#free day thursday
Fic Prompts: Free Day Thursday
“Lighthouse, be advised: if my hair goes prematurely gray, it’s gonna be because of this darn fool teenager.”
Sig hoisted himself up over a crate and ground his teeth together. “And when we get home, for the record, I recommend installing safety rails or baby gates on anything you don’t want the kids climbing up or hoverboarding off of. Because if Jakdoes it – and he will – Mar is gonna copy him.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Damas responded with goodnatured dismay, “But what has Jak done thistime?”
“Whathasn’the done?” Sig fumed. He ducked a spinning drill the size of his arm and dodged a saw blade that swung up out of the mining platform. “He hears about a metalhead nest at the strip mine and what’s his solution? Go monkey around on the shipping crates until he can loosen one enough to drop onto the egg cluster!”
“While he’s still standing on it?!” Damas sputtered.
“That’s it. That’s his plan. If I had any doubts about whose son he was before,” Sig said with a huff, “I don’t now.”
“Wellthat was a little uncalled-for,” the king grumbled, but noticeably he didn’t correct Sig.
He knew well and good that he had been a reckless teenager once.
It didn’t take long for reports like this to become a regular thing for Sig and Damas. Often, multiple reports came in on the same day, making Damas wonder if Jak ever slept.
“Lighthouse, do you have any qualms about sharing custody with a Lurker tribe? Because the boys just went and got themselves inducted in as honorary members.”
“Lighthouse, I am this close to slapping a Sage. The Baron’s got some kind of doomsday plot in mind, and instead of mobilizing the troops, the old fart just told Jak to handle it "no matter how”. I’ll be backup, of course, but would it kill these people to stop delegating all their missions to the kid?“
"Lighthouse, do not let this child near Kleiver and the garage until he’s done a driving test. I just watched him hijack a Hellcat and immediately drive it straight into a wall. He thought it was gonna handle like a zoomer. A zoomer!”
“Lighthouse, I can’t wait until you get to go on the range with Jak. You two are gonna have a blast fightin’ over that high score. He mightjust beat one of your top five records!”
The longer reports were usually full of descriptive retellings of events, or humorous complaints about Jak’s penchant for mayhem. Damas liked getting to know the boy in this round-about sort of way; it gave him something to talk about with him on his few visits thus far. The longer the report, the more questions he could think of for later.
By contrast, the one that utterly chilled Damas’s blood was short, and to the point.
“Lighthouse…have you ever heard of the Dark Warrior Project?”
The folders Sig smuggled to him during his next “vacation” were the work of a depraved mind. Damas had spent several sleepless nights learning the true depths of the suffering Praxis had inflicted on his son – his elderson, at least. Although Damas had no doubt that Mar would have met the exact same fate if Praxis had gotten his hands on him. And he suspected that Jak had known that too, even when he’d first met the child. The way Jak hovered over Mar whenever he was back in Spargus, the way he fought in both the ring and in Haven-
Jak wasn’t fighting solely for revenge anymore. He was fighting to ensure that the little boy who so looked up to him would neverendure the hell he had survived. And in Jak’s mind, as long as Praxis and Errol lived, Mar was in at least some danger. So Jak had redoubled his efforts to wipe the usurper and his pet torturer out once and for all.
If he was able to pull it off, if he didend them with his own hands, Damas wondered if his council would approve it as grounds for receiving his next battle amulet.
Damas set the folder and receiver down and drew a hand over his face. Spargus didn’t have the numbers to risk open war with Praxis – especially not with the Metalheads posing such a threat. The most help he could offer Jak would be scouts and infiltrators, working to destabilize those in power. Sig was doing a good job of balancing both helping the Underground and quietly sabotaging Krewe, much as Kleiver had done years ago, before Mar was born. But he was only one man, and Haven was a large city. If more citizens would actually take up arms, it would be easier-!
A faint scuff of skin against stone caught his attention, and Damas slid his hand down an inch to peer out over his fingers. Mar stood centimeters away, mimicking him. When Damas shifted his arm to lean his cheek on his fist, Mar did the same. The king smiled despite himself, and Mar swiftly mirrored his expression.
