Chapter Text
He’s getting reckless.
Ever since the dreaded phone call, Izuku had been less careful, less controlled. He was staying out longer and longer after he’d already taken care of his father’s men. At first, he’d spend maybe an hour wandering the cold back streets of Musutafu, feet tapping silently on concrete as he slunk through the shadows, eyes scanning his surroundings.
He pretended he didn’t know what he was looking for.
Some nights were silent, only the wind whistling through trees and over rooftops giving the darkness substance, but more often than not voices broke through the peaceful quiet. Some voices were harmless, businessmen and women coming home from a late night, High School students breaking curfew on a dare, but some voices cut through the air like razors, sharp tones promising harm and spewing vile.
When the sharp voices echoed in the streets, that’s when Izuku found what he was looking for.
Whether it be breaking up drunken fights, or stalling a mugger so their target could get away and call for the heroes, Izuku found an odd sense of pride in every successful fight.
Adrenaline rushed through his veins like fire, his senses heightened, and his body practically moved on its own, slipping past the criminals' attempts to hit him with ease. They may look scary out here on the streets, but they were nothing in comparison to his father. Sometimes he could have sworn he saw his father’s figure in the corner of his eye, saw the disappointment in his eyes and heard the whisper of his disapproval in the whistling of the wind.
He ignored him. He’d learned the hard way the first time he’d spun around mid-fight, throwing his pipe at the mouth of the alley, simultaneously turning his back on his opponent and leaving him without a weapon.
It hadn’t been a pleasant experience. His father was nowhere to be seen, and he’d gotten himself a fist to the back for his troubles. He’d managed to turn the fight around last minute, but the criminal had gotten a few good hits in, and Izuku spent the next two weeks applying bruise cream and shuffling to and from school. Needless to say, he didn’t make that mistake again.
Slowly, his hour-long expeditions lengthened into two, two into three, three into four, until he was staying out for six hours each night on top of his scouting. There were just so many people who needed help.
He’d tried getting the heroes involved when he’d first realized exactly how much crime was in the neighbourhood, but his efforts were in vain. Heroes simply didn’t want to patrol there. He understood, of course. There wasn’t a lot of money in it, and they would get little-to-no recognition for their troubles, but still! Since when was heroism ever about the money or attention?
After many fruitless attempts at getting even one pro hero’s patrol route to pass through, he’d decided to take on those responsibilities himself. Sure, he was eleven years old (almost twelve now!), but he’d been training to fight for as long, if not longer than most heroes did to get their licenses. He was more than qualified for the job. The only thing he was missing was a license. And besides, who would stop him?
The heroes?
Even if one of them decided to include the area in their patrol, Izuku was an expert at stealth. Years of hiding from his father’s men had taught him enough, and the experience he was racking up on the streets helped. And if he couldn’t hide, he could run.
Then hide.
He was small, easy to lose in the shadows, especially if he squeezed himself into one of the obscure nooks or crannies he’d found during his months of exploration.
No sweat. Make sure everyone was safe, continue on with the dismantling of his father’s company, then go home, bandage himself up and stuff the quickly degrading costume under his bed, and pretend like he was the weak, law-abiding eleven-year-old everyone thought he was.
Because he wasn’t breaking the law. He wasn’t a vigilante, really. He hadn’t used his quirk once! That definitely counted for something.
At least, that’s what he told himself as he found himself pocketing the promising-looking weapons his opponents dropped, or when he began upgrading his suit with thicker material, better coverage, and yeah maybe he went a little overboard with the utility belt, but it was cool!
And important! He needed the first aid supplies for when a victim was hurt, and he needed the phone so he could call the authorities to make arrests.
…And maybe it was convenient for holding his ever-growing collection of trophies weapons, too.
In any case, he looked like a totally different person as he ran through the streets of Musutafu, the wind cooling his ever-hot skin. It was getting hot outside, which meant he had to release his quirk more and more often. The cool of the night helped to keep that from happening for too long. Although, he had to make sure he released after an intense fight, and preferably beforehand too.
He didn’t want to end up releasing his quirk on unassuming civilians, or criminals either. That could end in a lawsuit and a very, very distraught Izuku.
