'Villain' Grim
“You’re… you’re a villain.”
Grim huffed, checking everything on his tool belt had survived the portal Kuriogiri had been so kind as to pop him through.
“In the loosest sense of the word, yeah.”
The kids stared at him, deeply confused, shocked, and suspicious, and he didn’t blame them. He had been pretty spooked his first time out in the fray. Granted, he had been seven, but the point still stands.
Yup, all there. He straightened up, took everything in. Six kids were standing in front of him in battle-ready-ish formation- a green-haired, round-faced boy, a brunette with a neat bob and a natural blush that could also be sunburn, another girl with deep purple hair in a ponytail that appeared to have those earbud plug-in things dangling from her ears, a girl who looked and talked vaguely like a frog, a blonde with a thick, muscled tail, and a floating pair of gloves. Okay, no real long range fighters. Goody. At worse, that frog tongue could grab him, but he’d dealt with worse.
Thank you Kuriogiri, you overprotective sod.
“Okay, kiddos. Here’s the deal. Villains aren’t characters from a story-book, we’re people, and a lot of us have tragic backstories and motivations. Here’s the rundown, real, real quick.” Perhaps too quick.
He looks around for any of the thugs they had gathered to stall the teachers, and saw none. No All Might either, thank the heavens.
“That guy down there in the plaza, the leader to this mess,” He gestured with his thumb to Shigaraki, who was getting out all of his disobedience in one go in a confirmed place his precious Sensei wouldn’t catch wind of it. “Is Shigaraki Tomura. He has a crumbling quirk, and was kidnapped at the age of four to be groomed to be a crime king’s heir due to something about his grandma and revenge, dunno, we’re figuring it out. Shig’s been sent to prove himself and get revenge against All Might, and trust me we don’t want to have a smack-down with the man. I’d f*cking die in three seconds flat.”
Kala hovered protectively in front of him, eyeing the kids. Helpfully, none of them moved, probably absorbing all the sudden information and change to their worldview and all.
“Everyone else of mention you can talk down. Toga, she’s a blonde who favors knives. She was raised by abusive pricks and needs blood to stay fully lucid. We’ve done a blood transfution but she’s not doing great, so like, just cut yourself and bleed into her mouth and she’ll sit still. Twice- he wears a black and red mask, won’t take it off, don’t ask, it’s his security blanket, and Mr. Compress, he’s dressed like a business casual magician, will play nice if you give them something cool to fiddle with.”
“Uh, Spinner is just in it for the money and petty vengeance for discrimination against his reptile mutant quirk, he’s super nice. Magne looks super buff and not-womaney, but she is a woman. Don’t dis that if you wanna leave with all limbs in one unshattered piece. Anyway, give her a big enough magnet and maybe a chat about gay rights and she’ll be alright. Kuriogiri, the mist portal guy, is the stand-in parent and also brainwashed within an inch of his life, so play nice. He’s got amnesia and a hundred and one problems, he doesn’t need you guys making a fuss too. Try to attack him and you’lll get a beat-down from the rest of us, no way around it. Dabi is the one with all the horrific burns, play nice, he’s in this to kill his abusive father and kidnap his siblings and mom to safety and maybe beat up a child trafficking ring and a bunch of random pedophiles or something. He doesn’t hurt kids but he will flip his sh*t and and be real scary and whatever. Everyone else here is hired goons to hold off your teachers. Nose makes the eyes water, jaw is the knockout button, you guys should do fine.” UA was majorly titled towards battle-oriented quirks; these kids would be a-ok even without any sort of fighting experience.
“W-what about you?” Bob Girl asked, lowering her hands. (did she have toe-beans like a cat?)(But like, hand toe beans. Finger beans?)
“Hm? Oh, I’m Grim. I’m here because of my villainous quirk and whatever and to make sure none of these idiots die horribly. Nice to meet ya and all.” They were running out of time; Eraserhead was nearly through the group of nobodies, and while they could use the Nomu, but that thing was really violent and they weren’t totally confident it wouldn’t immediately break his head open even if Shigaraki ordered for a simple pin. Where was Thirteen anyway?
He pulled out the communicator; it was a simple device of sleek black plastic with three buttons. One for portal request, one for backup, and one for I-will-need-to-give-context-for-this-later-but-it’s-going-to-be-fine. Compress’ Not Going to Plan one was lit up, which made sense. Kuriogiri must have purposefully put him near Thirteen so he could marble him and talk to the kiddos in relative peace.
