She was a grown ass adult.

She should not be doing this kind of thing. Even if her old costume still fit, and even if it felt really - really really - good to wear it again. The thrill of going out there, wearing her costume, busting some scum ass criminals, and maybe singing a song or two for old times sake, was doing a fantastic job of making her feel alive again.

Kazuho turned in the mirror, making sure that all the bits of her costume were still in place. She was still showing a lot of leg, and a lot of thigh, and did her butt always look so perky in this thing? Maybe all the time at the gym was actually paying off. She placed a hand on her chest, feeling the heart shaped gab she wore oh so proudly. She never ended up being a late bloomer, but that was fine, while she wasn't anywhere near big, she couldn't be considered the chairwoman of the itty-bitty titty committee anymore.

"Wow Pop-step," She muttered to herself posing in the mirror. "Way to objectify yourself and echo all those mean posts about you from back in the day."

Seriously, the amount of comments she read about dudes talking about her chest was just plain frustrating.

With a sigh, Kazuho clutched her mask in her hands and remembered why she was doing this. One of her girls had been acting strange. And now she was missing. She remembered watching Aiko talk with those thugs, she thought it was just a case of one of her idols falling for the bad boys. In her five years of being a producer, she had learned that most girls didn't go for the bad boy type anymore, it was either someone they already knew, or maybe even a hero, but there were a few that did go for the bad boys.

And Aiko was not one of those types.

And now because she didn't bother talking to Aiko, the girl was missing.

And Kazuho was going to find them.

"Or," she tied her mask on and smiled. "Should I say, Pop~Step is."

She tied her hair into those old ponytails she used to wear and smiled to herself. She still looked like a teenager. But, was that a good thing at her age? Ehh, fuck it, she was proud of her youthful appearance even if it did make it slightly more difficult for her girls to respect her. And tonight she was going to earn every drop of that respect and then some.

With some light stretching and a few neck pops, Kazuho walked out to the balcony of her apartment, armed with the extendable staff she had picked up in a self defense class she had taken over the years, the push talk microphone on the end seemed a bit silly if she was going to go save someone. But it might be useful.

"I can totally put on a song and distract them." Her shoulders slumped and she let out a long sigh. "If I had a team to distract for."

All of that was long in the past though. Tonight, she was going for a solo act.

And hopefully it wasn't going to be a flop.

She glanced up towards the twilight sky and activated her quirk, aiming for a rooftop off in the distance. She had a decent idea of where to start, she had heard Aiko talking about this warehouse when Kazuho had almost spoken to her about it. It seemed like as good a place as any. It was a shame that the police were being useless about this, and because the heroes were only for quirk based cases, or if specially requested by the police she doubted that any hero was even going to be checking up on this.

Hell, she herself hadn't even started to do anything about the disappearances until it affected someone she knew.

How the hell could she berate them when she was doing the same thing? Fuck.

With a leap she was flying through the air, her body propelling itself forward thanks to her quirk as she made her way towards her destination. It felt so good to use her quirk again, to wear her costume once more. To not just be another face in the crowd. When did she forget how much she loved being Pop Step?

Probably when she got a full time job, and the rest of her gang grew up and apart. There was a reason why most vigilantes were young. Well, multiple reasons. Old ones tended not to survive, and eventually, the young ones got hit by this whole thing called society. Some of the lucky ones ended up working with or for the police.

She landed on the building, nearly slipping on the plywood as she landed and then looked for her next target. It should take her a dozen or so jumps to get to where that warehouse was. And hopefully, there was something worthwhile there and she wasn't just grasping at straws.

During a long jump along a busy street she caught a few people pointing at her. Ahh, to be the center of attention once again, it was so wonderful. She should pose! She kicked her legs up and flashed them a peace sign and stuck her tongue out before she landed again and made sure to go for another long jump along the way.

Halfway through that jump, she remembered that attention was not what she was after right now.

She needed to think of Aiko. And all the rest of her girls.

How many had they gotten already? There was a trend commonality between the girls that worried her. They were all between the age of 15-18, which was actually pretty much the most kidnapped demographic, but still. And they all had red eyes. Were they looking for someone in particular?

Or did some sick fuck just have a fetish?

The stars were starting to appear by the time she got to her location. That made it easier for her to sneak around on the rooftops, but a bit harder for her to see where she was going. Still, now that she was here she would only need to take short leaps. And try to follow suspicious people from the rooftops. She would have thought that given how prevalent heroes thugs would have gotten used to looking up. But nope.

Then again most heroes couldn't fly, or in her case jump good.

Casually walking along the edge of the building gave her that familiar sense of rush that she had been missing. She really did miss doing this, fighting injustice, and not giving a damn if she was in trouble for using her quirk. Her quirk was harmless anyways, sure she could get to the top floor of most buildings, but it also let her save on taking the train.

