Chapter Text
Izuku started with some emails. Just the basic ones approving and denying quirk analysis requests that had been flagged for him to review. He only flat out rejected one of them (a person he’d seen before who refused to accept their analysis. Izuku didn’t have the time to deal with people in denial). Most of them he marked for background checks but the couple that didn’t quite raise a red flag he approved after doing a quick google search himself.
In all, it only took around an hour, leaving him plenty of time to do his actual work. He’d let some of S ranked analysis difficulty quirks (ironically, SAD’s for short, everyone else bemoaned them but Izuku thought they were fun) pile up and some were getting close to their “if it’s not done you get it free” deadline.
It was difficult, but stimulating and enjoyable work. Izuku managed to power out nine of the twelve before elven. He’d have to look over them again in the morning since these things needed time for him to sit and think about, but it was a good start. He’d probably have them all done by Wednesday .
Glancing at the clock he smiled and sent a quick text to his partner/manager/fun aunt figure.
You good to talk*? I need your help with a question actually…
A confirmation reply came in soon after and he switched over to a video call tab, just barely restraining himself from split screening with his analysis work. These conversations always required his full attention.
A cheerful woman in her late thirties greeted him. Her bright blue hair was pulled back in a tight braid and dark brown eyes sparkled happily through square librarian glasses.
“Izu!” his mentor, Aina Watanabe, a famous Japanese-American quirk analyst from New Harvard University said. “You’ve been so busy!” She waved a hand dramatically. “We’ve barely had any time to talk!”
“You’re the one always telling me to take it easy on the business end and focus on school,'' Izuku countered fondly.
“Bah!” she huffed. “When have you ever taken anything easy? Anyway, there’s a few decisions that I wanted to run past you and I’m serious about you taking that online finance class , Izu. I’ve got the money handled but you’ll need to know at least the basics in the future, make time for it,” she said sternly.
“Sorry, I will,” Izuku relented sheepishly.
“ Good , now, nothing’s happening in the American branch that needs your attention, which is a stroke of good luck, but we’re hitting a bit of a roadblock in expanding into the Middle East.”
Izuku sat up straighter. Global Growth** was an international company and they did business wherever there was internet. The main problem was language barriers (and sometimes legal issues but he had lawyers for those). It wasn’t like they needed a physical office in the Middle East to get customers there. It did make it easier to find translators for Arabic though, which they were sorely lacking.
“I know you wanted to get a UN grant for this, but most of Europe is blocking us. I think it’s time we switched to private investors.”
Izuku groaned, he really wanted to go through the international community for this, it would show a bit of comradery, everyone having equal opportunity to better themselves and their quirks, but apparently some didn’t feel like that was a good idea. It wasn’t like they could stop them from setting up an office, but they could send the grant money to someone else.
“Do you know their reasoning?”
Aina sighed. “Something along the lines of background checks being too thin and not wanting to support terrorists or some shit. Honestly, I’d thought we’d moved past this, but I guess not.”
“Yeah, alright, let’s work with private backers. Make sure they’re clean and know the rules. I don’t want to be tied to them.”
Aina nodded her understanding. “No problem, I’ve actually already got a few people in mind,” she hummed, grinning.
Izuku sighed, exasperated. “Of course you do. So, what else?”
“Well, we need to up the pay again for our translators in Hong Kong because the taxes just keep going up. Medical and operating expenses have increased for our Russian branch as well- the winter’s getting pretty bad up there. But all in all, nothing too drastic. Oh, also, I’m sending you some of the B-class analysts. Make sure to look them over and see if they’re ready to move up to A-class or not.”
“Is Itawa trying to move up again?” Izuku said with a fond smile.
“Yep! That kid’s determined. Reminds me of you in all honesty, but he’s got a long way to go.”
Izuku nodded. “I’ll look over them by Thursday ,” he said, mentally planning out his week. “Is the new translator recruiting drive going well?”
Aina beamed. “Yep, a lot of my students are really interested, too. Not all of those interested have the skill level to back it up but it’s good motivation.”
Izuku considered this, thinking back to when Aina had first started teaching him English. He’d been fluent for years now, but it’d still been hard to learn at the start. Watching his classmates struggle in Present Mic’s class made him glad he had gotten a head start. At least that was one thing he had over them.
“Business wise, anything else to report?” he prompted.
Aina considered this for a moment before deciding, “Nope, at least, nothing you need to worry about. I’ll shoot you an email if there is. Don’t forget the branch executive meeting later this month . Having you there always boosts company morale.”
Izuku laughed. “Me there doing what? An outline and a voice modulator?”
Aina pouts at him, “You still come off as adorable!”
“I think everyone is terrified of me.”
She shrugged. “Maybe a little, but they also respect you and want to make you proud, their glorious shadow leader,” she snickered.