“What are you doing out of bed?” Damas asked. He reached out to brush a hand through the child’s unruly curls. They were almost long enough to braid now.
Mar took advantage of his outstretched arm to use as leverage and climbed up onto his father’s knee. He let out a big, gusty sigh and pouted.
“When is Jak coming back?” he asked.
Damas slid the folder on the Dark Warrior Project out of Mar’s reach and frowned. “It’s hard to know, son. Jak is…” he tilted his head back in thought. “Your brother is trying to help a lot of people right now. But he’s just one person. He can’t do everything at once.”
Mar’s frown deepened. “How come Jak and Daxter get all the scary chores from the scribbly man-” he had meant Torn, but having never learned to sign the word “tattoo”, the little boy instead indicated coloring on his face. “He yells and drinks the stinky bottle whenever Jak does chores.”
Damas blinked. “The stinky bottle-? Oh. Oh.Er…”
He wasn’t sure how to explain it to Mar, but after two weeks of Sig’s reports on Jak’s movements, he could sort of guess why the Underground leader was drinking.
Havenites didn’t have much of a reckoning for what would be a surprisingly normal Spargan adolescent. And that was withoutthat pesky little addition of the House of Mar’s tendency to channel eco in bizarre ways.
“Well,” Damas finally said, “Sig is there to help Jak with his…chores, and so is his orange rat friend. They’re very busy, but I’m sure they’ll visit when they need a rest.”
Mar snuggled against his chest with a faint hum of disapproval. “Daxter’s not a rat, Daddy. Daxter’s human,” he signed with a long-suffering look.
Damas eyed his son skeptically. “Mar, he’s covered in orange fur, and he’s two feet tall.”
“He used to be human! Jak said he fell in the angry eco and he grew a lot of a lot of a lot of hair and got tiny!” Mar nodded his head furiously in agreement with his own words. “I’m never gonna play with angry eco! I wanna get tall like you!”
“Angry…eco…?” Damas echoed in confusion. What was-?
“Dark eco? Are you talking about dark eco?”
Mar nodded again. “Yeah, the angry eco. It makes Big Brother go all white and grumpy. He doesn’t get little and fluffy. How come Jak doesn’t get little and fluffy?”
Damas shot a glance at the horrible file on the table. “Er…Jak didn’t…didn’t encounter the dark eco the same way his friend did.”
To his relief, Mar accepted this with a shrug and went on happily giving a decidedly garbled retelling of what was presumably the explanation behind Daxter’s ottsel status.
“Alright.” Damas stood up and shifted Mar to the floor. “Time you were in bed.”
Mar pouted again, but let himself be led back to his cot in Damas’s chambers. The crocodog pup raised his head from the foot of the bed, made a sleepy sound, and settled back down. It didn’t fully relax until Mar was tucked back in under the blanket, but such was the nature of crocodogs. They were fiercely protective of any human lucky enough to be considered part of their pack.
Mar wriggled around until he’d made a little nest of blankets beside his puppy. “Can Jak come home tomorrow?” he asked.
With a sigh, Damas knelt beside the cot. “I don’t think so. Haven is at war, Mar. That makes it tricky to go visiting other places.”
“But I want Jak to come back now!”Mar protested.
“I…” for an instant, the words stuck in his throat. Damas looked away. “I do too, little one.”
The more he knew about the Dark Warrior Project, the more uneasy he grew about Jak being so far from the comparative safety of Spargus. They hadn’t even had a chance to properly discuss his identity yet – Damas had no idea if Jak would even be receptive to building a connection with some alternate version of his probably-dead father. Nevertheless, he found that he could not be fully at peace until he had both Mar andJak under his watchful eye.
This Week’s Prompt Schedule:
Tuesday: Transformers Tuesday
Thursday: Jak and Daxter Day
This Week’s Prompt Schedule:
Tuesday: Demolition Trio Tuesday
Thursday: bnha/Marvel crossover
Fic Prompt: Free Day Thursday
been a while since I did anything from bnha! This is part of an au I made up strictly for my own amusement a few years back in which Izuku and All Might met at the hospital around the time of the big AFO fight, and All Might inadvertently got Attached. My sister and I just call this au “The Tagalong” for that reason. Whether the tagalong is Izuku or All Might depends solely on whether you’re asking Inko or Gran Torino.
