Chapter Text
Meeting your heroes, Izuku decided, was overrated.
The train rocked gently beneath him as it carried him through Musutafu, sunlight flashing between buildings and painting the carriage in golden light at uneven intervals. Across from him, a man in a suit clutching a briefcase had dozed off with his chin against his chest. Two middle-school girls stood by the doors squealing as they opened neon packs of some type of collectors card. Somewhere further down the carriage a toddler was screaming, pointing at the floor where the kid's plastic dinosaur had dropped for the fifth time, the mother picked it up and handed it back without even glancing up from her phone.
Everything was normal. For some reason, that offended Izuku.
He sat with his backpack wedged between his shoes, a battered notebook on his lap. He hadn't opened it since leaving the rooftop, uncharacteristic given the fights he had mooched past on his way to the station. Sitting on a double page inside the book somewhere sat his newest autograph; one he'd wanted for as long as he could remember. Now that he had it though, it seemed underwhelming.
His phone buzzed.
Mum
hi izuku! did you get home okay? sorry im not there tonight, meeting ran late again :(. there's curry in the fridge! proper food please, not instant noodles.
Izuku let out a slight huff of fond exasperation before typing back.
Izuku
On the train now! Also, I do eat proper food.
Mum
you ate dry cereal for lunch on thursday.
Izuku
That was one time.
Mum
youve done it numerous times, izuku.
He closed his phone, turning it face-down and placing it atop his notebook. Some battles were unwinnable. The notebook shifted slightly as the train turned, phone sliding, and Izuku steadied it with one hand. Izuku stared down at the notebook. He considered opening it. He decided against it.
He wasn't angry.
Well, maybe a little, but being angry at All Might felt vaguely illegal. The man had saved thousands, pretty much changed hero society single-handedly. He had probably forgotten more about heroics over the years than Izuku could ever hope to learn.
That didn't mean he was right, though. Izuku noticed he was grimacing down at the notebook and quickly fixed his face, staring out of the window instead.
A hero without a quirk.
Impossible, apparently. That was fine. He could work with impossible.
The train announced his stop.
By seven that evening, Izuku had a very sane twenty-three browser tabs, a mug of coffee half-drunk next to an untouched glass of water, and a steadily growing headache. The career guidance websites were less helpful than advertised.
He could be a police officer, maybe emergency dispatch. A support engineer, though the courses assumed some background in engineering that Izuku did not currently have. He had even researched heroics, all of the websites managing to convey abso-fucking-lutely not without technically writing the words.
Izuku leaned back in his desk chair until it creaked, pushing his palms against his eyes with a loud sigh.
His room looked exactly as it had when he left that morning. All Might posters covering every square inch of one wall, hero figurines lining the shelves above his desk, and several years' worth of analysis notebooks occupied a space between his schoolbooks, long since expanding beyond a reasonable limit.
Thirteen notebooks. Hundreds of heroes; quirks, costumes, patrol habits, fighting styles, weaknesses, collabs, statistics. Apparently none of it truly useful in becoming a hero.
Fantastic.
He straightened and clicked back to the search results, scrolling down.
So you want to work in heroics without a hero license?
That seemed promising.
After a few minutes of reading, Izuku realised it was not. The article consisted mostly of vague encouragement, stock photos of smiling office workers and a paragraph explaining that, yes, agencies also employ receptionists!
Izuku closed the tab with perhaps more aggression than necessary. He scrolled a little longer. The next one was a HeroWatch thread. He hesitated. HeroWatch was not career research. It was not productive, it was where productive evenings went to die.
Five minutes, he decided, five minutes, then I'll go heat up the curry.
He clicked into it, knowing full well he wasn't simply going to look for five minutes.
HEROWATCH > RECENT EVENTS > THREADS
Why has nobody caught Switchback yet?
He's been running around thieving and destroying property in the middle of busy wards, and every time it takes heroes ages to reach the scene, despite it literally being in the middle of Hosu. There were a shit ton of agencies literally down the road from where he last attacked, still wasn't caught. You'd think they'd be on high alert?
