Work Text:
Nakamura Mai is the Number 1 Hero Endeavor’s new personal accountant, having been promoted for her 8 year’s loyal work at the Endeavor Agency. (It definitely wasn’t because she’d walked in on her manager having a steamy fling with one of the Flaming Sidekicks. Nope.)
The point is, she’s a loyal, hard-working accountant who knows how to keep her mouth shut, Kekou-san, even without the blackmailing. Even when it comes to Endeavor’s absolutely horrible purchasing habits.
Who was she to criticize how the Number One Hero spends his beefy taxpayer-funded paycheck? She’s a CPA but now she’s been demoted to a glorified bookkeeper, whose job is to take care of the Todoroki family finances. This mostly means she pays off Todoroki Enji’s many credit cards and handles the cheques when his PA tells her to make a charitable donation to some Foundation or the other. At least the pay is better.
Mai has been briefed that the Pro Hero has allowed his children use of his credit cards. (And wasn’t that a surprise, learning the Pro Hero has multiple children. She doesn’t actually know how many, seeing as the answer to her curious, “Oh, who are your other children, sir?” was simply answered with “Yes.”)
The frivolous spending makes a lot more sense once that is cleared up. 20 tubs of Hygendaz and 80 000 yen worth of Hello Kitty x Wild Wild Pussy Cats bandages may not fit Endeavor’s image, but they’re pretty typical impulse purchases for spoiled rich children who’d never had to worry for a dime in their lives. The latter purchase makes even more sense when she finds, having been invoiced at the start of a new semester, one of his children is in med school.
It’s easy to notice patterns in the spending: her quirk, Limitless Data Input, made her a very valuable asset when dealing with multiple accounts in the Endeavor Agency. As Enji Todoroki’s personal accountant, she instead gets to use her encyclopaedic memory to store the knowledge of how rich children spend their money. The list looks a little like this:
- Medical Supplies. Between the med school child and Shouto the Heroics prodigy, the Todoroki children spend a lot on medical supplies, whether it be for coursework, practical practice, or actual injury. Lucky these kids were rich, because surgical staples cost an arm and a leg, and the way these kids bought out surgical staples they would’ve had to be a millipede.
- Outlandish AirBnBs and hotel stays. Again, Mai was rather glad Enji Todoroki had never and would never ask to look over her work. She was not going to be responsible to breaking to him one or more of his children were throwing ragers every few nights all over the city.
- It’s disappointing how low this is on the list, if only because the Todorokis actually spend a fair amount on organic and free-range groceries. Mai had actually run into Todoroki Fuyumi once when she dropped by the office to meet with her father, and she seemed like the sweetest women. Definitely not the one buying 20 tubs of Hygendaz at 2 AM but definitely the type to buy overpriced kale.
- Cat supplies. Definitely some sort of secret pet, since Mai remembers the Endeavor Agency’s strict no-pets rule due to their boss’s allergies. Seems like his children hadn’t suffered the same fate, and had used moving out as an excuse to go wild. And… reptile and bird supplies?
- Not one, but two Raymonds. As in Raymond the Animal Crossing Cat. These are e-transfers made with a note attached. Mai has spent multiple 2AM Twitter deathscrolls losing her mind over people shelling out thousands of yen buying a freaking cartoon cat. Who would do that? The answer is the Todoroki children. They’re gamers, apparently.
And of course, the military-grade weapons, quirk support items, and various other combat gear. Hero work is expensive, Mai sighs. That’s where the bulk of her work came in, actually: with how often Endeavor used his personal card for hero work. She regularly has to invoice large orders back to the Agency because the Pro Hero couldn’t be assed to double check which platinum credit card he was pulling out for his purchases.
She does send along a nice and polite reminder the next time he wracks up over 200 000 yen in Heroics expenses on his personal card. It’s simply inefficient procedure for the Agency accountants when they receive this information late, she explains. She waffles over how to start with the least friction for 3 hours before closing her eyes and letting Gmail auto-fill and god write her email for her: Endeavour-san, I hope this email finds you well. It has come to my notice that…
The Flame Hero responds with a short, gruff “I always do. EOM” in the subject line. What he does, however, is keep charging Heroics expenses to his personal card.