(Also features Toshinori and Sorahiko having a better relationship than in canon, because I said so)
There was a faint smell of smoke clinging to young Midoriya’s school uniform when he arrived at the agency that afternoon. He didn’t look like he was hurt, but Toshinori knew better than most that appearances were deceiving. So after the boy had collected his visitor’s pass from Reception and picked up his worksheets from Tobio, Toshinori took him to one side.
“How was school, bud?” he asked, keeping his tone light.
“I got an A on my math test!” Izuku chirped proudly. Abruptly, he winced and his smile fell. “Kacchan didn’t like that.”
Yeah, that was what he’d been afraid of.
Despite warnings and complaints, Aldera Elementary apparently refused to intervene in the Bakugo boy’s behavior. They’d only moved Izuku’s desk away from his when Toshinori had sent a member of his legal team to inform them of the lawsuit for negligence.
He was mainly going to sue them for negligence, but harassment was starting to look like a good secondary charge. It was really just a matter of what day he was going to do it.
Katsuki Bakugo didn’t burn Izuku anymore, but he definitely wasn’t abiding by his parents’ “no quirk use at school” rules. It didn’t matter that he was six years past the age of legal public quirk use; Aldera’s faculty were all so dead certain that he was going to become some amazing superstar hero that they allowed him to “blow off steam” in the classroom. They babied him, clucking their tongues and frowning disapprovingly at Masaru whenever he came to pick him up. It was cruel, they said, to forcefully suppress a child’s talents. Why, it was as if Masaru wanted his son to be like poor, quirkless Midoriya!
The sooner Inko found a better school for Izuku, the better.
“Did he hurt you?” All Might asked Izuku. “Physical, emotional, both?”
After keeping a brave face for a few seconds, Izuku crumpled.
“They’re never going to stop him, are they?”
He sounded more bitter and weary than any eleven year old ever should. “I’m so tired of being scared, All Might! I’m a…a person! Why do I have to be their punching bag? Why is Kacchan worth protecting, but not me?!”
All Might knelt to place his hands on Izuku’s thin shoulders. He breathed deeply and looked him in the eyes.
“It’s ending. I swear, Izuku, it’s ending. It’s just taking Ms. Masuda a little time to get a court date. But when it’s done, you’ll be at a new school, and the Bakugo kid’s behavior will be evaluated for a few years.”
It wasn’t permanent – and that was a concession made for Izuku, quite honestly – but having a TRO against him go before a judge, even if it didn’t end up being granted, would still be a permanent note on his record since it was quirk-related. Any hero schools he applied to would be able to see whether or not he had persisted in his aggression. If he passed the first evaluation period with no further attempts to approach or harm Izuku, perfect! The order would expire and there would be no further marks on his record. If the order of protection had to be renewed more than once, however, that would likely end up being a hindrance to Katsuki becoming a hero.
Toshinori truly hoped that being removed from the influence of Aldera’s teachers would help to heal Katsuki’s delusions of grandeur. But at the same time, he needed to prioritize protecting the child who was in immediate danger. Until Inko found the right school, having restraining orders against the two second year teachers would be the best they could do. They would not be allowed to even stand within 2000 feet of Izuku, and word would spread quickly that a student at Aldera had to get a restraining order against teachers.
All Might tried to put it from his mind for the moment. He placed an anchoring hand on the crown of Izuku’s head and smiled at him.
“Hey, Izuku. How about we take the afternoon off, huh? We can play hooky and escape the Tower for a little bit.”
Izuku knew All Might was trying to distract him. He didn’t always do that – usually they talked through his feelings, or talked about what Izuku wanted to say to his counselor the next time they met – but sometimes it helped. Izuku bit his lip and tried to say that he wasn’t quite ready to be around people yet, but the words wouldn’t come out. So he turned his face upward, hoping All Might would be able to read him that way.