BlastZone88
the dudes random as hell lol, heroes are on high alert they just cant predict where he's gonna show.
QuirkScholar
He's hit three wards this month alone.
BlastZone88
@QuirkScholar exactly lmao, three different wards. random.
mini_might123
@BlastZone88 That isn't really what random means.
Izuku stared at his comment, chewing on the inside of his cheek. He should delete it, arguing with someone on HeroWatch was an unnecessary waste of time. He hovered over the delete button, then another comment popped up.
BlastZone88
@mini_might123 unless ur psychic theres literally no pattern. definition of random bro.
Izuku stared at it for a long moment. Then sat forward and opened a new tab, forgetting about the curry he promised himself he'd reheat.
Twenty minutes later he had a new page of a notebook open, ten new tabs and a map occupying his screen.
Switchback had six confirmed robberies in the past month. Three convenience stores, two electronic shops and one pharmacy. News reports described his movements as erratic because the incidents spread across several wards and the places hit had no obvious connection beyond low evening staffing. But there was a connection. Izuku knew it.
He zoomed out, train lines spread across the city in neat coloured branches. His head tilted to the side as he squinted at the screen.
"Oh."
He minimised a few articles, dragging the articles until they were small boxes and placing them in the estimated area they occurred. His brows furrowed.
He checked local agencies, knew a few nearby already, and checked the online schedules. They were only partially public, but enough information was posted on community forums that gaps could be inferred.
Oh.
"Oh, you idiot." Izuku mumbled, a grin taking over his face as he switched back to the HeroWatch tab.
Whether he meant Switchback or BlastZone88 was unclear.
mini_might123
@BlastZone88 His route isn't random. Four of the six incidents happened on Thursday between 18:00 and 20:00, within roughly ten minutes' walk of the East Musutafu line. Two nearby agencies that patrol that area change patrol teams at 18:30 and 19:00. He’s likely exploiting the overlap between teams wrapping up their patrols and replacements settling into theirs.
BlastZone88
@mini_might123 source?
mini_might123
@BlastZone88 There's online information on the agency websites, plus this train schedule and these patrol maps.
BlastZone88
@mini_might123 holy yap, i aint reading allat.
mini_might123
@BlastZone88 You asked for the source.
Izuku leaned back, feeling ever so slightly smug. He stared at the screen, watching as a few people reacted to his or BlastZone's comments. Then, very very slowly, he smiled. Maybe HeroWatch wasn't always entirely useless.
A new notification popped up as he was enjoying his smug victory.
pillow
@mini_might123 ok genius, if ur so sure abt a pattern wheres he gonna hit next?
Izuku's smile dropped. That was different. Pointing out something that wasn't random was one thing. Predicting an actual incident was another entirely. There were too many variables, too many places along the line, too many assumptions hiding between the facts. He could narrow things down, maybe, but claiming absolute certainty would be a lie.
He hovered over the reply button, glancing to the clock. No.
mini_might123
@pillow I don't know.
He sat back and stared as responses came through.
pillow
yh thats wht i thought lmao
BlastZone88
LMFAOOO
QuirkScholar
Of course he doesn't know. Patterns can only take you so far, if it was so easy to predict that some random on HeroWatch could do it the police would've already found him.
mini_might123
I said there's a pattern, not that I'm psychic.
He should have left it there; turned his laptop off, made the curry and gone to bed. Did he? Of course not. Izuku glanced at the map occupying half of his screen still, his eyes darting between the marked incidents. Six attacks, different wards, different businesses; but similar timing and access to public transport. Switchback never stayed long enough to draw a response, and according to eyewitness statements he usually disappeared before heroes arrived. Either he had an escape focused quirk or he was simply very good at leaving before anyone important showed up.
Izuku tapped his pan in a fast rhythm against his notebook. Four on Thursday. Two others on Tuesday. If he understood the pattern well enough, he had at most maybe a week to figure this out. He frowned. He had no reason to care this much, he should go to bed.