Mai sighs. Deeply regrets those 3 hours. Thinks about the twenty bags of blood he’d ordered the night before. Deeply regrets forgetting her phone at the office that one time.
At least she was getting paid well.
--
“I’m hunnnnngrryyyyy,” the vampire bitch whines for the fifth time. Her call is taken up by the scaly fucker and the psycho in black. Surprisingly, instead of looking to their so-called Leader, all heads turn towards Patchwork Freak.
“Dabi,” Shigaraki mutters, annoyed. “Fucking just get them food already.”
Katsuki sneers. “You’re the League’s sugar daddy?”
He gets a sickeningly sweet smile in return. Patchwork Freak drawls, “My old man, actually.” Then he whips a black credit card out of his pocket and throws it behind him uncaringly. The children—villians— descend on it like vultures, and Toga pulls a smartphone out to start scrolling, what the fuck, UberEats?
Somehow, Katsuki’s dietary restrictions are a point of discussion. (“Can’t risk you dying of anaphylactic shock before we kill you,” Dabi explains condescendingly.
"Big words for a college dropout” Katsuki snaps back, and is surprised by the blank look.
“Never finished middle school, actually.”
Katsuki’s absolutely outraged he’s being kidnapped by a middle school dropout, and triples his resolve to escape.)
Toga still ambles up to him with the order they’re putting in for Thai and asks him if he prefers pork or chicken in his Gaeng Panang (the answer is shrimp, obviously). She triple-checks he doesn’t want her pork blood soup and pouts when he threatens to eat her hair. Katsuki would actually bite her, but he’s aware she’d return the favour happily and he thinks she might have rabies.
Still, Toga sits by him as she inputs the address and payment information to complete the order. Katsuki’s a little gratified to see they at least had the baseline common sense to order it to a different location, where their warp guy would intercept it. He still memorizes that address in case it turns out to be a base.
Turns out villains tip 50 percent. Huh. Rude?
Katsuki has to very carefully keep his face blank when Toga inputs the billing information, but he memorizes the name, number and CV all the same. After he inevitably escapes (before the delivery even got there, shame), he has the half-and-half bastard call his family’s accountant to check that the card really belonged to Enji Todoroki, the mousy woman doesn’t seem the least bit suspicious.
Dabi’s old man, really?
Katsuki doesn’t think the villain was lying to him. And well, holy fuck.
If the League of Villians thought about the implications of this arrangement at all…well they had a good shot upsetting all of hero society. At the very least, they’d be able to destabilize the public’s trust in hero agencies for a while. All because Endeavour is too filthy fucking rich to do his own taxes, apparently.
Grimly, Katsuki thinks his only comfort is that he doesn’t think a middle school dropout is smart enough to figure out the League of Villians had the key to destroying hero society.
--
The one thing Hawks’ handlers always made clear was that if Hawks were in want of something—barring anything that would disturb his training or hero work—he would have it. From his central penthouse apartment to gold-covered chicken wings (and weren’t those a delicacy), they were more than happy to deliver if Hawks had been a good lil hero that day.
This lackadaisical attitude towards money extended to his discretionary funds on cases. Hawks had once mostly-accidentally rented a luxury Porsche instead of a standard Honda for a witness to drive to a meeting and his handler hadn’t even brought up the ridiculous 180 044 yen invoice in the debrief. Apparently, it would’ve been an issue if he’d crashed it, since that would be bad publicity, but no one blinked an eye at the cost itself.
So it’s pretty natural for him to whip out his platinum credit card and indulge Toga and Twice’s ice cream craving (plus a 50% tip of course) when the two start whining during a League meeting.
Incredibly, it makes them both bawl. They’re still bawling by the time the delivery arrives, at which point the tears miraculously dry up in favour of shoving ice cream into mouths.
“S-see Dabibro, you don’t gotta be stingy!”
Shigaraki Tomura—Japan’s Most Wanted—just rolls his eyes.
Spinner whistles low. “Damn, that’s the expensive shit,” he says appreciatively, holding up his carton of matcha Häagen-Dazs.
“Is it?” Hawks shrugs. “It’s all going on the Commission’s budget anyways, they’ve got the cash.”