He hadn’t actually used his quirk in combat since that night with his father…
As soon as he had gotten away from the man, he had gone right back to pretending it didn’t exist, save the few moments that he needed to use it to stop from exploding.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. On one hand, his quirk had been such a big part of his life that it felt like abandoning himself, but on the other, it was like chopping off a dying limb. Sure, its existence had helped him at one point, but now it only hurt him.
It brought back too many memories.
Besides, he didn’t need that cursed quirk now. He could work perfectly capably without it, and besides, flame quirks were rare. It was a big part of why his father was so revered in the field. A flam quirk, along with such impressive mastery, was hard to find.
In the same way, Izuku knew people thought the same of him. If he ever made it back into the underground, he’d be in a pretty powerful position.
There was no way that was happening though.
Izuku wanted nothing that came with this power. It had served him well enough when he had to redirect his father’s ire, but those days were over.
Today was the day of the quirkless vigilante. Wait, no. Not vigilante. Hero. He was a hero. Well, he was going to be.
This was NOT vigilante work…
A small figure ran out of the nearest building, bowling Izuku into the ground. He let out a shocked “Hey!” before glancing down at the shaking kid now sprawled in his lap.
The boy had tears running down his reddened face, lower lip trembling as he held his right wrist.
Eyes were bright with fear as the child looked up at Izuku, before his attention was redirected behind him as an angry shout rang out.
Izuku was on his feet in seconds, the boy shoved behind him as the person ran out the door, a look of annoyance plastered on their face.
The man in question was bulky, towering over the two children in a way that was chillingly familiar to Izuku. The odd tan suit and animal skin boa tickled at the back of his head, dark, flat eyes digging into Izuku’s subconscious, trying to unearth memories long-since locked away.
Izuku’s own appearance, however, had luckily changed enough to keep the monster of a man from unlocking those same memories, as he quickly stomped over to him, annoyance piercing Izuku’s heart, freezing his muscles in a fear he’d not felt since the before.
“Hey. You.” The human embodiment of pure muscle, second only to the likes of Endeavour or All Might, slowly got closer, feet landing harshly on the pavement. Izuku could almost imagine the ground shaking in his wake.
Izuku felt himself backing up instinctively as the man-powered forward, gargantuan hand reaching out towards the child at his back.
A small, shaky sob of alarm broke Izuku out of his daze.
Brain finally caught up to the situation, Izuku let his instincts control what he did next.
Before he knew it, there was a wall of flame at his back, his arms around the child and his feet carrying him towards the nearest Police Department, away from the man and the warehouse.
His breathing was ragged, sweat ran down his brow and into his eyes, and his hair obscured his vision at times, but he kept running. He had heard the enraged shout, and now the clomping of dress shoes on pavement following behind him.
Boy, was that guy angry.
He’d managed to slow him down, though, disorient him. And he was big. Although his larger strides could make up for it most times, he would be no match for a lithe child with endurance that rivalled those with stamina-enhancing quirks.
His familiarity with the darkened streets gave him yet another advantage. The crying child in his arms, however, was getting heavier and heavier, his little fingers clutching Izuku a bit too tight to be comfortable.
He wasn’t used to the bulk of another person, and his arms were too preoccupied to provide balance like he was used to.
He might have evened the odds, but in the end, it wasn’t enough.
The station was barely a block away when a large, rough hand closed around his arm, yanking him back. He tugged, hoping to break free, but the hand held tight. It looked like he was done running for now.
He looked to the man at his back, then to the child in his arms.
Maybe he was done running… but the kid wasn’t.
He let out another blast of flame, aimed right at the hand wrapped around his arm. The man cried out once again as blisters formed across his palms, backing up in surprise and freeing Izuku’s arm as he held his injured hand protectively against his chest.
The momentary distraction gave Izuku the opportunity to run around the corner and set the child down, hurriedly instructing him to run to the police station and shout as loud as he could.
As distressed as the kid was, Izuku was impressed with his level-headedness. He merely glanced back at Izuku with a determined frown, squeaking out a shaky “Thank you, mister!” before running as fast as his little legs could go in the direction Izuku had pointed.
Once the boy was off, Izuku let out a sigh of relief.
The hard part was over.
Now that he had his hands free, he could do some real damage.
Turning the corner, he was met with the sight of the gorilla of a man hunched over, cursing violently over a red and blistering hand.
Izuku was almost shocked. He hadn’t used his quirk in so long, and he’d hurt someone-
No. No. Now was not the time. He could freak out later. Right now, he needed to protect that kid.
