Mending Old Wounds

Not a Villain

Monday June 28th

Midoriya's POV:

"Okay, I know it's getting pretty late, and we all have to wake up early for work studies, so I'll try to make this as quick as possible," Todo, Kiri, and Kacchan were all giving me their full attention, and I was starting to sweat a little. "But, I need to add to what Kacchan said earlier."

"What more could you possibly need to add, Nerd?" Kacchan was unsurprisingly irritated. It was getting close to his bedtime after all.

"Just hear me out," Kacchan huffed, but I continued. "This isn't going to be like our past meetings where I just update you with new information that I've uncovered, and we discuss and brainstorm some theories before calling it a night."

If I didn't have Kacchan and Todo's attention before, I definitely had it now. Kiri looked a little confused, but he was listening and that's all I needed.

"I've been doing some major research, and I have concrete evidence, and solid leads this time. I can't just share the information with you, we have to decide together what to do with this information. I already know what I want to do, but I want to know what all of you think because I trust and value your opinions, and I want our decision to be unanimous."

"You know who Stealthy Gratitude is," Kacchan gasped, with wide eyes.

"Or you know what they're targeting next," Todoroki said, attempting to keep his gaze neutral, but I could see his facial muscles twitch.

"Or both," Kirishima added, with a look of excitement. 

I could feel the anxiety rolling off my body in waves. I'm not sure what expression I had on my face at the time, but I wasn't trying to hide the fact that I was freaking out a little bit. If  they stayed and listened to what I had to say, and went along with my plan, and we got caught... they could get in serious trouble. Or they could completely shut me down after hearing it, and it would've all been for nothing.

"I'm not going anywhere, Nerd. Tell me what you found," Kacchan gave me a determined look. How is it he always knows? It's like he can read my mind?

"But, Kacchan, this is serious. If anything goes wrong after this, you guys won't just be in trouble and get a scolding from Endeavor or detention from Aizawa or something like that. You could go to jail. Or worse, you could lose your hero licenses!" I was trying to hold back tears at this point. I suddenly regretted bringing Kiri into this, but I didn't like Kacchan having to hide it from him. I didn't like hiding it from him. 

I care about him too much. I care about all of them too much.

"Not. Going. Anywhere." Kacchan almost growled.

"Midoriya," I looked at Todoroki. His expression was set. Determined. "stop worrying so much. Bakugou and I told you from the beginning that we were going to see this through."

"I already said I'm not leaving. I'm not changing my mind. I've got your backs no matter what," Kirishima gave me an encouraging smile.

"Okay, here goes. I'm just going to start from the begging, so Kiri won't be completely lost," I smiled at him, took and deep breath, and exhaled, "The detectives on the case have been trying to trace the stolen goods from the robberies. They've been checking pawn shops and dealers and anywhere they can think of that SG might go to trade the goods for cash. The working theory is that SG is traveling out of the country to do this, and I agree that's probably what's happening, because that's been a dead-end avenue. I mentioned to Endeavor last week that they should be more focused on where the money was going, and I let slip that I knew a little more about the case than I should. He said that he would take it into consideration, but that I shouldn't be trying to work on the case alone in my spare time, because there were plenty of other heroes and detectives on the case and I needed to focus on other things, lecture, lecture, blah, blah, blah."