This makes Shigaraki hiss, but Hawks waves a hand quickly. “This is my personal card, I invoice them every month. Trust me, those fuckers won’t notice anything, I indulge midnight cravings on their dime all the time.” Swearing at the Commission helps the character he’s playing is his official story to himself.
Mr. Compress raises an eyebrow. “How villainous of you, Hawks.”
Hawks turns on his best PR grin. “Hey man, I’m pretty sure that’s a compliment!”
Dabi scoffs; Hawks notices and elbows him. Dabi elbows back. “Keep this up and you’ll regret it. Those fuckers are like pigeons—toss ‘em some crumbs and they’re suddenly constantly underfoot.” So the League can be bought by food, apparently. Hawks can totally do that.
“Aw, Dabi, do the widdle birdies follow you around?” Hawks teases.
Shigaraki scoffs. “One big one certainly does.” which immediately kills whatever mood they had by drawing attention to the…whatever…that is happening between Hawks and the flame villain. They’re somewhere between “fuckbuddies” and “might not kill you one day?” it’s kinda weird but Hawks has hope yet. For the first time it’s something he kinda wants, for himself—and he thinks Dabi can be convinced too. That doesn’t mean it’s something either of them are about to talk to their co-workers slash unofficially-adopted-family-figures about though.
“Right, uh,” Hawks fumbles, darting back to perch on the back of the couch at a casual office (evil lair? dingy basement?) worker distance. Two bros, six foot apart. Chillin’. Right.
Hawks desperately grasps for any other topic. “So why are you the designated League piggy bank?” he asks, because for all his pretty boy eyes Dabi frankly looks homeless and has been shamelessly couch-surfing Hawks’ various properties the past three months.
Twice ‘oinks’ at Dabi who flicks him a middle finger and threatens to melt his Peanut Butter Caramel Twist in return. It’s fond in Dabi-speak. Hawks is Duolingual-fluent in it.
“Swiped daddy dearest’s platinum card before he mu—before I fucked off. Been using it ever since.”
Hawks can’t help raising an incredulous eyebrow. “And you couldn’t get clothes that don’t look pissed on?” he blurts out unthinkingly.
“Oh fuck off.”
“No, he’s right,” the nicer side of Twice chimes in. Spinner snorts but turns the other way when Dabi threatens his shipment of Stain cosplay.
“Doesn’t your dad, like, notice large sums of his money just…disappearing? Like every Friday,” Hawks asks. He’s serious—he’s seen the League plow through Friday DIY AYCE nights like ravenous Kirby’s. Dabi’s lil black card is brutalized every time. The one time Hawks had to cover because Dabi left his wallet in his other pair of jeans that got stained by means that cannot be connected to Hawks short of DNA testing, Hawks kinda wanted to weep. Well, it was all getting invoiced anyways.
It’s Shigaraki’s turn to snort. Twice eagerly explains, “Man’s too dummy thicc” like that made everything clear.
“He’s rich,” Dabi says flatly. “What makes you think he checks his own credit statements, let alone pay them himself.”
Hawks bites back a retort cauz, yeah, that’s kinda fair. He has his own personal accountant for that too, and he’s not even that rich. Meanwhile the last time he spilled a drop of coffee on Endeavor—as an accident, it’s not like feathers could catch the liquid at the scalding temperature the Flame Hero took it—the Flame Hero had grumpily disappeared into Nordstrom and reappeared in one of the mannequin’s entire 309,924 yen ensemble. The Uniqlo was right there for god’s sake!
Dabi claps a hand on Hawks’ back. “Between the top two Pro Heroes, the League is well-funded babey.”
Hawk’s brain near short-circuits at that sentence. There’s just something about that sentence that pulls up about twenty red flags screaming at Hawks about AIR TRAFFIC INTERFERENCE NOW!! DIVE!! BOMB!!!!! Something is really wrong with that sentence and Hawks…
Ah, Dabi called me ‘babey’, he realizes, belatedly. Babey. That was it. Nothing else about that sentence was fishy…
(Somewhere on UA Campus, Bakugou sneezes angrily. Dumbasses. He’s surrounded by dumbasses.)
“Trust me, he suspects nothing. Now, what was that about the MLA proposal?”
