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“ Mama, why can’t I go outside?” Midoriya asks quietly, fiddling with his fingers. Above him, his Mama’s face twists briefly before smoothing out.
“ Because baby it’s dangerous for you out there. You're quirkless and the outside world hates quirkless people. But Mommy loves you so very much so I have to keep you safe, even if that means you aren’t ever able to leave home.” Inko explains sweetly, laying a clawed hand in her five year old’s hair. Izuku frowns lightly and examines his hands which always glows slightly.
“ But what if I’m not quirkless Mama, can I go outside then?” He asks hopefully looking up at his Mother with pleading eyes.
“ There's no point in asking that, because you are quirkless sweetie. Now run along and play with your toys, Mommy needs to be by herself for a second.” Inko orders. Izuku pauses for a second, but when he sees the stern look on his Mama’s face thinks otherwise and scampers off, fists clenched.
Inko studies her reflection in the mirror, pulling at the wrinkles around her eyes with a thoughtful hum. She’d need to use Izuku’s quirk soon. See Izuku was special, Inko had witnessed it first hand five years ago. She’d been the nurse on duty helping with a birth. The girl had been sweet, a surrogate for two men, pro heroes if Inko remembers. It had been like any other birth she’d helped with, or so she thought. The girl had hemorrhaged, and it’d been very touch and go as the boy was pulled out of the woman’s stomach.
That wasn’t what made Izuku special ,no. She’d seen countless mother’s die in childbirth. It is much more common nowadays, especially if your child is born with a mutation. And while Izuku wasn’t born with something like gecko eyes, or a tail, he’d been pulled out of the womb glowing slightly.
Since it was most likely the only time his Mother would get to see him, Ink ohad done what she usually did and set the glowing child on it’s mothers chest. This was when Izuku took on a new meaning to the nurse. See, as their skin touched the glow had spread, sparks flying golden where they were preseed together and the woman’s wounds had begun to shut on their own.
And even after she was healed, and sitting up, holding the child she’d birthed with wide awe filled eyes, the glow had persisted and before Inko’s eyes she’d watched the years fall away, leaving the 35 year old look fresh out of college.
A healing quirk was special and rare, let alone one so strong. Inko suspects that the boy could even bring a recently deceased person back to death. Seeing it wasn’t just a healing quirk Inko had realized quickly, that child brought life back to everything. Drooping plants would quickly shoot back to the prime of its life, browning leaves quickly turning an emerald green and stalk straightening out. It was involuntary, without thinking and it seemed to have no drawbacks for the child, at least none that had shown itself after healing a woman on the edge of death and returning her back to her youth.
The boy was a living, walking, breathing fountain of youth. You could become immortal forever, with that child His quirk worked automatically on himself as well, Inko had watched the boy walk up with a cut on his hand that knit itself back together in minutes. And she suspects once he turns a certain age, he’ll stop aging as well.
So she’d done what anyone would have done, and snuck him out in the following pandemonium. Again, healing quirks are rare, and for one as strong as Izuku’s, to occur at his time of birth? The hospital was a wreck, and the heroes who were supposed to adopt the baby were fielding questions left and right, they had only looked at him once before the head of the hospital was drawing them away, and asking if they would bring Izuku by every week to heal people.
It’d been easy, pathetically easy in fact to slip out with him that night, the child clutched close to her chest and her features covered. She still worked at that hospital though it’d almost closed after the suing the heroes had given it for losing their child. They’d never suspected her, not once. It was almost laughable how moronic her bosses were.
And now? Inko has immortality in her fingertips. She turns to watch the boy with greedy eyes, he’s playing with a set of All Might toys she’d been kind enough to gift the boy. She would never let this treasure slip past her fingers.
The day passes quietly, Izuku keeping himself busy while Inko ignores him, until dusk strikes and it’s time to start their nightly tradition.
“ Izuku?” Inko calls out sweetly. Izuku looks up from the kitchen table. He’d switched to drawing a couple hours ago, several ‘heroes’ now scrawled onto paper. “ It’s time to start” Izuku smiles and picks up a sheet of paper before darting over and settling by her feet.
“ Look Mama, I saw a new hero today on the telly! His name is Present Mic and his quirk is super duper cool! He’s my new favorite” Inko’s face tightens at the familiar name and pushes away the drawing Izuku tried to shove in his face.
“ That’s nice sweetie. Now I need to redo my quirk on you okay?” Izuku nods happily, undeterred by her frown and turns around quickly. Inko picks a brush up delicately and begins to brush his hair and sing a song that Izuku should know well.
