"Well aren't you the optimist?" Kirishima's voice startled Izuku as he quickly turned around, afraid of what all the redhead had heard from him.

"O-oh, um, hi Kirishima." Izuku said awkwardly, wondering if he had finally reached as far as he could go with this whole 'mission' thing.

"Don't be so scared, I don't know why karma apparently hates you, but don't worry. Bakubro may act all touch and scary, but he's a real softy once you get to know him." Kirishima said with a sharp toothed smile. He nodded his head back towards the door, "Let's go, we still have a few things we need to talk about with the entire group." He explained.

Izuku gulped, but nodded and walked along. If Kirishima had heard everything, he wouldn't be acting so chill with him, so it was safe to assume he had only hear the karma thing, which meant he was in the clear. But that was a close call. Way too close for comfort.

"So what're we doing with him?" Sero asked, leaning his head onto his open palm as he stood by one of the desks.

"Is he going to work here again?" Mina asked, excitement shinning in her eyes at the prospect.

Izuku softly smiled at her. It was nice to have someone so excited about you working with them again.

"Yeah." Katsuki said simply, rolling up the sleeves of his white dress shirt.

"Who's he going to stay with? I doubt he can go back to his old house, now that Todoroki is probably hunting him down." Jirou pointed out. She was sitting on top of Yaoyorozus desk while the dark haired girl shook her head in disapproval.

"Wouldn't it be smartest if he stay with us? If Todoroki is really after him, wouldn't our place be the safest?" Kirishima asked, moving from behind Izuku and over to the green haired boy's old desk.

"You guys... all live together?" Izuku asked, his brows knitting together at the information. Todoroki wasn't exactly the sharing type, he rarely let Izuku stay over, let alone have a handful of his colleagues living with him.

"Yeah, it's safer that way for all of us. If something were to happen, the most trained and capable people would be surrounding each other." Mina explained, inspecting her nails slightly.

Realization took over Izuku's features after hearing her. "That's actually makes a lot of sense. More information I can offer about Shoto, he hates having people in his house. He's basically all alone most of the time, aside from a few guards that stay outside." He said, knowing that he should really be trying to stay on Katsuki's good side. Maybe even more so than Todoroki's...

"That's useful." Jirou said thoughtfully, already trying to run through the different ways they could use that tidbit of information to their advantage.

Izuku smiles at her sheepishly. He hadn't thought that information was to vital, honestly thinking they probably already knew that. How badly had he just messed up?

"Look at you, actually being useful and shit." Katsuki said sarcastically, walking back into the room, this time with a duffle bag in hand.

"Of fucking course he's staying with us, he'd be dead by dawn if he didn't. Now let's go, I don't want to stand around here all night with you dumb asses." He said with a scowl, heading to the rickety elevator.

"I don't really trust these things, especially with all of us, so I'm just gonna take the stairs." Izuku said nervously eyeing the room on strings.

Kirishima leaned down next to him so he could, very loudly, whisper. "Bakugou's scared of them too, but he's to much of a tough guy to admit it."

"I ain't scared of shit, you red haired loser!" Katsuki screeched, already in the contraption he supposedly was frightened of.

The rest of the group, aside from Izuku because he wanted to live, broke into laughter at his reaction.

"You keep telling yourself that, maybe one day we'll actually believe you." Sero said, getting in next to Katsuki and patting his back. He quickly retreated his hand when the blond lunged at him slightly.

"You guys go ahead, I'll take the stairs with the broccoli." Kirishima said, waving at his group as he led Izuku to the stairs.

"Oh, you don't have to do that, there's a lot of stairs." Izuku tried to reason with him, but the sharp toothed man just smiled and kept pulling him to the stairwell.

"It's okay, wouldn't want you to have to make with perilous journey alone." He said with a small wink.

Izuku giggles slightly as they started their descent. Surprisingly, it didn't take as long as he expected, and since they were going down and not up, it wasn't as difficult. Kirishima and him kept up the small talk and jokes the whole way down.

"Took you assholes long enough." Katsuki said with a grunt as the two of them finally entered the main lobby area.

"It's a lot of stairs." Kirishima answered with a shrug, leaving out the part where Izuku tripped and they ended up laughing for a few minutes.

Katsuki shot the redhead a glare, but dropped the subject. "Whatever, let's just get back to the house already. I've been here way longer than I'd like." He said, his voice, at least to Izuku, sounding tired. The green haired male was starting to wonder how much sleep Katsuki normally got.

The eight of them crammed into two different cars, Katsuki driving one while Kirishima drove the other. Izuku was, unfortunately, stuck with the blond, Mina, and Sero. Jirou, Yaoyorozu and Tokoyami rode with Kirishima.

'The lucky bastards.' Izuku thought glumly. He got this strange feeling that Katsuki didn't particularly like him. And he's really hoping the readers sense the sarcasm in that thought.

It was clear as day that Katsuki didn't like him. Izuku isn't saying the blond hates him or anything, he just doesn't seem particularly fond of him. Which he could deal with, but he doesn't want to be shoulder to shoulder with the guy in a car for twenty minutes.

Which is what he was stuck doing.

And of course, Mina and Sero passed out before they even pulled away from the office building. Izuku was left by himself to suffer the silent and awkward car ride.

At least that's what he wished he had to suffer through.

"I still don't trust you." Katsuki said casually after a few minutes of driving.

His voice took Izuku by surprise and caused him to jump slightly. "H-huh? W-why's that?" He asked, clearly sounding nervous. He was messing with his hands in his lap and was just hoping Katsuki thought he was nervous because of him in general, not because he was actually hiding something.

The blond actually scoffed at the question. "Well for starters, you're being suspicous as fuck right now."

Izuku instantly stilled his hands.

"Second, I think this whole thing is just too damn perfect." Katsuki added, not taking his eyes off the road. "What are the odds that the ex boyfriend of our biggest competition is dropped into our laps with information? Grant it, it's not a lot of information, close to none, but it's still something."

Izuku wasn't sure how to respond to that. What if he answered and accidentally gave something away? What if he stayed silent and made Katsuki even more suspicious?

"I don't trust you, but I guess I've got to deal with you. For now at least." Katsuki finished, making Izuku let out a silent breath of relief. He was safe.

For now.