Izuku huffed. “Please stop with the nicknames. We’re perfectly legal- no need to make it seem all underground.”
“But it’s more fun that way! Besides, leaning into our unorthodox-ness adds to the brand's prestige, makes people feel like they’re getting something really special!”
“The brand should be based on having ‘the best analysis you can find.’ I didn't mean to make it a secret! Just, you know, no one would have taken me seriously…” Izuku retorted, some upset creeping into his voice.
“Oh, Izu,” Aina softened, concerned. “What’s this about? You know I’m just teasing.”
Izuku shifted uncomfortably. “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about actually. We’re focusing on the underground this week and Aizawa-sensei is having us do a project where we have to make up an alternate identity for ourselves and I mean I could make one, but…”
“But it seems a little pointless given that you already have one?” she questioned kindly. Izuku nodded sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck.
“So what do you want to do, kiddo? Are you thinking about revealing yourself?” Aina asked.
Izuku fumbled with that. He’d kept this secret for so long it was terrifying to think of anything different, but even still… “Yeah,” he mumbled. “I- it feels weird that my friends don’t know and I mean I’ve never had this issue before because- you know- but now I do and I just, I don’t want to keep this from them and I want to help them with my analysis and get them to really take it seriously. We-we’ve had so many close calls and if I can help stop that because they’ll listen, really listen , to my advice instead of just brushing it off as “Midoriya’s ramblings’ then maybe..”
Aina smiled sadly at him. “It’s alright, I understand. For what it’s worth, I think you should. There’s no need for you to carry this alone anymore, now that you have people to share it with. Just remember to keep it tight-lipped. We don’t want anything happening to our Glorious Leader.” She winked at him. “So have you made plans?”
Izuku let himself crack a grin. “Yeah. I was planning to take Nezu up on his offer, not to teach,” he said, waving off her extremely intrigued face, “But to analyze his students. I’ll tell him that between the meetings I have in Japan, I’ll have a few hours to spare next Monday- that’s when Aizawa-sensei’s project is due- so I can swing by the school for A-1’s hero training to drop off their quirk packets in-person and maybe do a lecture and give them advice.”
Aina nodded in approval. “Do you already have the packets done?” she asked, because 19 students was a lot of work, especially given that most of them were either an S or A in terms of analysis difficulty level.
Izuku scoffed. “Of course, those have been done for ages. Who do you think I am?”
She shrugged, a smile playing across her face. “Sorry I doubted you.”
“Anyway,” Izuku said pointedly, “I’m pretty sure he will accept, but I still need some papers and stuff to confirm who I am. Would you be able to take care of that for me?”
Aina nodded in understanding. “I’ll get the official stuff sorted and shipped to you by Friday. You’ll need at least an ID and passport,” she mused. “Anything else?”
“ The honorary graduation certificates from Oxford and Harvard would be good too, just in case they really snoop into my credentials. Oh, and I’d like a renewed quick analysis license that actually has my photo on it this time. Do you think you could get one made without the image leaking out.”
Aina hummed. “I’ll have to call in a few favors but the Governor's still quite fond of us both for the whole ‘helping his nephew’ thing, so it shouldn’t be a problem. So what are you doing with your looks? Something different or are you going to just show up to class pretending to be someone else while everyone obviously recognizes you and thinks you're crazy?”
“I’ll do something with my hair for sure, not dye it, but… remember that girl we helped become a fashion designer? She’s in Tokyo right now, so I think I’ll drop by her to do my hairstyle just to give it a bit more impact. Making it so they didn’t recognize me at all would kind of defeat the purpose of this. I want to tell them who I am, but I also want to command enough respect that they’ll believe me.”
“Ok sounds good, so you’re ‘business professional’ look? Should I use the photo from the New Year’s party?”
“Yeah, that’ll work fine,” Izuku agreed, even as his face scrunched up slightly at the thought of the suit and extensive make up he’d been forced into.
“So that’s sorted. What about your teacher? Do you think Aizawa will play along?” Aina asked. It’d all be a bit pointless if his teacher refused to acknowledge this as an alternate identity within the scope of the project after all.
“ I’m pretty sure. He might be skeptical at first, but once I pull out my identification and he can’t find anything wrong with it, he’ll probably just accept it. This is just the sort of ‘logical ruse’ he’d enjoy.”
“Haha sounds fun,” Aina commented.
“Yes!” Izuku agreed. “He's my favorite teacher!”
She cleared her throat. “Second favorite teacher,” he corrected.
“What about All Might?” Aina asked curiously.
Izuku blushed as he stumbled for an answer. “Well, I mean, he doesn’t so much feel like a teacher as, well...” He had transformed into a tomato at this point and Aina laughed at him.
“That’s good, kid. Glad you finally have that sort of role model in your life, and All Might no less! You certainly did pretty well for yourself. If anyone deserves it, it’s you.”