He opened another three tabs instead. The next hour disappeared into local business directories, old news footage and publicly available hero-agency announcements. Izuku stopped trying to predict a building fairly quickly; there were far too many options. Instead he started crossing off areas that didn't fit. Streets with heavy evening traffic, areas consistently covered by at least one hero, anywhere Switchback had already hit.
Minutes turned to hours and by the time Izuku leaned back to rub at his dry eyes, only three rough locations remained. One was unlikely, it was quite exposed, but it couldn't be fully crossed off for that reason. The other had recently gained a new hero office nearby, which Switchback might not know, but Izuku decided to assume he did; anyone planning properly would know that.
The third sat by a smaller station and had several businesses that closed late, and the closest agency seemed to focus more on the northern sectors due to recent gang brawls breaking out.
He wrote it down. Then immediately crossed it out and huffed.
"This is stupid," he muttered to the empty room. He leaned back, eyes drifting to the clock in the corner of his laptop. It had just hit midnight. He reopened HeroWatch out of curiosity; people had dived back into the debate of whether Switchback was clever or just lucky. Izuku scrolled through, then landed back on the few replies to his "I don't know".
He chewed on his nails thoughtfully, staring at the screen.
I shouldn't. Really. If I'm wrong they'll just take the piss. He huffed, leaning back in his desk chair with his arms folded behind his head. But.. if I'm right.
Before he could talk himself out of it he typed up a message in the reply thread.
mini_might123
I looked at the pattern, and while I can't say for certainty, I narrowed it down to these three locations, marked on a map of Musutafu. These three are places that seem to suit SwitchBack's trend, and while I lack more facts to narrow the three down, I believe this location is the likeliest mark.
He posted the reply, then quickly switched out of the tab and stood. The chair rolled back and hit the edge of his bed as he scurried away from the computer, nerves scattered despite it being an anonymous online forum.
He headed to the kitchen, searching in the fridge for the curry his mother had told him to reheat. He did so, ate it, and took his time washing up after himself before returning to his room. He was planning to go to bed and forget about it, but he instead groaned and sat back at his desk.
He stared down at his notebook with the hastily scribbled out location, then at the search bar. He sighed.
He opened the official civilian tip portal. He knew it existed, he had submitted information twice before. Once when he was ten and convinced a man selling counterfeit All Might merch was classed as organised crime, and once at thirteen when he actually witnessed someone breaking into a parked car.
This is different, though. He hadn't witnessed anything, his theory was assembled on nothing but public information and an online grudge against someone called BlastZone88. He filled out the form anyway.
Location of concern, the date and time, then the details. That last one made him pause. He stared at it for a long while, unsure exactly how to word this. He didn't think "hey! im a middleschooler who spent an hour on herowatch and decided to look into villain attacks that i have no past experience with to find a pattern!" would get him very far.
It took a while, but he finally settled on something concise.
Possible pattern in recent Switchback incidents. Based on previous locations and publicly available information, the area surrounding Takoba East Station may be worth additional attention next Thursday evening.
He reread it six times. It sounded ridiculous. He edited it, adding the links to the incident reports and other possible locations. It sounded slightly less ridiculous. His cursor hovered over SUBMIT. If he was wrong, somebody might waste a few minutes reading it; but if he was right and didn't send it...
Izuku clicked, the page refreshed, and the screen reloaded to a Thank You message. He stared at the confirmation, some silly part of him expected more. There was no dramatic music, no call demanding to know who he was. All that had happened was Izuku wasted a few hours on a theory he developed because a stranger online annoyed him.
He shut his laptop, then sat and stared at nothing for a while.
"Stupid," he muttered finally, then pushed from his desk and headed to get ready for bed.
By Saturday morning, Izuku convinced himself the whole thing was embarrassing. Sunday morning and he stopped checking HeroWatch every time a new reply came in. Monday brought school, which was useful because Aldera had this weird ability to make every other problem in Izuku's life temporarily insignificant.
