#Izuku gains an older cousin who can and will enable his weirder experiments

[radioactivepeasant]

Fic Prompts: Free Day Thursday

(A little more Everybody Lives au, set a little after the Eri Rescue I drew the other day)

"So...did you really take his quirk?"

Tenko scratched the scar over his eye and looked away. "Yeah."

Izuku's fingers twitched as though he was itching to grab his notebook and write everything down. But he knew he couldn't. Nana had warned them not to trust the Commission blindly, and Toshinori didn't want people to judge Tenko unfairly.

"So...how many do you have now?" he asked.

Tenko dangled his feet over the edge of the roof and kicked back and forth for a few seconds before answering. "Six. I'm at my limit now. Inventory's full until I drop some gear."

[[MORE]]

Izuku hummed thoughtfully and sat down beside the older boy. "Sir Nighteye-" he began, but was interrupted by Tenko.

"-is going to stay far far away from you and Uncle T, unless he wants Gram to come tear him a new one for trying to control Uncle and steal your quirk."

"He wasn't trying to steal-"

"Yes he was." Tenko glowered at Izuku. "Just because he wanted it for someone else doesn't mean he wasn't trying to take something that never belonged to him."

Izuku fell silent. He'd known the couple days at that agency were unpleasant, but that put it into a new perspective.

It was a long time before he remembered what he had been planning to say before.

"Hey, Shimura?" he asked tentatively.

"Shimura is my grandmother," Tenko answered with a snort, "Call me Tenko."

Izuku twitched slightly, but obliged. "Uh...Tenko...right. I was just remembering what Sir Nighteye said about the Overhaul quirk. How people who fought Chisaki had gaps in their memories, but all physical ailments were gone. Do...do you know why?"

Tenko slowly flexed his fingers and nodded. "Yeah. It's pretty cool. I've been practicing on furniture. You touch something and you can either disassemble it and leave it like that, or follow through and restore it to mint condition."

Izuku thought of several collectibles that Katsuki had deliberately destroyed when they were children, and wondered if he could convince All Might's "nephew from I-Island" to fix them. Was that a frivolous use of a quirk? It might be, but Tenko didn't seem like the kind of guy who would mind. Much like Shigaraki, he seemed to view many things as games.

"So you can use it on humans? You could repair..." Izuku tried unsuccessfully to be subtle. "Say, a missing lung?"

Tenko stopped kicking his feet and turned a solemn look on the highschooler. "I'm not using Overhaul on Uncle without his consent," he said firmly. "I can do small stuff without disassembling a whole person-" he pointedly neglected to tell Izuku about accidentally crushing his hand in a train door that weekend- "But for something like a vital organ, I might have to pretty much start from scratch."

He grimaced and began tying his long hair up into a knot. "Frankly, kid, even if it could restore him to perfect health, it won't bring back You Know What. And he could refuse anyway. I mean, I haven't Overhauled a whole person, but I'm pretty sure it involves being medically dead for a couple seconds. And going by what repairing a hand looks like, it would be too gruesome to describe."

Izuku jolted next to him. Too gruesome to describe? Technically dead? Perhaps this was how they were going to twist fate! But what if it didn't work? They needed to test it, first.

"Could you Overhaul my arm?" Izuku asked, "You know, like as a test?"

He rolled up his sleeve and slid off the compression sleeve he kept there. Tenko squinted at the thick scar tissue and whistled low.

"This school is seventy one lawsuits waiting to happen, I swear. What happened here? Explodo-boy?"

"I got stuck in the woods with a villain named Muscular and had to channel over 100% of the quirk through this arm," Izuku explained sheepishly. "I know I risk paralysis if I do it again, but it was that or death."

"Big yikes." Tenko lifted Izuku's arm cautiously. "I think you made the right call in a bad situation, but geez. I remember that guy from my timeline. Let's not tell Gram you fought him, okay? She'll turn into Hover Grandma."

Izuku had never had a grandmother who hovered over him before. His mother hovered sometimes, but considering how many people tried to hurt him over the last ten years, he could begrudgingly admit that she had a reason to.

"So can you practice on the tendons?" Izuku asked.

"Um. I can try."

Ten minutes later, Toshinori was headed up the stairs to find the boys. It was almost lights-out in the dorms, and he didn't want Aizawa to fuss at Izuku for being out late. He had just reached the door to the roof when he caught the tail end of an alarming conversation.

"-scar is still there, sorry." That was Young Shimura.

"It's fine, really! It doesn't hurt to bend my arm now! But...what should we do about the blood?"

The what now?!

Toshinori opened the door quickly and both boys jumped like guilty things. Tenko's hands were still hovering over Izuku's arm, and the rooftop beneath them was spattered in blood. Despite this, neither of them appeared to be injured in any way. If anything, Izuku's scar looked like a slightly healthier color.

"What-?" was all Toshinori managed.

"Er..." Izuku and Tenko exchanged glances. "There's a reasonable explanation for this."