All Might sighed and pressed his palm deeper into Izuku’s curls. “I know, buddy. I know. I just thought you might like to go somewhere a little quieter.”
With a shuddering little breath, the boy wiped away the beginnings of a tear and nodded. “Um. Can we go visit Gran Torino?” he asked quietly.
That was an idea. It had been almost a month since Toshinori had gotten a chance to visit the retired hero – something Torino had been complaining about in their frequent phone calls. Gran Torino was a good influence on Izuku…most of the time.
Therewas that one time when Inko had found out that Sorahiko let Izuku say swear words when it was just the two of them at the apartment.
“Gimme a second,” All Might said, and pulled his cellphone out.
“Hello? Hey, sorry to interrupt you at work!”
He listened for a moment. “No, no, it’s okay. Nobody’s injured. Izuku just had kind of a bad day at school. Is it alright if I take him over to Gran Torino’s?”
All Might stood up with a chuckle as Inko lodged a protest. “Only if you take the train,” he argued, “Inko, c'mon. You’ve seen me go from Sapporo to Roppongi in an hour. Nanbu is just a hop away!”
“Of course I’ll be careful! Ok. Ok, you too. Bye.”
He hung up and called over to the mission tracking desk, “I’m running a patrol in Yamanashi Prefecture! See you all in a bit!”
Izuku took that to mean that his mother had given her permission. He signed out of the visitors desk and started to head for the elevator. Usually, he would wait at the back of the building so people didn’t see All Might carrying him around. But this time, All Might stopped him.
“Up we go!” he said brightly as he lifted Izuku into his arms.
That was something that Izuku not-so-secretly loved. The way All Might would settle him in the crook of his arm so he could see. Getting to hear the hero’s heart beating through his costume. Or even just the sensation of being held. Before he’d met All Might, nobody but his mother had ever hugged Izuku. Not even Hisashi, and that was before his grandparents had taken him away.
Mom’s hugs felt like comfort to Izuku. Like a warm blanket, or ice on a burn. When All Might hugged him, sometimes it felt like armor. When he sat up here, on All Might’s forearm, Izuku felt like nothing could hurt him.
“Mr. Tobio, please open the roof hatch!” All Might called.
Then Izuku understood why he wasn’t meeting All Might in the parking lot. They were going to fly.
All Might felt Izuku’s fingers digging into the fabric of his costume, and he chuckled. The boy was practically vibrating with excitement! It had been some time since his last “flight”. Even knowing he couldn’t guarantee it, All Might promised himself that he would take Izuku jumping more often. Maybe one day Izuku would be jumping right alongside him.
“Ready?” All Might asked.
“Ready!” Izuku nodded. “3…2…1…”
“Liftoff!” they shouted together, and the ground fell away.
Wind roared in their ears as they continued to ascend, and Izuku could barely see out of his watering eyes. There was a pause, less than a second, but it felt like longer, when they seemed to hang motionless in the air, at the top of the jump. And then came Izuku’s favorite part: the free fall. Just as his stomach seemed to catch up to the rest of his body, they plummeted, leaving his stomach behind once again. Izuku whooped even as he clung all the more tightly to All Might’s neck.
All Might had honed his quirk for decades. He had so much experience jumping across Japan that the landings didn’t even jolt Izuku. All Might simply redistributed the shocks throughout his body. He said that wasn’t part of his quirk, but rather how he imagined applying it. Izuku had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but he’d written it down anyway. It had been two years, almost, and All Might still talked about passing on his power like it was a done deal. So as long as he didn’t change his mind, Izuku was going to need to know how imagination was supposed to relate to using One for All.
Under their feet, the city blurred, melting away into patches of grey and silver peppered with neon lights and bits of grass. The closer to Nanbu they got, the more green stretched out to meet them. Izuku grinned down at the twist of the river as they neared a half abandoned neighborhood. They were almost there.
