60

Izuku ran into class just before the bell rang and pretty much immediately his classmates turned to stare at him. He fidgeted awkwardly. He wasn't usually this late, but he'd gotten an idea about his teleporting tracker last night and had completely lost track of time before his mom ran into his room and practically cried as she told him he was going to be late for school. 

Kohaku looked him up and down and whistled lowly, "Dang, Midoriya. No tie today?"

Izuku instinctively looked down at his outfit. He was wearing the UA uniform...mostly. He might have been in too big of a rush this morning to even want to deal with the idea of tying a tie, so he'd swapped the dress shirt for a black t-shirt, which had way better flexibility for crawling through the tunnels. He was still wearing the uniform! Just...styled differently.

He laughed awkwardly, "Well, I mean, none of you guys keep your full uniforms on either, and just cause I'm working at a computer doesn't mean I shouldn't be comfortable, right? Besides, Katsuki's in the hero course and he never wears his tie either."

"Speaking of!" Mei slammed her notebook down on her desk. "I have an idea! We should glitter bomb him!"

Izuku looked over her shoulder at the design she'd sketched out, "Mei, you do know that normal glitter bombs don't normally include C4, right?"

"They don't?" Mei frowned. "But then why call it a bomb? I mean, it probably wouldn't do too much damage…"

Powerloader cleared his throat and the class sheepishly turned to look at him, "Hatsume, if you're going to blow up the school, could you at least have the good grace to do it when I'm out of earshot? I need plausible deniability, not a migraine."

"Right!" Midoriya smiled apologetically. "It won't happen again, sir!"

Powerloader sighed, "Let's just get to work."

Mineta kept himself quiet and unobtrusive as he walked into the support labs. Only an idiot would draw attention to themselves before they got the lay of the land and at least had a sense of who they were hunting. There were several students spread out between the tables, welding and soldering away at their own inventions, but Mineta wasn't interested in them. Somehow he didn't think that a kid with a giant shark head was Cheat Code...it seemed like something that would have come up in conversation. Even though he couldn't be sure that the I-island incident was related to Cheat Code, it was still his best lead, which meant that he was looking for either Hatsume or Midoriya. Jiro had insinuated that he was only interested in Hatsume because she had big boobs, so..the one with pink hair. There wasn't anyone with her, but from what his classmates had said, the two were never far apart, so Midoriya must be around here somewhere, it was only a matter of when he would show up. 

Now that he had his target in sight, Mineta let his stare linger a bit too long in the right places and ran toward Hatsume's station as quickly as he could, hardly even giving a glance to any of the boys in the room, not even the one with green hair who was leaning against the doorframe of a side room,looking at him suspiciously, most likely questioning his intentions toward Hatsume. Good. If the students thought he was looking at the girls, they'd never even guess that he was actually here to find Cheat Code. 

He'd almost made it to Hatsume's desk before the green haired kid called out to him, "Hello Mineta. Are you here to modify your costume?"

Mineta jumped. How did this kid know his name? He recovered quickly, though, putting on a smile as he glanced at Hatsume, "Yeah! I, uh, heard some of the others saying Hatsume was the best girl to go to."

"You heard right!" Hatsume jumped to shake his hand, but the kid, who had to be Midoriya, was still looking at him suspiciously. "I'm the best inventor you'll ever find and the future CEO of Hatsume industries. Nice to meet you!"

Mineta grinned, "I'm excited to see what you can do, hot stuff. Cheat Code gave us a lot of good suggestions."

Midoriya's expression changed slightly when Mineta mentioned Cheat Code. Interesting…

"Hmmm…" Midoriya pushed himself away from the doorframe and walked over to them, subtly placing himself in front of Hatsume. "Your quirk involves adhesion, right? What did you have in mind?"

Mineta stood his ground, "I dunno? Something super cool, definitely! I need to look like a badass."

Hatsume pushed past Midoriya, "Then your current costume isn't gonna cut it. I've seen the designs and it makes you look like a giant baby. And the fact that you cry during fights doesn't help, so you're gonna want to change that. I'd take out the white and the diaper just gets in the way, but we can keep the utility belt. Maybe we should add some sort of ranged weapon? Ooh, maybe something that can adjust the stickiness of your quirk? And with DNA incorporated into the suit, obviously. I know I had some designs a while ago, where did I put them…?"

About halfway through her ramblings, Hatsume had pulled out a stack of notebooks and started sorting through them for ideas, spreading old drawings and crumpled notes across her desk as Midoriya helped sort through them, muttering about the specifics of Mineta's quirk under his breath. How did he know so much? He'd heard the guy was Nedzu's personal student, so a certain amount of mystery was to be expected, but they'd never even met before!

Something on one of the pages caught his eye and Mineta sucked in a sharp breath. Was that…? He glanced over toward Midoriya and Hatsume, but they had both gotten caught up in brainstorming new gear ideas for him that they weren't even looking his way, so Mineta subtly nudged the sketchbook the rest of the way open, his eyes widening slightly when he realized he was right.  