A group of thugs down by the docks caught her eye. They weren't the normal delinquents that hung out after dark, or at least she thought, she hadn't really been aware of that crowd for a few years now. Still, everything else seemed right, a few delinquents, motor bikes, at a warehouse near the docks, and loud music.

She watched as more kids showed up, a group or two of guys showing up with a girl at a time before entering, the techno shifting lights flashing inside the building. Were they registered? She could call the cops and bust up this party right now. But, that might ruin her lead on Aiko.

"Right then, let's get a closer look then." She muttered, twirling her staff and taking another leap towards the roof of the warehouse. It was larger than she thought it would be, and the blasting music was drowning out her own thoughts. She could feel the base drop in her teeth and tickle the insides of her eyebrows. The outside of the building, looked just as ordinary as any other warehouse did. A few delivery trucks waited out back alongside a few super expensive looking cars, that alone raised several red flags for her.

But the inside was swanky. Did the kids say swanky? She didn't say swanky when she was a kid, but who the hell had time to keep up with lingo? Whatever, she was getting side tracked. The inside was a club, a popping club filled with lights, drinks, and even a stage. She was going to take note of that stage for later.

Just in case.

Even if it was a terrible idea. She glanced down at the crowd and looked around for anyone she could recognize. She was half hoping to spot that punk that Aiko had been hanging out with in the crowd but couldn't pick him out because of the shifting lights as well as the shifting bodies. She did however spot a few people making their way through the crowd and towards a back room. It was always the back room, wasn't it?

Walking along the upper window that spanned the rooftop, Kazuho hoped that these guys would be dumb enough to have a conversation in a place that she could see and hear them. No luck. The windows came to a stop, giving way to a large flat portion of the roof filled with ventilation and power devices. So far she hadn't found any guards or even a video camera up here. Which was fine.

But what if it was just a club, and she was waiting her time spying on a bunch of party people. She used to be party people! Hell she would have thought that someone doing this was insane. She still thought that she was insane. But she needed to find Aiko. She needed to find her. The police couldn't do it until it was too late, and there probably wasn't a hero that gave a damn, they were all too concerned about their rankings.

But she couldn't see or hear the thugs inside. But there had to be a way to find out there had to be.

She tapped her staff against her head trying to think of something. Anything. And then she smacked herself with it.

The microphone on her staff! Yes! That could work! She twisted off the microphone and began to take apart her staff, trying to find some way to turn her performing device into a spy device. The end result was a pile of wire, a tuned down version of her speaker and her microphone at the end. Now to get this in there.

Would a vent work? The building was old enough that it should have a big one. Ahh, there it is. Popping off the grate was easier than she thought it would be, and she smiled when she heard voices, unintelligible muffled voices but voices nonetheless. With a careful bit of maneuvering she lowered her microphone down into the vent, keeping a careful ear on the speaker in hopes that she would get something. Anything.

"The girls-"

Okay! That was something.

A boom echoed as the mic hit the side of the wall, almost making her jump and throw the speaker away. Dammit. There was a bottom, and she was nowhere near close enough to get some good audio. But those were definitely voices. And they mentioned girls. These had to be the guys, they just had to be.

"So, what are you doing?" A very casual manly voice asked her from behind her. She glanced back and looked at the dude wearing a green suit with a passing glance before looking back down towards the vent. Wait, he was fucking tall. She glanced back and looked him up and down again. No, he wasn't that tall, he was actually floating. Right behind her. Kind of like Captain Celebrity did. "You're that vigilante, Pop Star, right? Pop Step? Didn't you retire?"

"Yes, that's me, and I'm coming back out, I'll give you an autograph later. Right now I'm trying to bust these guys now leave me alone, I don't want a hero to-" She looked back at him again.

Green suit, facemask in the shape of a smile, weird hood that made him look like a bunny. Floating.

Oh. Look, it was one of the top heroes and this year's likely number one, casually floating behind her and smiling at her.

Oh. Oh fuck. Her first outing and she was already caught!

"You don't want a hero to what?" Deku crossed his arms, one eyebrow raised.

"Uhh. See ya!" She jumped as far and as fast as she could away from him. The last thing she needed was to be taken to the police station for a round of questioning, a couple nights in a cell and probably a slap on the wrist. Her life couldn't take that and she wouldn't be able to save Aiko!

She flew through the air and glanced back to see Deku still floating there and looking at her speaker. That was good. He wasn't chasing her. Until he turned and then jumped after her. Great. He could jump faster than her and float! This guy was a cheater! His quirk let him do so many things it wasn't fair.

Gritting her teeth she landed on a roof, and took a sharp turn before leaping again. She turned each time she leapt, pushing herself further and further with each one, her legs were already feeling like she had just done a giant all day leg workout. But she couldn't get caught she just needed to get away from Deku then she could go back to trying to find-

"Wait!" Deku asked, jumping right beside her. "I want to talk to you!"