Gran Torino wasn’t exactly the kind of person most would expect a kid to like. He was gruff, and as a teacher he was no-nonsense bordering on drill-sergeant. But he listened. He never told Izuku that life was hard and he had to get used to it. He didn’t pity him, either. Gran Torino was one of the few adults who had ever looked him in the eye and said, “You don’t have to pretend you’re not angry. You got every right to be.”
When they landed in the worn-out old neighborhood, All Might shifted Izuku from his arms to sit on his shoulders. Almost nobody lived on this particular street anymore. That was alright with Gran Torino. The fewer faces to see him, the less likely it was that All for One’s little friends would find out where he was living. It also meant that there was nobody to make a fuss about seeing All Might out and about.
“I’m sorry I don’t do this with you more often,” All Might said abruptly. “I know being a hero cuts into the time I’m able to spend with you and your mom, but I hope you know how important to me you are.”
He sounded like he was worrying again, or feeling guilty. The older Izuku got, the more he realized how much like him All Might really was. So he leaned over to wrap his arms around the man’s head, both reassuringly and as an impish blindfold.
“You have the coolest job in the universe!” Izuku said. “I get to see you on tv every day, and in person almost every day. You don’t have to go out of your way for us, we know you’re busy.”
“It’s not out of my way,” All Might pouted just a little bit, “You guys mean the world to me.”
Izuku didn’t really know how to process that. Why did All Might care about them so much? He wasn’t Izuku’s father, and Izuku couldn’t do anything for him. He didn’t have a quirk, or friends, or money. But somehow All Might had looked at a kid everyone else rejected and saw a successor.
(Sometimes, when he was too anxious to focus on other things, Izuku would pretend that All Might’s easy affection meant the hero was treating him like family, more than his usual outgoing kindness. It would be nice to have somebody who actually wanted to be his dad.)
Toshinori had walked the street Torino lived on often enough to find the apartment blindfolded. After all, he’d spent the latter half of his teenage years there. So despite the skinny arm over his eyes and the giggling child on his shoulders, he had little difficulty in strolling up the sidewalk to Number 14. He stopped at the front steps and bent over.
“Alright, last stop: everybody off!” he joked as Izuku carefully slid off his shoulders.
Already the boy seemed to be in a better mood. For now, at least. Toshinori still planned to speed up the lawsuit a bit before things got any worse. And hopefully the next appointment with the therapist would help untangle some of Izuku’s feelings.
Toshinori knocked once, then fished his key ring out of his belt and unlocked the door. Izuku leaned around his legs and cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Helloooo!” he called into the building, “Anybody home?”
Sorahiko had known who was coming the moment he heard the key turn in the lock. But, as was his nature, he pretended not to notice and lay on the couch, feigning sleep. If Toshinori had wanted him to be alert when they got there, he should’ve called ahead and mentioned that he planned to finally visit!
It took most of his willpower to keep his eyes shut when the sound of small feet scampering across the tiles told him just who his other visitor was. He heard the boy stop at the edge of the couch and stand still for a moment, just breathing. Then came an almost offended little voice.
“Hey! You’re not even sleepin’!”
Sorahiko responded by further exaggerating his snores.
“Nobodyactually says "z” when they snore,“ Izuku grumbled. "We know you’re awake.”
“No I’m not.”
Izuku hopped once. “Yes you are!”
Sorahiko grinned smugly, but didn’t open his eyes. “No I’m not, I’m sleeping.”
With a slightly frustrated sound, Izuku hopped closer. “Then how come you’re having a conversation with me?”
“I’m talking in my sleep.”
Toshinori shut and locked the front door and shook his head. “That is not the man who raised me,” he snorted.
But in some ways, he was. Sorahiko Torino had always been gruff, and had difficulty verbalizing affection. But he’d also always had a mischievous streak, and a bizarre sense of humor. Toshinori had legitimately thought the man hated him the first year Nana trained him until he learned to understand Torino’s jokes. Much of that humorous side had disappeared after Nana was killed. He was more stoic, stricter. Sometimes he’d been overly critical – something that had left a few wounds between them that he regretted to this day.