--
Enji is not having a very good week. It’s just been one disaster after another. The LOV have been suspiciously quiet, but that’s never a good sign with them. It seems a storm is brewing, but Endeavor and his agency are still stuck cleaning up a slew of low-level crime and minor disasters all over the city. When he finally clocks out for the day in the late evening, Enji is ready to crash.
He cannot park in his usual spot because a school bus has taken up the road in front of his house, blocking the garage access. Enji ends up parking around the block and has to walk—walk!—to his own home.
Inside, his week gets worse.
Enji’s vision is immediately assaulted by glitter, confetti, various birds, and one of those letter banners Fuyumi often bought for the kid’s birthdays. The letters have all been jumbled haphazardly, as if a whirlwind or a particularly chaotic poltergeist has swept through the residence.
The house is also full of children. Specifically, hero children. All of the above is distressingly possible.
His own son stands in the hallway, frozen with a box of takeout and chopsticks in his hands. His yellow-haired friend, who’d been hanging off his shoulder like a limpet, at least has the sense to shrink away when he notices Enji’s fiery presence.
“I would like to talk to my son.” Enji booms.
Shouto chews before speaking. His son has learned to mind his manners long enough to subject Enji to the blasted K-Pop running through his surround sound system. This allows an audience to gather, bottlenecking the hallway and trapping Enji in his own goddamn entrance way. Feeling oddly right-footed, he takes off his shoes. Finally, Shouto swallows. Then he nods at Enji to continue the conversation right in the entrance way.
Enji grinds his teeth. “Shouto. Explain this at once.”
His son responds, but Enji cannot hear his response through the booming bass.
“Oh for god’s sake—“
One of the children turns the sound down.
“Shouto.” The boy had taken another bite after he first responded. All Might’s brat comes up with his hands out, placating, but quivers and stops when Enji flashes him a look. He would like to hear an explanation for this nonsense from his son.
Shouto swallows.
“Bakugou informed me that Ni-chan is back and likes birds now. And pad thai with chicken. So we bought him all the birds.” He slurps up a stray noodle on his chin. “And Thai food. In honor of him.”
(“You’re fucking welcome, bitch,” Bakugou Katsuki mutters under his breath.)
“…Natsuo is back?” Enji is flabbergasted. He did not think Natsuo and Shouto were close enough to warrant this type of celebration. His elder son is passing his bad habits to Shouto.
Shouto shrugs in lieu of a proper response. Enji makes a conscious effort not to blow up. His company-mandated therapist had cautioned him against reacting with temper towards his kids. Plus, if Natsuo were truly home from university, hearing his father yell first thing would simply scare the recalcitrant child off again.
Still—Shouto requires firm correction for his irresponsible spending. Enji opens his mouth—and is cut off by the overwhelming urge to sneeze. Loudly.
There is a cat throwing up a hairball in his shoe. It’s wearing a chicken-themed party hat.
“Meow,” The Cat says.
“Meow,” Shouto says.
“Meow,” a purple-haired child pops out of nowhere to say.
“Ah-CHOO!” Enji’s allergies yell, flaming sneeze and all.
Enji is working on his temper, and his relationship with his children. His company-mandated therapist insists it is a causational relationship. Enji agrees. Surely one is causing the other right now.
He doesn’t think that’s what Mizoguchi-san was getting at though. What he does know is that he cannot have this conversation while sneezing flamethrowers at children, even if they were his own. Neither his home insurance nor his hero PR team would allow this to pass without comment.
So he leaves.
The next morning, Shoto and his friends have cleared out but the gaudy party is still set up. Impossibly, there is even more glitter and egg-shaped (Easter?) confetti painting every surface. A lone Roomba wearing a chicken party hat bravely struggles its way across Enji’s carpet.
At least the mangy street cat is gone. Enji takes a deep breath and counts to ten.
Then he heads to work.
He ends up calling the credit card company himself to see what explanation they have for allowing such extreme overspending. It’s ridiculous they let Shoto spend so much and Enji didn’t even get a notification for credit card fraud; he needs to get to the bottom of this and get a new account holder, stat.
