A Hero's Dirty Work (Villain Deku / Vigilante Deku au)

Encounters

There was more, but that was all he needed for now. Michi didn't hesitate to pull his backpack off to look for something to use as a mask, but he didn't really need to. The man pulled out his own mask, slipping it over his face as he sighed in relief.

"Do you feel better now?" Michi asked, patting his back.

"Leave me alone! Yeah, much better," he replied, steadying his breathing.

"What's your name?" Michi asked. "I'm Michi."

"Stranger danger! My name is Jin, but I go by Twice."

"Well, Twice, how would you like a job? It might not be exactly legal, but I don't think you're the type of person to let that bother you," Michi offered. As soon as he'd seen the guy's quirk, he'd known he needed to recruit him. The applications were endless.

"A shifty stranger I met three seconds ago is offering me a job? How stupid do you think I am?  I'll take it! What do I do?"

"Come on," Michi said with a grin. "I'll show you."

*                *                *

Eri held her breath, her heart beating wildly in her chest. The man she'd found, Dabi, had agreed to let her try to heal him, but she wasn't quite as confident as she pretended. She'd been able to control her quirk for a while now, but what if something else went wrong? Dabi seemed nice enough to be her next uncle, or maybe even another big brother. He looked like Shoto, a little bit.

Anyway, the point was she didn't think she could forgive herself if she hurt him with her quirk. But he was waiting, uncle Shigaraki was waiting, and All For One was waiting to see if she could really do it. To see if she could finally actually help someone instead of just healing dying rats she found in the street.

She activated her quirk.

Dabi tensed, obviously feeling some pain, but usually getting rewound was almost enough to make them pass out; Dabi didn't even really flinch, which made her eyes start to well with tears. How much did his scars really hurt him, if getting rewound was barely enough for a reaction?

She focused on the scars, and made sure she only rewound the events that gave them to him. She didn't want to make him years younger, after all, just healing the scars. His skin began to smooth over, and once it started it got faster and faster. The piercings—which Eri had realized were actually staples holding his skin together—started to fall off, and the deep purple scars shimmered away like they were never there in the first place. Pale, flawless skin slowly took the place of scar tissue, but it took longer than Eri had expected—the man was barely over twenty at most, and yet she had to go back years before he started to heal.

She finally finished, releasing her quirk, and a knot of apprehension unraveled in her stomach. She'd been confident, but she'd still just known somehow that it was going to go wrong, he was going to get hurt or worse, and it would all be her fault. It was over now, and she was wrong. It worked! It really worked, and she healed him! Dabi let out a luxurious sigh as he stretched his arms, smiled, and rolled his neck in ways that he couldn't before without tearing through his staples.

"Eri, you really are a miracle worker," Dabi said, shaking his head in awe. "How come I've never heard of you? You should be a celebrity by now, a little kid with that kind of power." He was joking, but only kind of.

"I—" she swallowed. "I don't really want to talk about it, but I wasn't exactly allowed to use my powers until a couple weeks ago. That's when the Savior rescued me."