But now, with young Midoriya, the Sorahiko that Toshinori had first been introduced to was reasserting himself. He was a little bit softer with Izuku than he had been with Toshinori, though. It could’ve been because of Izuku’s age, or it could’ve been because of Torino’sage.
Toshinori knew better than to voice that particular theory.
Either way, it was clear that Sorahiko was providing something in Izuku’s life that the boy clearly needed. He was so…well, the only way Toshinori knew to describe it was to say that Izuku was bolder here than anywhere else. He trusted both of them implicitly. Not so much as a flinch if one stood up too quickly or raised his voice for a moment. In just over a year, Izuku had grown comfortable enough in the Torino apartment to ask them for things – usually asking to “play” with Torino so he could take notes on his quirk.
Sometimes Toshinori wondered whether his foster-father saw the boy as a surrogate grandchild, the way Toshinori had come to think of him as his own.
Izuku, tiring of Sorahiko’s game, grabbed the old man’s hands boldly and braced his feet against the floor to tug him into an upright position. Naturally, Sorahiko made it as difficult as possible.
“Come onnnn!” Izuku huffed. “All Might, um, All Might has to patrol but I don’t have any homework today!”
Sorahiko finally opened his eyes and cackled. “I think you’ve just been dismissed!” he teased Toshinori.
Izuku cringed. “Nonono! That’s not- I didn’t mean- you don’t have to leave, All Might!”
Toshinori pulled his boots off and dropped them next to Izuku’s shoes. He padded across the tiles, ruffling Izuku’s hair as he passed.
“He’s just teasing you, buddy. We know what you meant."
He dropped down onto the couch with a sigh. "Hey, Pa. How’s life?”
Sorahiko grimaced. “Pah. Boring.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Nothing new with me. Now what’s the deal with Junior? I smell explosives. Is the little turd with the homicidal streak still acting out?”
Izuku glared down at his feet. “It’s kind of hard for Kacchan to actually learn anything when the teachers and the principal keep telling him he’s the victim.”
Sorahiko’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Did he burn you?”
“No sir. But he set my math test on fire.”
The old man nodded. “Then you are allowed to cuss, but only once.”
All Might looked scandalized. “Pa! Stop teaching him to swear!”
Izuku leaned over the arm of the couch. “But All Might, you swear! All the time!”
And that was when All Might remembered that while Izuku had a little trouble speakingEnglish, that didn’t mean he couldn’t understand it. Sorahiko exploded into hoots of laughter. He slapped his knee and pointed at All Might.
“Yeah! How about it, Mr. Potty Mouth? I’m just doing damage control!”
Izuku giggled and hoisted himself up over the arm of the couch. With a soft oof! he toppled over the edge and ended up sprawled across All Might’s legs. The man raised an eyebrow at him.
“Hi, can I help you?” he teased.
Izuku climbed over him and dropped to sit between the men. “Gran Torino, can you show me how to do the back handspring again? Mom said, um, Mom thinks I should start doing gymnastics for fun, because it’ll also help my training, and she thinks I should have more hobbies than just hero watching but I do have hobbies, I like drawing and movies and All Might and All Might trivia and-”
All Might watched Sorahiko nodding indulgently as Izuku rambled on in an impassioned defense of his hobbies before circling back to his original point: trying to convince the retired hero to teach him gymnastics. Sorahiko was patient with Izuku in ways he hadn’t been since before Nana’s death. He just let Izuku talk, and only tended to cut him off if it was important.
Sorahiko understood that the boy’s heart was still fragile. His spirit was still healing, and it would take more than just a year and a half to repair all the damage so casually inflicted by his peers and teachers.
“Junior, you can’t even do a forward roll yet,” Sorahiko said bluntly when Izuku had finished. “You oughta know by now that you have to start with the basics.”
“Yeahhh, I guess,” Izuku sighed. He was pouting just the slightest bit. “But if I see you do it, I’ll know what I’m s'posed to remember!”
A flat, beeping tone cut off whatever Sorahiko had been about to say. All Might jumped and pulled his work phone from his belt. Quickly, he scanned the information scrolling across his screen.