Izuku smiled at her. “Yeah, thanks,” he said sincerely.
“Well, it’s getting late, so I’ll let you get to bed or to the homework that I know you're procrastinating on,” she mildly scolded him.
“It's not like it’s hard,” he whined, but at her raised eyebrow corrected, “I’ll get to it soon.”
She nodded once, decisively. “Good and sleep well, Izuku.”
“You too- I mean, have a good ni- day. You know what, I'm just going to turn this off now, bye.” Izuku hastily ended the video call to her laughter echoing in the background.
He smiled slightly, feeling confident in his decision. He wouldn’t hide anymore, at least not to the people close to him. The smile then abruptly dropped off his face. Fuck, he’d have to tell his mom first.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was an average day. The initial excitement of The Program recr uiting her had worn off long ago, not that her base routine had ever changed much. Except for the funding, good god , did she have enough funding now.
Aina Watanabe wasn’t the type of person most would expect The Program to recruit. She couldn’t level mountains, live forever, or rewind time . She could, however, instantly and instinctively understand how to use (and then use) another’s quirk as long as she had skin to skin contact with them. At its base, it was a copy quirk, though Aina saw it more as a channeling one (not that most people understood the nuance).
While useless for hero work (you can’t exactly hold hands with someone the entire time) and despite the very lucrative offers from hospitals she’d gotten as a young adult (after all she could basically double all their healing quirks potential use) she had instead pursued her heart's desire: Quirk Studies. Having a quirk that let her understand how other quirks worked only helped in that regard and the snide remarks about being a ‘leech’ trailed off.
At 22, she’d packed her stuff, claimed her dual citizenship (much more common now as no country wanted to potentially relinquish a claim to a powerful quirk) and went to pursue her PhD in Quirk Science at New Harvard University.
That was over 50 years ago and she was acutely aware that she’d already used her ‘Rebirth’ (and gods was it wonderful to be under 30 again, even if triggering it by choking to death on a piece of mochi was a little underwhelming.)
Part of her had expected life to change after that. After all, the whole point of the Phoenix program was to keep valuable people from dying before they could make their uniquely valuable contributions to society. But First had just looked bemused and said, “You’ve literally spent your entire life doing the most useful thing you could do, so just keep on keeping on.” He finger gunned her before striding out of her once again newly refurbished lab (he made a point to do that at least once every five years (Got to keep up with the times, Ai!) . He was such a dork.
So she was in her lab, lectures done for the day, grading being procrastinated, casually scrolling around for the latest quirk news. After getting annoyed with another American op-ed on All Might, she switched to Japanese. Despite her vendetta against their politics, even she had to concede her home country's hero scene was top tier.
She was skimming through the featured article on Hero Weekly before realizing, wait a second , this was actually good. It was called “Five ways your quirk probably breaks the laws of physics and why we should care more about that.” A bit long of a title but it got the point across. She was more of a ‘what do quirks do’ and ‘how do they relate to other quirks’ studier than a ‘why/how can they do what they do’ one, but the article was accessible, well written and something she knew her colleagues would freak out about.
Two hours later she found herself translating the whole thing and firing off an email to the author (only labeled as ‘The_Analyst’ haha lame) to ask if they wanted help getting published in some American journals.
After a bit of debate, and because it was proper before engaging with a new colleague, she decided to read through his other works. The most popular articles were inspirational ones, framed as general quirk advice. They bordered more on social commentary than actual Quirk Studies.
They were interesting but not really her thing. But then, then , she found his blog. It looked more like an archive for himself than anything else. Most of the articles she had read had been picked up by new sites or else posted on forums to be viewed. This, however, was just a long (though organized) list of pdf links.
The articles were there too, but: Hero Analysis For the Future series Volumes 1-3, was what caught her eye.
She opened the first volume, there were thirty more links under it.
Tentatively, Aina clicked on the first.
Pages on pages of unfiltered analysis, diagrams and charts, recognized patterns and predictive movements, citations ranging in the hundreds. And questions , so many questions.
She tore through them with near savage interest. This (this!) was what she had been looking for. Raw untapped potential. It was unpolished (compared to professionals) but there was a good base and more than that it lacked the built in biases she always had to hammer out of her graduate students.
This was a prodigal diamond in the rough and she wanted her hands on it yesterday.
An actual successor, someone to take up the mantle of quirk analyst and researcher f or The Program. Maybe even someone to push Quirks Studies into the mainstream as she’d never been able to do. (Give her labs and data and brow beating clients any day, but large scale just wasn’t her thing. Plus, it was hard when everyone had to be flown out for her to analyze in person).
She was going to find them. This ‘Analyst’ who wrote social commentary like it was obvious and analyzed quirks with such unfiltered passion it made her giddy.
The articles were anonymous, sure but she’d never let that stop her before.
It was time to call in some favors.