The day passed in a blur of classes, hallways avoided in an attempt to maintain his peace and the occasional jeering insult thrown his way that he simply shrugged off. Izuku spent lunch reviewing maths homework while pretending not to hear two classmates debating which hero school they intended to apply for. Izuku would have once sat there thinking to himself about the same topic, instead he focused on a maths equation he already knew was correct.
Tuesday was uneventful. Wednesday was only worse because his mother came home late enough to catch him sat cross-legged on the kitchen counter top eating instant noodles in the dark, her expression one of pure exasperation, "I made curry."
"I ate curry. Earlier."
"There were four portions."
"I ate one."
"Izuku."
Izuku pointedly slurped his noodles, keeping eye contact with her as he does so, "This has vegetables."
"It had spring onion flavouring, Izuku."
"It counts."
She stared at him, Izuku couldn't help but feel a little guilty. He lowered his chopsticks, averting his gaze to the floor. He chewed on his lip, then glanced up, "I'll make something proper tomorrow."
Inko smiled, glad of her victory, then pulled him down and kissed the top of his head as she passed by. Izuku waited for her to leave, and for the shower to switch on, before he continued eating.
Thursday arrived without fanfare, Izuku remembered Switchback halfway through English. His pencil stopped mid-note-taking as he glanced at the clock. 11:23am.
There was no reason anything would happen. Patterns broke, criminals changed habits. Maybe Switchback had already been arrested, maybe the analysis had been wrong and the timing was just a coincidence. He doesn't know why he got so invested in it anyway, it wasn't like he had anything to do that night anyway, but still there was a million other ways to spend his time-
"Midoriya, pay attention."
He looked up, dragged out of his thought spiral, a few people nearby had turned to give him a judgemental look. Had he been muttering again? Bad habit. He mumbled an apology and went back to writing his notes.
Midoriya tried to keep it off his mind as the day passed, he attended his classes, stayed after to do his homework, and by the time he was on the train home Switchback was pushed out of his mind. Until his phone buzzed. Then buzzed again. Then several times in rapid succession. Izuku frowned and pulled it from his pocket.
HeroWatch: 9 new notifications
His stomach dropped, he brought his thumb to his lips, chewing nervously on the nail as he opened the app. The Switchback thread had returned to the top of Recent Events.
pillow
GUYS??
QuirkScholar
No fucking way.
BlastZone88
wtaf. BRO.
Izuku scrolled through it. Someone had linked a report. Izuku scanned the title, then his jaw dropped. He quickly closed his mouth, remembering he was on public transport, then reread the title and checked the time.
18:52.
VILLAIN SWITCHBACK APPREHENDED FOLLOWING ATTEMPTED ROBBERY NEAR TAKOBA EAST STATION
Izuku stopped breathing for a few seconds, then remembered that breathing was generally important. He opened the article, the details were sparse. An attempted robbery, heroes already in the area when it began, suspect detained after a short pursuit with no civilian injuries reported. Izuku stared at it for a long moment, completely zoned out from the world around him as his station was announced and passed by.
pillow
@mini_might123 PATTERN DUDE HELLO?? HOW THE FUCK
BlastZone88
nahh. no way.
BlastZone88
pure luck.
pillow
mini who TF are u bro??
The train rattled onward, around him commuters did what commuters did. Someone was on the phone, a child was screaming somewhere, the automated announcement listed off a list of stops. Izuku barely heard any of it, instead his thumbs flying over the keyboard.
mini_might123
Coincidence?
Replies appeared after a moment.
pillow
BULLSHIITTT
QuirkScholar
Are you trained in analysis?
Izuku locked his phone as he slowly tilted his head up to stare out of the window into the darkening horizon. It probably was a coincidence. The heroes may have already known, police could have spotted the same pattern. His tip might not have even been read. There was no reason to assume he helped at all. His phone continued to buzz, when he checked it he had 17 new notifications.
He stared down at his blank phone screen, biting back a grin. What was it QuirkScholar asked? Was he an analyst? He reopens up the thread, finding the reply.
QuirkScholar
Are you trained in analysis?
mini_might123
No.
mini_might
Why?