Ignoring how risky it was to start a fight not even a block from the police station, Izuku lowered himself into a fighting stance, reaching into his belt to grab a pipe he’d found one night laying on the side of the road. He wasn’t sure what it had been part of originally, but it sure was useful in combat situations.
Gorilla (That’s what he’d decided to call him now) straightened from his hunched position. His fists clenched with rage; eyes wild as he looked at Izuku with a fire that hadn’t been there before.
Feigning indifference to the newfound bloodlust directed straight at him, Izuku raised his pole threateningly, readying himself to jump into action the second the situation called for it.
Sure enough, Gorilla lunged not a second later, big meaty fists raised and ready to pound.
Izuku himself lunged ahead, the sharp end of his pole raised and pointed straight at the opening at the giant’s stomach, ducking under arms to get in close.
The pole, doing its duty as well as it had in his previous exploits, dug straight into his abdomen, likely breaking skin as Gorilla staggered backwards with a choked sound, fingers grasping at Izuku’s head.
He managed to grasp onto Izuku’s hair, nearly pulling him down with him. A firm whack with the pole broke the man's hold on him, and the two stumbled back and away from each other.
Within seconds, they were both squaring up again, calculating emerald eyes meeting burning black. Izuku brandished his weapon, mouth tugged back in a grimace and ready to attack, when Gorilla’s tensed stance loosened in shock.
Fury traded for surprise tinted with disbelief, mouth agape, as Gorilla regarded Izuku with poorly masked confusion.
“Dragon’s kid?”
The moniker caught Izuku off guard, breath hitching as he stared wide-eyed at the man he was now sure had been one of his father's clients.
The only thing that brought the two out of their trance was the telltale slapping of multiple pairs of shoes on pavement, signalling the arrival of the police. Izuku gave Gorilla a cautionary glance, hands still raised in a defensive position. When the man made no move to attack, he slipped away into the nearest alley, scaling the fire escape to hide in the shadows of the rooftop as the cops turned the corner.
Gorilla himself had made his escape as Izuku’s back was turned, leaving the police to turn the corner to empty road. It would almost look like nothing had happened had it not been for the faint, still-hot scorch marks on the brick wall of the building he was currently hiding out on.
It was only as he made his way home for the night that he realized his mask was hanging from his ear, leaving his face on full display.
Laying in bed that night, curled up in a position that pulled at injuries he hadn’t bothered tending to, Izuku cried.
“You’re positive?”
“Yes, sir. If his appearance wasn’t enough to go by, his quirk only confirmed it.”
An amused hum echoed through the empty warehouse. A raised platform stood at the center, completely surrounded by chain-link walls. The glossed wooden floors were marred by scorches and scratches, along with the occasional questionable stain.
A single fading bulb fought valiantly to keep the warehouse lit, even as night seeped into the shadows, sucking away the golden rays of day.
A man sat in the stands, shadow engulfing all but the shine of blood-red eyes. A bright, genuine grin stretched across his cheeks.
“What a surprise! Sounds to me like it’s time to have a bit of fun, don’t you think, Miyata?”
Deku had been acting weird lately.
Not that the nerd wasn’t always a weirdo, but this past week his weirdness had risen to an all-time high. His ever-present mumbling had disappeared one day, and it hadn’t come back, replaced by despondent eyes and a lowered head.
The nerd had always kept his head up, no matter how hard Katsuki tried to force it down. That’s one of the reasons he hated him so much! Nothing would break the quirkless loser.
But now, the noisy bastard was quiet, flinching away from sudden movements and keeping his head down like an obedient little dog.
It pissed him off.
For goodness’ sake, he wasn’t even taking his creepy notes anymore, never mind class notes.
And before you say it, no, he was not worried about the shrimp. He was just observant, like any future pro worth their salt should be. So when something was off, he noticed.
The other extras in the class carried on like usual, ever oblivious like the idiots they were. Or maybe they just didn’t care.
Which he didn’t either. Obviously.
But…
His mind flashed back to the pitiful lump of flushed pale skin and limp, grey-green hair he’d seen in the hospital when that happened. He hadn’t been awake, doctors said something about some kind of blood-loss-induced coma or some crap. The only reason Katsuki knew he was the beeping of the heart monitor and the little puffs of white fogging up the mask on the nerd's face.