No one else was having any trouble; he could see their figures around the place and their buttons weren’t lit up anywhere. Good enough for him.
He tapped the portal button easy as you please, and eyed the kids a bit.
Wide, weirded-out eyes. “I- What?”
Only green-hair seemed to have his sh*t together currently. “So you’re trying to help?”
Grim nodded. “Everyone’s the hero in their own story. Either that or they’re not all there in the head, so yeah.” He had met a few people with a few screws loose (or missing) when people came in looking to join. Muscular, the serial killer with a muscle quirk and a history of bloodlust. And enough vengeful spirits following him around to make him kind of hard to look at.
That was a simple clean-up; he just let all the ghosts touch their surroundings and watched as they went wild.
Tooth Guy had been harder. Eventually Magne and Compress teamed up to take him down, but they had to switch bases, because their old one was both trashed and compromised. Kurogiri had been devastated about losing his bar, even if he saved most of the important stuff in time.
“So, uh, don’t mention this to your teacher if at all possible. I know this is the longest of long shots, but our lives could depend on it. If you tell someone, keep it on the downlow. Like, really downlow. Talk to your teacher, Eraser’s a good hero, really most folks at UA are, uh, let’s see, Truth Detector Detective would be useful, what’s his name again…?” No time, there’s the portal. He ticked off his mental checklist of things he needed to cover, and came up clear. Good timing.
He shrugged, aimed a finger gun in the direction of the kids in a way of goodbye, and walked calmly through. Oddly enough, only the sound of faint mumbling followed him.
He surfaced in an abandoned apartment. It had been Muscular’s, but well, he wasn’t using it now. He had paid for it for the month before going to see them, so they had running water and heat and everything.
He popped some gum in his mouth, and chewed too hard as he watched his group of idiots walk through identical portals. Spinner, Dabi, Compress, Magne, Toga, Twice, and-
There. Shigaraki and Kurigori hurtled to the living room floor to the sound of gunshots, and the portal blipped out of existence with a sense of finality.
A moment of silence. Then-
“Omigod, are you okay??” Toga kneeled down by Shigs, who was gasping for breath, but held up a thumbs-up. Kuriogiri melted into the cheap hardwood in a puddle of mist and clouds, utterly relieved. Dabi leaned against the wall, looking near catonic. Magne put a gentle hand on his arm; they knew his youngest brother was in that class; it was one of the reasons they went with 1A instead of 1B.
Spinner laughed disbelievingly, and Grim shared the sentiment. How had that gone so well?
Compress let out a breath. “I had to marble Thirteen. I thought those kids were going to shank me!”
Toga giggled, having finished feeling Shigaraki over, much to his annoyance. “Yeah! There was this one blonde kid with an explosion quirk, he was super aggressive! And this purple-haired guy, I answered a question and my head got kind of fuzzy. It was nice though! I couldn’t feel my quirk anymore. I think I get what you guys meant about it affecting me.” Grim nodded; she previously hadn’t had known a time to compare to to see if she was in good mental shape.
He ran a hand through his hair, and tried to remember what they had in the fridge, and let out a metaphorical breath, relaxing marginally. “Anyone want ramen?” When all else fails, nostalgia all the way, baby.
UA ramped up their security, but didn’t protect the kids when off school grounds. People could easily pick ‘em off on their walk home, say, maybe on the train.
He had spent the last two days juggling his normal responsibilities, the fun spy-game he was playing against a known supervillain, being a therapist to the dumbest gang of chaotic gays to ever crime, and trying to maintain a decent bill of health. Thankfully things had calmed down some for the month or so since USJ, but he was still feeling the strain.
And well, he did his research on the little herolings. He liked to come prepared.
He didn’t like what he found.
He rubbed at his forehead, trying (and failing) to stave off a growing headache as he considered his options. He glared at his phone screen, took a deep breath, and clicked over to his contacts.
“Hey, yeah, I’m fine. Look, I need a favor…”
Iida Tensei had been having a good day. Things were relatively peaceful- a purse-snatcher around one, a few cases of public quirk use, stepping in on a bullying case for a good lecture, nothing too crazy. He didn’t have a sidekick with him today- they were off doing research on a major case they had been handed, practicing being more independent, or handling PR.
Then a man made of nightmares and bloodshed dropped out of the sky, and pain flared through one leg where he had instinctively avoided a blow to the arm from a massive, rugged sword.