“What is it? Is it a villain?” Izuku asked. He sat up on his knees and tried to see over All Might’s arm.
“Mm-hm. Report says there’s some guy running around downtown mind-controlling people to rob a store by…biting them?” All Might squinted and held the phone closer. “Biting them? Seriously?”
He glanced down. “Okay, Izuku. What makes this guy a villain rather than a regularcriminal?”
Izuku tugged at his lips as he thought. “Larceny and unlawful use of a quirk in public don’t get you registered as a villain, necessarily. His quirk involves biting people though. So…assault, use of a quirk to commit bodily harm, and use of a quirk to violate free will?”
All Might put his phone away and smiled proudly. “Very good! You’re exactly right. And it’s that last one that’s going to have the stiffest penalty. Even if he was a hero or emergency services worker with a mind-control quirk, he would have to be able to prove it was necessary to prevent death or other injuries.”
“Like how you have to do the paperwork to show you didn’t use excessive force?” Izuku asked.
“You got it.” All Might flashed a lopsided grin. “Which is not the same as property damage, make sure you never confuse the two. I cause a fair bit of property damage sometimes, because I prioritize not using excessive force on humans. Better the pavement breaks than the perpetrator.”
“Unlikesome heroes, ” Sorahiko growled.
“That’s why the Todorokis spend so much money on lawyers, right?” Izuku said innocently, “Or else Endeavor would have his head andfive meters of litigation up his butt. Right?”
All Might spluttered in dismay. “Where did you hear that?” He gaped at the boy.
Izuku shrugged. “I heard Mom say it on the phone to her friend Ms. Rei.”
Chagrined, All Might rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean…it’s true, but you shouldn’t sayit.”
“I’m gonna say it any chance I get,” Sorahiko chipped in bluntly.
With a snort, All Might stood up and rolled his shoulders. “Well. I’m gonna run out and deal with this "Loup Garou” guy. I’ll be right back. Be good, okay?“
Sorahiko barked a rough laugh. "You talkin’ to the kid, or me?”
All Might squinted at him. “Yes.”
Then he disappeared out the door.
Izuku jumped slightly when Sorahiko smacked his arm to get his attention.
“Huh?”
The old man heaved himself off the couch. “Get your shoes on, squirt. If Toshinori is going to drop you off while he works, you’re gonna help me run errands.”
“Oh, okay!” Izuku ran back to the door and balanced on one foot to pull his sneakers on. “But actuallyI asked All Might to bring me. Cause we were both kinda missing you, and today was a bad day, so I wanted to go visit.”
He didn’t see Sorahiko’s face soften behind him. Toshinori had picked a good kid. Even if the kid didn’t always believe it himself.
“Yeah?” He slipped his own shoes on and shuffled up to open the door. “What’s so good about visiting a crotchety old man, huh?”
Izuku thought about his answer as he hopped down the steps. As he reached the bottom, he turned and said, “You let me be angry. I don’t have to pretend grown-ups are always right when I’m with you. And you’re super fast and that’s cool, too.”
Sorahiko grunted. He didn’t verbally acknowledge the statement, but he didn’t have to. Izuku had come to understand his little noises over the last year, and he knew what approval sounded like.
“If we don’t take too long on the errands, we can stop at the canal on the way back. Briefly.” Sorahiko said. “So don’t dawdle, or you won’t get to feed the ducklings.”
Izuku perked up immediately. “There’s ducklings now?!”
Sorahiko grinned as he led the way down the sidewalk. So it wasn’t training for One for All. So what. A man was allowed to go on outings with his grandson from time to time, wasn’t he?
And if the “errands” consisted solely of buying fresh taiyaki from a vendor in the park, well, Toshinori didn’t need to know that.
Oops, I just realized it’s Tues and I didn’t post a prompt schedule
Well that tells you what my Monday was like lol
It’sFree Day Thursday this week tho
Fic Prompts: Free Day Thursday
Demolition Trio au continuing from last time to skip forward to closer to the end of the second game.
Lighthouse, this is Jak, do you read me?“
There had been no warning tone from the receiver, and it was nowhere near the appointed time for a report. The small radio crackled in the center of the table Damas used for council meetings, drawing stares ranging from curious to wary.