Various versions of Cheat Code's logo were spread across the page, all slightly different than the one that had appeared on their info packets, but considering that some of them were crossed out and others were crammed in the margins, Minta assumed they must be in progress versions, which meant...Mineta glanced up at the duo, who were still chatting almost faster than any normal person could process. Which one was Cheat Code?

Quickly, Mineta grabbed one of the smaller balls from the nape of his neck and stuck it to the corner of the page. As soon as he was sure no one was watching, he tore the page and wrapped it around the ball before shoving it in his pocket. The page would be undamaged when the stickiness wore off, but if anyone questioned him before then, they'd inevitably try to tear the page off and ruin their evidence in the process. The timing was closer than he would have liked though, considering that Midoriya turned toward him as soon as the ball was safe inside Mineta's pocket, a huge smile on his face, "So? What do you think?"

Mineta squeezed the paper ball in his pocket, "I think you two are exactly what I need."

Somehow, being looped in on a secret as big as One for All was enough to break the ice between Hitoshi and his adults. Parents? He wasn't quite sure if he was ready to go that far, but whatever Shouta and Hizashi were to him, they were better than anything he'd ever had before. And finally hearing Shouta's real opinions on All Might was hilarious.

"I mean, seriously?" Shouta rolled his eyes. "There should be at least a committee deciding who gets such a powerful, not to mention dangerous, opportunity. Impulsivley putting a first year in a situation where she has to make a life-long decision and can't even really say no to the privilege was just idiotic, not to mention unethical, so no wonder she disappeared!"

Hitoshi grinned, "I'm pretty sure that has more to do with her quirk."

Shouta glared at him, "She didn't teleport for at least a week after getting that stupid power, which means she was probably repressing the power and it had no choice but to manifest dramatically. That wouldn't have happened if that blond oaf hadn't laid on all the pressure of a giant legacy. "

Hizashi smiled softly and rubbed his back, "Do you want to hide in one of the cupboards and jump scare him? That usually makes you feel better."

"I could probably have Mei-chan make a glitter bomb for you." Hitoshi offered. "I know she's building one already so they can prank Bakugo, but, uh...I should warn you that she's still working on the formula. Last I heard, her design is more bomb than glitter. "

"Oh?!" Hizashi perked up. "I could probably take a look over it! I made my fair share of glitter bombs and other pranks back in my days at UA. I'm pretty sure there's still glitter in 3A's classroom from that one time we…"

"That's not something to be proud of." Shouta cut in, but he was still smiling. "Your other pranks were much more effective."

Hitoshi glanced between the two of them, "Why do I feel like I should be taking notes?"

Shouta grinned, "Because learning from the masters is only logical."

"You?!" Hitoshi gave a shocked laugh. "Hizashi, I can see, but you?!"

Shouta shrugged, "There's nothing wrong with a few logical ruses. You have to battle burnout somehow. Plus Hizashi was a bad example."

"Hey!" Hizashi looked betrayed. "Do I need to remind you that the air horn tripwire in the cafeteria was your idea!"

Shouta frowned, "I thought that one was Shirakumo's."

Hizashi's face fell, "oh...I guess it was. It's been so long…"

His adults were silent for a long moment and Hitoshi was about to ask what was wrong when Hizashi shook himself out of it, "Well, little listener, I guess you're wondering why we're having your favorites for dinner tonight?"

Hitoshi looked at him suspiciously, "I thought you were just buttering me up so that I'd trust you or something."

Shouta snorted, "Good thought, kid, but no. There's more to it."

"We're celebrating!" Hizashi ran over to the counter to grab a manila envelope and shoved it into his hand. "Well? What are you waiting for? Open it!"

Hitoshi gave them a suspicious glance, but slowly opened the envelope and pulled out the piece of paper, "Is this….?"

"Our official foster license." Shota answered. "Until now, you've technically been under emergency custody, but now, it's official. Basically, it means we can keep custody of you without having to jump through hoops and call you a villain when you're obviously going to be a hero."

Hitoshi swallowed back some tears, his voice almost choking up, "...Oh. Ok."

"Plus, Nedzu even pulled a few strings so that our emergency custody of you will still count toward the minimum time before adoption!" Hizashi grinned. "That means we can adopt you, like, at the beginning of next semester! Isn't that so rockin?!"

"Assuming you want that." Shouta cut in. "If you would prefer we not adopt you, that's your right. You'll still have a place with us, even if you don't want to go that far."

"You…" Hitoshi looked up at them in shock. "You actually want to...but you'd be stuck with me!"

Shouta snorted, "More like you'd be stuck with us. Maybe it's best if we don't. I can't imagine having that cockatoo over there as a dad!"

Hizashi stuck out his tongue, "Well I can't imagine having a hobo caterpillar as one either!"

Hitoshi stifled a snicker, but smiled, "We...we'll see. But, uh, you'd probably have to fight my kidnappers for custody."

"What?" Hizashi flexed. "You think we can't handle a couple of kids?"

Shouta raised one eyebrow, "Speak for yourself. If those two attack, you're on your own. It's only logical to surrender in the face of undeniable defeat."

Hitoshi laughed. They'd almost definitely get sick of him before they were able to adopt him, but if they didn't, then maybe...maybe being a part of a real family wouldn't be too bad.