He choked on air, and kicked at his attacker. Ratty red cloth floated through his vision, obscuring the scene, and screaming rang out as civilians fled. He quickly pressed the backup button in his helmet, and nearly lost the arm in payment of the motion.
He fired up his quirk, using leverage to slam into the mystery man. But halfway through, his muscles stopped working. He slammed painfully against the concrete wall of the alley he was cornered in. A sharp pain bloomed along his bag, and faint rambling reached his ears.
F*ck.
Black. Everything black. Initially he thought he had passed out, but no, the pain was still going strong.
He grunted as void touched his front, taking his weight and peeling him off the rough cement.
“Stendhal. I’m disappointed.” A computer-generated voice rang out suddenly in the silence, sounding completely ridiculous for the current situation at hand.
“You-!” Scrabbling, blows exchanged and the sound of metal on metal.
The world was fading in and out, and the darkness felt so soft…
Had all the pedestrians gotten away safely? How quickly would backup arrive. Who, and how would they react?
Was he going to die?
A sigh from directly behind him. Cramping muscles suddenly released from their (probably quirk-induced) hold, and he went limp. Red, liquid now, trailed behind him.
A hand, slender and moon white among the grey, balck and red of his vision. He vaguely recognized sign language, but was too out of it to understand. He made a vague groaning sound to try to get this point across, since using his lungs properly felt vaguely dangerous.
The hand waved this time, and dutifully followed the motion with his eyes. A hum that made his sudden headache spike.
The familiar glow of … a phone? Careful, quiet tapping.
A groan that didn’t come from him. The even more familiar sound of a solid kick to the ribs. Another hum. Shadows wrapped around him, almost setting him on the ground, before floating him back and creating a sort of hammock in the alleyway.
Careful hands at his armor. They couldn’t get it off of course, it was specially designed for that, but he could feel the blood building up along both sides of his core, his leg. God, it hurt.
He hoped everyone else was ok. He hoped this kid wasn’t horribly hurt somehow. How had they managed to take out Stain anyway?
Backup would be here soon. The kid needed to move.
He recognized the calling cards here. Death, a hitman-for-hire with some very special rules. He only took jobs with corrupt officials, pedophiles, trackificking rings, abusers. He never spoke, but sometimes made snide comments with his phone. His agency was split on whether he was actually mute or it was a clever ploy to not have his voice available in the investigation. His newest intern was adamant that he had some sort of tragic backstory involving him losing the ability to speak, which had gotten a good laugh out of everyone.
He’d never been in this situation before- by the time heroes showed up, he was long gone.
He should probably be working on preparing a description. But also he might be dying, so.
As it was, the kid had saved his life, was known to be a minor with a past filled with trafficking and abuse and had a screwed if stable mental compass. He was weirdly kind, and it’s not like he had anything to lose here.
“Kid.” He wheezed. The shadows stopped moving. He hadn’t even realized they had been in the first place; forming a swirling pattern likely meant to distract him with how quickly it hypnotized his pain-boggled brain. “Get outta here.” He coughed, despite the fact that his lungs were fine. It only caused additional pain to flare up along his spine.
A longer hum. A series of gentle taps at his arm.
It took him more than a few seconds to get around to figuring that out.
Morse code.
I'll be fine? This kid was delusional.
But also he had a job to do and a life to not lose, so he quieted down.
God, Tenya would be so crushed when he couldn’t get back to him after his match. He was sure he did amazing.
With thoughts of family swirling around, he drifted into true darkness- fully unconscious.
The Stain thing was a big deal, but not as much so as it could have been. Ingenium was to make a full recovery and be back at hero work within a year- a major bit of harm sure, but god was it a relief to see that headline in the evening news.
Stendahl himself was harder to handle. While Ingenium was carted directly to a hospital by a large blob of darkness, (no villain caught, thank god) Stain had received decent first-aid before being hog-tied and left neatly at the League’s front door. (Inside the apartment, to not cause a panic. Nothing was touched, but everyone still flipped out a bit. Besides Grim, he would trust Death with his life anytime of day)
Spinner and Toga had panicked, getting Grim to pull an all-nighter to nurse him back to health more than he wanted to, really. Dabi wasn’t too freaked out- he appreciated the message the guy carried, but going about stabbing people who fought others for a living in dark alleys wasn’t going to end well, and he understood that.
Grim was happy to help someone not be in pain, even if he didn’t agree with them or even like them.
Besides, he really didn’t disagree with Stain on anything past whatever research method he used, so.
And that was that. (not.)