The Hero Mentality

A mess of blankets and pillows was lying on the floor as a sleepy green haired boy slowly raised his head.

"Man do I miss sleeping in a bed," he murmured, scratching his hair, but only managing to further tangle it. Looking up he saw a sleeping figure on the bed, her blonde hair falling out over her cute face. Her breathing was shallow due to her injury and Izuku began to wonder how long he would really have to keep her there. Especially with his mother not knowing. The first week had gone by smoothly because his mother doesn't bother him in his room so he can study and he keeps it clean so there is never a need to clean it for him. Speaking of cleanliness, Izuku began to think about Toga's situation.

"I never bought her clothes yesterday and she still hasn't had the luxury of a shower or being able to walk far by herself…" Izuku noticed the cat curled on the foot of the bed. " And now I have another mouth to feed."

Toga felt a warm fingertip gently touch her upper arm.

"Wh-who?" she began as her eyes processed the light. It seemed as if an angel had descended upon her, a green haired angle apparently.

"Sorry to wake you, Toga," technically she was right. "But I wanted to give you today's breakfast before it got cold," Izuku continued. Maybe this was Heaven after all. She began scarfing down the meal mumbling a quick thanks beforehand.

"I'm sorry it doesn't taste that good, my mom is working and because it's Saturday I made it myself, so I hope you sort of like it at least. I worked on it for at least an hour, but I'm not trying to brag or anything I'm just saying…"

Toga began to tune him out. 'Man, this kid rambles on about everything, doesn't he? Except in battle that is.' She remembered back to their battle and despite it only being a couple of days ago it seemed months ago to her. Yet as she was laying in the bed of the person she tried to kill, Toga had felt safe from the moment she woke up. Although she had no real reason to explain it. Toga didn't know what to think, but she knew the League of Villains seemed incredibly far away at the moment.

"...so with that, I tried not to add too much salt to dilute the flavor," he finished rambling, or at least Toga hoped.

"Really Izuku it's great sweety," she finished her food handing it to him, "Now can you please get me some water for the pills?"

"Y-yes, right away," he bowed, grabbing the tray and the water glass. "Sweety!?" he exclaimed to himself out of earshot from the blonde.

"Sweety? Honestly, that one was weird even for me," Toga repeated back to herself.

He came back with the water and she took it graciously with the less than pleasant pills.

"Blah," she shook her head. "Those still taste nasty,"

"Well, it's gonna keep you from frequent pain all day and help in a quicker healing process. But it will take a lot of your energy and requires sleep, so get some rest while I go out to the store."

"What! Do you want me to be bored again today too!"

"No, don't worry I'll be back in time for lunch, just rest now, ok? Besides you can think of a name for our new friend if you can't sleep."

"Hmph," she sighed, crossing her arms and laying back down, waking up the feline in the process

"Bye Himiko, don't go anywhere," he hollered, finally heading out the door.

"HA! Good one," she yelled after him. It didn't take her long to get comfortable again and she began to drift off fairly quickly.

It seemed like only a couple minutes had passed but Toga was woken up by the sound of a door being opened.

"I'm back," he said, closing the door. Walking in he had two long poles which appeared to be… "Crutches so then you can try to walk by yourself when you feel strong enough to."

"Hmm, is that all you got?" She asked.

"Well I tried to get you some clothes but I don't know how you'll like them," He then pulled an ugly sweater and extremely baggy sweatpants out of the bag.

Her face turned red as giggles began to roll out. She looked down, not being able to hold it back.

"Really that bad?" He looked crestfallen.

"Yes," she burst out laughing. "I'd rather just steal your clothing. But is that it?"

He lightly tossed the bag to her, inside was simply a pink tank top and a pair of lingerie, as well as some sporty short shorts.

"You should have shown me these first," she said looking up at him. When she did look at him she saw he was blushing hard and looking down. Then she realized.

"You had to check my bra size! Did you touch my…" she began yelling at him.

"No! I would never do something like that!" He looked up blushing hard as he shook his head. "I just simply guessed when I changed your bandages the other night."

"Well, you are an accurate guesser Izuku Midoriya. Anyway—," she looked back at him and gave a big genuine smile, "Thank you!"