Typically, he has accountants to deal with this but he’s been informed the latest one has been missing for the last five days. She’d submitted vacation leave though his secretary had seemed confused, saying she’d seen Nakamura-san enter the building for paperwork yesterday.
If anything, it just made Enji realize if he needed something done right, he had to do it himself, so that’s why he’s calling his bank on his company-mandated patrol break.
“I have never authorized such frivolous purchases. Wh—I will sue for misconduct!” The droll account manager continues to ensure Endeavor-san that there was no suspicious behaviour and that surely he would be notified for any spikes in his spending, but he’s checking the numbers now and everything looks normal. Perhaps he should look at his past statements but really there’s no drastic change in purchases, but he’ll be happy to review his activity with Endeavor-san in person should Endeavor-san want the numbers explained to him. No Enji does not want the numbers explained to him. He can understand basic math, thank you.
The man seems unbothered by Enji’s sarcasm. “Sir, if this concern is due to the recent, um, circumstances, I’ll pass you on to Kageyama-san in PR. She would be better suited to advise on this situation.”
Enji is about to retort when he notices himself on a billboard TV. This isn’t uncommon in itself—but as he reads the headline he feels his flames rising.
SCANDAL: PRO HERO ENDEAVOR AND HERO COMISSION SECRETLY BANKROLL THE LEAGUE OF VILLIANS. Is the League part of a government program? Heavy investigation into this misuse of taxpayer’s money ensues.
Enji’s week has nosedived into Hell.
“Sir? Are you still there?”
“…Sir?”
--
<unaired excerpt from PLF documentary exposing the Hero Commission scandal>
REDESTRO: Many folks believe the League of Villians have been committing tax fraud, and therefore have been illegally profiting from the Hero Commissions’ blunders. Our fine folks at the Meta Liberation Army are upstanding taxpayers. What does the League have to say on this topic?
DABI
We don’t know what taxes are. No seriously, ask the *censored* idiots. I’m a middle school drop-out and disowned rich kid, how am I supposed to know?
The screen flips between each member of the LEAGUE OF VILLIANS, bust-up in a very expensive room that would reek of outstanding property taxes if the MLA had not owned it and paid taxes because they are upstanding Japanese citizens.
TWICE
What a great question! Fuck you!
I hate taxes! I love taxes!
Like of course I totally do them!
Huh?
Oh, you want to know if I know what taxes are?
Nope! Of course, what kinda idiot do you take me for!
COMPRESS
Taxes? Well I do understand them. But only as a concept...
You mean to say they’re not a concept?
…
In that case, no comment.
TOGA
Do they taste good?
SPINNER
Uh, please don’t come after me for my student loans.
The camera flips to a dark room with a large dark blob in the middle. The blob is either three humanoid figures or one humanoid figure with two very large wings. The chyron reads: ANONYMOUS LOV MEMBER.
ANONYMOUS LOV MEMBER.
Taxes? You mean like the cars that drive you around?
[off-screen muttering, presumably someone tells the mysterious figure what taxes are]
Oohhhhhhh those things. Yeah, uh, totally. You know, my accountant <censored>-san does those for me. I’m sure she’ll be happy to answer any questions you have on it!
The camera cuts to Shiragaki who blinks up from his cereal. He looks like he was ambushed on his way to the kitchen for a midnight snack at 3AM even though the clock clearly reads 1PM. He clearly has no idea what’s going on, though other members of the PLF can be heard murmuring context to him. Someone mentions cars. Another mentions that if he says the wrong thing they’ll take away Raymond from him, because ‘snitches don’t get Switches in jail!’ Another says just like we rehearsed it, now!
REDESTRO: Ahem. Our dear leader, might your official statement on the League’s tax statements?
Shiragaki turns to stare at the camera like he’s looking at Hell and Hell is waving back. Hell’s nametag says taxes, today. Yesterday it said the MLA. It usually rotates between Stain, heroes, dust allergies, Dabi, and the concept of living. He’s so tired.
SHIRAGAKI
If the Paranormal Liberation Front wins I’ll get rid of taxes.
The pre-recorded audience applause goes wild. The fine print at the bottom of the screen says his words are not legally binding, and to please read the official PLF statement and watch the whole documentary for the manifesto and the upcoming lawsuit against the Hero Commission.