"That ain’t Sig,” Kleiver said in a hushed voice, “How’d the squirt get this channel?”
Damas kept his face still and reached for the receiver.
“This is the Lighthouse. Go ahead, Jak.”
“Is Mar with you?”
Damas tensed. The boy sounded like he was worried, but trying to hide it.
“He’s in the tower. Why?”
On the other end, Jak exhaled softly.
“We were set up. Kor’s a metalhead – he’s the metalhead. Baron’s dead, and Krewe let the metalheads into the city.”
Priya, one of the veteran warriors in the council, cursed creatively. “Metalheads can disguise themselves as humans?!”
It was a terrible thought. They would have to heighten security. But if the leader of the metalheads could infiltrate the Haven resistance for years with no one the wiser, how would the Spargans know if they’dbeen compromised?
“Good work, Jak,” Damas said evenly. Panic would do no good now. Especially not as king. “That is valuable information. I will keep Mar with me, if you are concerned about him. Where is Sig?”
There was a moment of silence, and a heaviness fell over the council even before Jak’s solemn voice answered.
“Sig’s…Sig’s gone.”
Damas had guessed the words were coming, but he felt them each like a blow regardless. He leaned back into his chair and closed his eyes.
Oh Sig…I hope it was on your terms, old friend.
Kleiver slammed a fist into the table. “What happened, ankle biter?” he demanded, “Sig’s one o’ our best! You expect me to believe Havencoulda offed the likes of him?”
“It wasn’t a guard,” Jak hissed, “It was a $%@! Metalpede. Knocked him straight off the bridge. I…”
His voice dropped in volume and became harder to hear.
“I didn’t want to leave him. I wanted to at least find him. But I have to finish what he started.”
Tarmac, another veteran warrior, rubbed his forehead and sighed. “Sounds like you did exactly what you were supposed to do, kid. Not that it helps, I guess. What mission were you on?”
Everyone stiffened when Jak said, all too calmly, “We were ready to breach the Nest.”
Damas’s eyes snapped open and he snatched the receiver from the table. “You what?!”
“I have the Precursor Stone. I have Mar’s Cannon. I can blow the whole front of the hive off once and for all. If…if anyone wants to come join the party, Daxter and I wouldn’t mind a little company. If you’d rather earn some gems, Haven could sure use the help.”
Jak grew quiet again for an uncomfortable length of time. The council could barely hear him whispering to the orange one, Daxter. It sounded like they were disagreeing about something. Then Jak returned, sounding ominously solemn.
“Lighthouse, I’m finishing Sig’s mission. I’ll have boots on Misty Island in two hours at most. If I don’t- If- if I-”
The boy breathed in deeply and let it out slowly.
“…Damas. If I don’t walk out of this, tell Mar his…his big brother loved him. Like, a lot. And thanks. For, I guess for giving us a home. Jak out.”
“Jak-!” Damas gripped the receiver so tightly the plastic groaned under the pressure. “Do notenter that nest without backup, that is an order!”
He stood quickly and snatched up his staff. “Mobilize the advance scouts. I want a unit ready to move out before the top of the hour. All healers will need to be on standby.”
As he spoke, he marched toward the door. When silence followed, he spun on his heel to glare at the council.
“Well?!”
Priya set her wrinkled jaw. “Aye, lordship! And what about possible infiltrators?”
Damas’s jaw worked in silence for a moment. “Until we have confirmation of infiltration, we will continue as normal. If there aremetalheads among us, we cannot afford to rouse their suspicions.”
“And the kid?” Kleiver asked boldly.
“Do not concern yourself with my sons,” Damas answered flatly, surprising them, “I’ll see to it that Mar is protected before we depart.”
This Week’s Prompt Schedule:
Thursday: Beach Dad au short
Change in plans:
Turns out I have to be at a conference all day Thursday
I will put something up later in the day, but it will be Demolition Trio au, not Beach Dad au
This Week’s Prompt Schedule:
Thursday: Beach Dad au short