"Learn to take no for an answer, creep! I'm not interested!" She bounced off a building, aiming for, well she wasn't aiming for anything, especially not that large skyscraper she was currently flying towards.

Fuck. She couldn't land safely on that, the angle was wrong and she'd end up crashing and then falling. And falling was a lot different than jumping. Great, now she was probably going to die.

Sorry Aiko.

She twisted in the air, aiming her feet towards the building and hoped that for once her quirk would let her do something impressive. A wall counted as a flat solid surface right? Her feet touched the glass windows of the building, and she pretended like she was jumping off the ground, gathering all that energy around her feet and getting ready to do it. For a second it felt like it was going to work.

But then she felt herself pulled towards Deku as a black tendril of energy appeared from his hand. Right, his quirk was so cheating, super strength, floating, and this weird black energy thing, no wonder he was so popular it felt like there was nothing he couldn't do.

"I got you," Deku didn't speak in his heroic voice, in fact he almost sounded to be panicking just as much as she was. Which was weird, because she was the one in the risk of falling to her death and the one at risk of being arrested. Technically she did use her quirk to run away from him, which did at least kind of make her in a lot of trouble.

Crap.

"Let go of me you jerk! This is sexual harassment!"

"Woah, relax, I'm saving your life."

"My life was only in danger because you chased me."

"I only chased you because you ran!"

"I only ran because you're a hero."

"Sorry for wanting to protect people."

"You wouldn't get it. Mr. super awesome quirk."

"Haha, try me."

Her feet hit the ground, but Deku kept a single black tendril around her waist. It was warm, it felt like a slightly staticy towel right out of the drier. "If I get cancer from this thing, I'm suing you."

Whatever Deku was about to say died in his throat. She could see his cheeks moving as he tried to find something to say. "I actually don't know if it is radioactive. Umm. I'll check and see if it is. But look, listen I'm not going to arrest you."

"Then let me go."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because you'll run away."

"Fair."

Kazuho sighed and looked up at the hero. He was shorter than she thought he'd be but he was still taller than her, which meant that he was taller than someone short so it really wasn't that impressive. "Fine, then what do you want?"

"Your help." Deku said softly, and pulled back his hood revealing his green hair, and then pulled down his mask. It was still dark on the rooftop they had landed on, but she could kind of see his face. "You're investigating those disappearances too, aren't you?"

"You're investigating them?" She stopped struggling against his weird black quirk thing. It retreated back into him, and she didn't feel like running away. "I didn't think any hero would be working on them. What's in it for you?"

"The girls they're targeting." Deku scratched the back of his head and glanced up. "They're similar to someone important to me, and I have a bad feeling about it is all."

"Got yourself some highschool sweetheart then?" She teased, trying to get a reaction out of him.

He laughed. "No, no, nothing like that more like an annoying little sister is all. But what about you? It's the same right? It must be if you're coming out of retirement."

"One of my girls went missing. I need to get her back."

"Girl? But I thought you were young I mean It's been a while and-"

"She's not my daughter! Just a girl I produce for. She's still my responsibility and I'm going to find her." She crossed her arms and glared up at Deku. "Also how the fuck do you know who I am? I haven't been, Pop Step in years!"

"Ahh, well, you see, the thing is," Deku scratched his cheek and smiled at her. "You actually saved me once a long time ago."

"I saved you?"

"Yeah, I was in middle school, and I didn't really know about my quirk back then so."

Well shit, she felt old now.

"Okay, fine, if you're fine with working with a vigilante like me, then I'm fine with working with a pro like you. So what are we going to do? You charge in there and start punching them, and I'll start filming?" She asked, placing her hands on her hips.

The light mood that Deku had been building up died when a serious look came across his face. "For tonight, you tell me what you know. We can't go back there tonight, they saw you jump off, and probably saw me chase after you, so they're probably on guard. And yes, I could go in there and beat them all up, but laws and other bullshit stop me from doing that. Hopefully they just thought that I was a hero chasing after you and they won't think too much of it."

"But what about Aiko?" She stomped her foot and glared at him. "Are you content with just letting them-"

She stopped, black tendrils lashed around his tightened fist showed just how frustrated he was.

"Sorry." He sighed his body relaxing just the slightest bit. "I know it's hard. It is for me too. But I'm not supposed to be doing this."

"Wait," She smiled and walked up to him. "Are you going Vigilante on us, Deku?"

"Hahaha, maybe. Now let's talk about what we know and see if we can stop these guys before anyone else gets kidnapped. I also have a few allies that might be willing to help."

"Alright, here's what I know."

AN: Been having this on my mind for a while too.