clear in the paperwork. After all, being a villain had the same requirements as being a hero: quirk use. This dummy would get a lighter sentence and spend less time in jail due to not using his quirk at all. Tuzi’s mind wandered off of the paperwork for a moment… Hmm… Technically, he wasn’t even a vigilante. As that also required quirk use, unlicensed quirk use in the attempt to be heroic, and that of course did not apply to him in the slightest. He has the extra toe joint, appendix waiting to burst, wisdom teeth that luckily didn’t fuck up his other teeth, lack of allergies, tip of the tailbone waiting to grow a tail… the list honestly goes on. He is physically different from 99.9% of the people around him. Probably 99.999999% or something ridiculous like that since he has actually never met another quirkless person in real life. As a child, when he still lived with his parents, he was on a variety of online servers that quirkless people from all generations frequented.
Those servers, that community, is the only reason he is still alive. Don’t get him wrong, he was never suicidal. Thankfully but also unfortunately he just had to deal with depression, PTSD, and anxiety. Not a fun combination. No, he is still alive because he got out. He left that… prison masquerading as a house. Not even a home, just a house. He was never welcome there, even as a baby. He was apparently a surprise to both of his parents and the only reason they didn’t get an abortion is the media caught wind that pro-hero Dragon and famous chef Midoriya Inko were going to have a "bundle of joy" together. They had been married only two years at that point and had no plans for any children in the near or far future. He honestly owed his life to Present Mic, who had somehow gotten ahold of this information and shared only the part about them being pregnant on his radio show. It pressured them to keep him until he was born. If only they had put him up for adoption, he might have had at least a good beginning to his life. But they got a lot of attention for being a new “power couple” who were also bringing life into the world. Obviously, they would be great parents, according to the public anyway. Jokes on them. Those fuckers almost killed him several times before he was able to escape. Not that being homeless and jobless at twelve was any better for his health, but somehow being quirkless on the streets was safer than living with his “loving parents”.
“Tuzi, you okay over there? You look kinda spaced out,” Tuzi’s favorite police detective prodded at Tuzi’s shoulder as he walked past and asked his question. Tsukauchi Naomasa was an angel on Earth. He was a lot like Eraserhead in that he actually cared about people and did his best to help and protect them. He was the lead detective in this precinct and had built his team from scratch to be just like him. It was honestly why Tuzi had decided to stay in Mustafasu. His parents moved to Tokyo shortly after he left their tender loving care and Tuzi wanted to be faaaarrr away from them but also in an area where his civilian identity had a chance to survive even while homeless. It was kinda funny to him that Tsukauchi had met both of his identities but had never suspected that they might be the same person. That was by design but it was interesting that it worked against his lie-detection quirk. Someday, Tuzi wanted to tell Tsukauchi about this weakness in his quirk but right now it was keeping him out of jail so he couldn’t say a word.
“Tuzi?” Now Eraserhead sounded worried. Oops, should probably dig his way out of his brain and respond.
“Just got a lot on my mind guys, nothing to worry your pretty little heads over,” Tuzi replied to them both.
“Well, if you need any help with anything, just let us know,” Tsukauchi says absently, now sitting at a desk and looking over a report. Yeah right, like they would actually help someone like him.
“Problem child, you know the spare room in my apartment is always open to you,” Aizawa added. Aizawa had been making this offer for years at this point but it was obviously a trap to find out his civilian identity. Tuzi is smarter than that thank you.
“Sure guys. Hey, I’m done with this paperwork. I’m gonna get out of here as I now have better places to be. Be a doll Eraser and don’t try to follow me this time.” Tuzi says as he gathers the papers together. He hands them off to the secretary working nearby and heads for the doors. Eraser, thankfully, holds his hands up in surrender and stays seated. Hopefully, he can take a more direct route back to his place today. Only after changing into his civilian identity in a public bathroom of course. The sun was just starting to peak over the horizon though and not enough people were out yet to help him lose himself in a crowd so it was time to go incognito and sleep on a park bench for a couple of hours. By that, he meant that all of the obvious tech that was not part of his “quirk” was tucked away into pockets and under a baggy hoody that he had stashed nearby. It was a little odd to be wearing two hoods but it was necessary.
His vigilante costume was a lot of dark-colored clothing that clung to his body in a way to help disguise his physical gender as well as stay out of the way during a fight. It was loose enough to allow him his ridiculous (according to Tsukauchi and Eraserhead) gymnastics and acrobatics but not loose enough to get caught on anything in the arms and legs. The legs were similar to cargo pants in that they had a ton of pockets. All of the pockets were easily opened and closed with strong magnets that he could reverse the polarity on with a touch. Thankfully, none of his tech was affected by magnets, but they were also shielded so they would only stick to each other. The top has a hood that covers his hair and casts his face into deep shadows. His “ears” stick out of slits in the top of the hood to help keep the hood in place. His pants sit low on his hips and the back of his shirt has a wedge cut out to accommodate his bunny tail. It is typical for mutation-quirked people to wear their clothing in a similar configuration when they have a tail, so it was important that all of his costume iterations appeared to "accommodate" his "mutation" this way. His shoes unfortunately were the same brand as the shoes his civilian identity wore. He honestly had no choice in this but had managed to develop some dye that turned the typically bright red Relic shoes black. So far no one had noticed that they were slightly wide than a typically quirked person's shoes were. He of course had also loaded them with tech and reinforced them to the point of being almost indestructible to help with his cover story. They had steel toes but also some kinetic energy tech that gave his running, jumping, and any kind of kicking a boost as if his legs were stronger than they looked. Like a rabbit even though they aren't shaped like rabbit legs. Sometimes quirks can have weird effects that the cause for isn't clearly apparent. Due to his supposed quirk, it made sense to everyone around him that he could jump really high and take long leaping bounds when running full out. It seemed to be logical that his kicks were sometimes strong enough to send someone twice his size and weight flying through the air. Of course, he had similar tech in the brass knuckles built into his fingerless gloves but due to his physical gender and his homeless status, he had a hard time building and keeping muscle in his upper body. His legs were really fucking strong and his arms were too when he had enough food but he stuck mostly to kicks on opponents bigger and stronger than him.
Tuzi headed for a public bath down the street from the police precinct. Ducking in, he headed for the neutral bathroom and locked himself into a random stall. Quickly he tucked away tech and and pulled down his hoods. The ears and tail come off and are folded down to small, unrecognizable shapes and tucked into a pocket. His hair is pulled out of it’s braided bun and suddenly “he” is “she”. She shimmies some as she loosens the uncomfortable binding around her chest, turning her from flat chested to lightly endowed. She never had enough food to have larger breasts but she had enough to be obviously female. Not that she identifies as female but her civilian identity is female, so best to stay in the mindset. A couple more quick changes to her appearance, and Tuzi is tucked away to allow Izumi to emerge from the bathroom and head down the street to the nearest park. Hopefully she can catch a couple undisturbed hours of sleep before heading home.