"It was no big deal, really! I just thought that maybe you would want to take a shower soon or at least have a change of clothes,"

"Well right now I want to walk around a bit because I'm starting to get stiff from being stuck here for so long," she reached out her arms to Izuku. After lifting her to the ground, they shuffle-walked out of the room to a living room and kitchen. Sitting down on a couch in front of a small tv, Toga let out a loud sigh of relief.

"Still hurts?" He looked over at her.

"Well, of course, it does stupid," she hit him lightly on the shoulder. "I've only been healing for a week, but I'll be glad when I'm in crutches at least,"

Izuku then proceeded to turn on the tv and he walked toward the kitchen to go make some lunch. Toga took the remote that Izuku had laid next to her and began quickly switching between channels. Suddenly an image caught her eye. She stopped on the news channel finding a picture of the hero killer Stain in front of her face.

"Stain," Izuku said questionably, "wonder why they are still doing reports on him," He glanced over at Himiko, whose face looked contorted as she stared at her idol. "Himiko are you, ok?"

"It's Stainy!" She responded with a fangirlish glee.

"You like that guy?!" He responded with wide eyes. "I keep forgetting you were a villain." Toga noticed his emphasis on "were". "Honestly, Stain had some interesting ideals and ideas but they were flawed."

Toga turned quickly to look at him, "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean Stain wanted a reformation of heroes and he looked at All Might as the role model of the perfect hero. However, he didn't use the correct method. Instead of killing the heroes he deemed "unworthy" he should have tried to set an example of a proper hero himself. Using fear only caused more people to follow the wrong path. He was an inspiration to some, but he didn't do it right."

Toga thought about this carefully. She tried to think of a good comeback to that, but she couldn't seem to find anything against his reasoning. "Well, maybe he wasn't accepted as a hero, considering his more villain-like quirk."

"That may be a factor that brought him to his current path. Many people are looked at differently for what they are born with and often underestimated too. I know what it's like to live like that," he said looking down.

"What?" Himiko looked at him funny. "You have an amazing quirk. What are you talking about? You have a perfect quirk for hero work. My quirk is more of the type people would look down on."

"Well you see—," Izuku began but then stopped himself and seemed to switch topics. "Wait why do you say that about your quirk? Transformation seems like a good quirk, assuming that's what it really is."

"Wow smart guy you got it right, but the problem with it is I have to ingest the person's blood I'm transforming into and even then I don't have their quirk. The quirk isn't that bad by any means, but it didn't exactly set me down the path to be a hero."

"So that's why you are a villain," Izuku interrupted, "because you weren't strong enough to take action to follow your dreams as a hero,"

Himiko began to get annoyed, "No dumbass, there are many reasons why people would call me a villain and why I've done so many unspeakable things. Believe it or not villains are people too, people that have struggled badly through their lives and need someone to help them. That's what a real hero should be and what Stain was trying to reform." She swung her head back to the TV clearly pissed off.

"I never thought you weren't people, why do you think I brought you here?" Izuku said softly sitting down next to Toga.

"I don't know, why did you," she mumbled, still a little pissed off after her spiel.

He lightly placed the tray of food between them. "I brought you here so you could have a second chance in life because I know things happen. Things happen which can alter how you think and how you act, and even though there are rehabilitation centers for villains, I wanted to give a teenage girl something better. I thought about myself and what would have happened if I was in your place, and I very well might have gone in your place if something different happened to me earlier in life. I didn't want to send you to jail or hurt you any more than you must've been hurt, so that's why I brought you here," he finished staring ahead and getting very quiet.

They ate in silence for a while just staring at the pointless Japanese game show that was displayed on the screen. Izuku finished his meal and placed it on the tray, setting it on a nearby table. Sitting back down he finally looked over. seeing Himiko looking at him with red, bloodshot eyes.

"Was she crying?" He thought.

"Izuku, did you mean all that? Is that the real reason?"

"Yeah, every word," he replied softly. He went to get up once again but something pulled on his sleeve.

"Stay for a bit, alright?" she looked up at him. Izuku nodded slowly and plopped back down on the couch with Himiko much closer to him than he remembered. He noticed now that she had changed into the pink and blue short shorts he bought her and despite her injuries, she looked… pretty good. As they continued to watch the TV in silence he began to understand that the show didn't matter. That was just a distraction for them both, but he could tell she was scared, scared of what was to come or her past. He was right to take her in. At least he hoped.