Then Auntie Inko in the kitchen, late at night, bawling to the Old Hag about Deku’s old man, how she found the nerd passed out and dying in a puddle of his own blood…
But even then, Deku had held his head up high. He started smiling more, too. By the time the Bakugou’s guests had finally left, the loser was back to being his normal self, if not even happier, much to Katsuki’s chagrin.
So what had happened to strip that away?
Was the idiot finally accepting his place at the bottom of the food chain? Was he actually giving up so easily? Now?
After all of that fighting with his old man, was he really going to give up when he’d finally gotten out?
No way. Katsuki wasn’t going to take any of this crap. If Deku thought he could let his guard down now, then he was sorely mistaken.
It was with those thoughts echoing through his head that Katsuki approached Deku on their way home.
The middle schoolers lived in the same area, so the first half of their walk home was spent awkwardly trailing each other in silence. Of course, Deku was always the one doing the trailing.
Katsuki would never fall to such a low level that he would actually follow Deku, whether it was purposeful or not.
In any case, Katsuki was reaching for the nerd’s shoulder, a scowl on his face.
“Hey, Deku, what the he-“
And then he was on the ground.
The grit of the sidewalk bit into his back, and a stinging, throbbing pain shot through his shoulder.
There was something there, too. A steady pressure that was slowly getting hotter and hotter a nd hotter-
And when the blindness of shock finally let off, it was a villain’s eyes that met his own.
Bright emerald green and toxic, the eyes above him seemed to glow in warning. And… There was no emotion. They almost looked as though they belonged to a corpse-
Only when his own eyes trailed up a bit farther did he notice familiar green curls, did he realize that it was not, in fact, a villain.
“ Deku?”
The wavering of poorly masked terror in Katsuki’s voice seemed to wake the boy up.
His eyes lost their toxicity as they gained the clarity they’d been lacking, no longer glossy with lack of awareness, but slowly budding tears.
The face of the boy Katsuki had thought he’d know dropped in shock and panic, green eyes growing wide as he seemed to process what he’d done.
The heat at his shoulder disappeared along with Deku’s hand as the nerd stumbled back with a choked cry, practically throwing himself off of Katsuki.
Sitting up, Katsuki stared, and Izuku stared right back.
The two sat in silence for what seemed like hours, but was likely only a few seconds, Deku’s hitching breaths sounding brain-meltingly loud in the quiet.
And then he was running.
Leaving Katsuki alone on the empty sidewalk, mind rushing to comprehend what had just happened.
Izuku had been acting odd lately, but it was only to be expected really.
She had spent the last few years of his life being less than present.
Inko hated that she’d left her son alone with that man. He’d just gotten so sweet. So caring. She thought he’d changed his ways for the better, and she’d blindly accepted his farce despite knowing all too well the mask that he wore. It was the same mask he’d worn that had convinced her to marry him, the one she had been excited to live her life with, to grow old with.
And now, here she was, having fallen for the act for a second time, and lost her baby because of it.
Maybe her baby was still alive, sure, maybe he was still breathing, still the sweet little boy she had played “heroes” with all those years ago, but now there was an extra layer of hurt and pain.
She could tell in the way he flinched when she went in for a hug, or how his eyes nervously flicked across every room he entered, searching.
She knew he had seen that side of Hisashi.
She knew, because she herself had seen that side of him, and could never go back.
And the worst part was, she knew that it hadn’t been a one-time thing. Izuku had been acting this way for a while, and it killed her inside that she hadn’t put two-and-two together at the time.
She had left her little boy alone with a monster, for years, and she was only just now realizing her mistake.
What kind of horrible mother would do that?
Inko knew she was a horrible mother, knew that what she had done- or rather what she hadn’t- was inexcusable, and that there was no way to fix her mistake. She understood that anyone else would never forgive her, and that would be perfectly reasonable. It was what she deserved.
But her Izuku had always been a kind boy, so when he seemed to have forgiven her fully, whether she deserved it or not, she wasn’t surprised.
No, she wasn’t surprised. But she wasn’t going to simply accept it and move on.
No, she was going to earn that boy’s forgiveness to the best of her ability whether that goal was attainable or not .
From this day on, Inko would strive to be the mother that her beautiful baby boy deserved.