Flower gleam and glow
This wasn’t her power, of course it wasn’t.
Let your power shine
But she’d needed a way to explain the glowing
Make the clock reverse
While also forcing the five year old to never leave the house
Bring back what once was mine
It had been so easy to lie
Heal what has been hurt
Say she was able to lay protection on someone with a song
Change fates design
That the glowing and golden sparks was simply her quirk at work
Save what has been lost
That Izuku was quirkless
Bring back what once was mine
Worthless
What once was mine
That only she would ever love her son
Power of the sun
That it was dangerous to go out
Gift me with our light
That people would want him dead
Shine into the dark
That he had to stay inside to be safe
Restore our fading sight
So he would never leave
Rise into the dawn
Never learn the truth
Blazing star so bright
That she wasn’t his Mother
Burn away the strife
That she didn’t love him
Let my hope ignite
She only wanted what he could give her.
Let hope ignite
Eternal youth
The glowing fades away, as Inko pulls away with a content sigh. This was the only contact she ever allowed the boy. He was young and it would be so easy to keep going until Inko was a baby again. It was a risk she wasn’t willing to take.
She kept anything alive out of the house that wasn’t her, so Izuku would never find out, find out just how important he was. Because despite her best efforts, the boy still had a heart of gold, one that loved the heroes he glimpsed every once in a while on the TV screen. And he saw those heroes and at least twice a day he pronounced how he wanted to be just like those heroes and save people.
If Izuku knew he had the capacity to help that many people he would never be content to stay in the house and be hers. So she would keep him locked up, take away his voice, until his heart withered away and his Mommy was the only one he could love.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ten years later
“ Izuku I was called into work early, be ready for our tradition tonight. It might happen later than usual but it’s still happening, understood?” Inko yells out. Izuku blinks and looks away from the computer he’d been gifted at six to do his homework on.
“ Yes Mother, have a good day at work!” Izuku smiles widely, waiting until he hears the door click close to let it fall. Once he’s sure she’s gone for good, he leaves the chair he was in to walk to his favorite place in their tiny apartment.
He could only visit it when she was gone, since it was in her room, and she’d screamed at him and locked her door for three years after she found him in there once. But in her room laid the only window in his whole home. It was the only glimpse he got of the outside, and he’d finished his homework for the day already. D
He tries the door handle, relieved to find it open. It had been agonizing to have the only bit of daylight he’d had, be cut off for years. After that he was much more careful about when he went into her room.
He enters the familiar room, walking quickly to the window and opening the latch with shaky fingers. The view was one he’d had memorized for years, just a dingy alley with a dumpster and a few animals he’d found out were cats.
It wasn’t much, he didn’t even know what grass looked like outside of pictures, but he could smell the air. It smelled so different from the air in his apartment. The air he was used to breathing was always a bit stale, something he hadn’t noticed until he opened the window for the first time.
The outside air was sharp, and smelled different every time. Sometimes the dumpster overwhelmed the cleaness of the air, but other times he could smell the rain in the air, or drifts of food he couldn’t see would hit his nose. It was addicting, not knowing what he would smell on different days. Today it smells of caramel, a smell he smells fairly often.
It’s usually accompanied by a loudmouthed boy, one he only sees glimpses of as he passes by the opening of the alley. He was blonde, and tall and he usually shouted things that he had to look up after the boy left. He was lucky his Mother no longer checked his search history or what he was doing on the computer. She’d want to know where he learned those words, though he’d already crafted an excuse in case she ever caught him. A reading assignment, and he didn't know what the words meant so he searched them up. She never minded as long as it was for school.
And there were almost always explosions popping off of his skin. His quirk. Izuku had been so jealous of it when he first realized. The quirks he’d seen so far, his Momma’s and the boy he’d dubbed Explody had such cool quirks he couldn’t help but ache for a quirk of his own. If he had one then he wouldn’t be stuck here living in fear of others.
Occasionally he caught glimpses of heroes patrolling too, their colorful costumes often catching his eye just as he was about to leave. He’d been forced to stop talking about heroes ages ago, but he never forgot. Even though he couldn’t talk about them anymore, he was still able to read about them or research them. Now he just kept his love for them in his head.
He especially liked one that he’d found on a shadier hero forum, one called Eraserhead. He fought quirkless! Which meant he could have been a hero with a quirk that didn’t help, but since he didn’t have a quirk at all, his dream was crushed, and he was stuck in the three small rooms that made up his whole world. He was so sick of this apartment.
But more than smelling the air, or seeing the other people, he loved the sun. the first time it’d heated his skin, he’d freaked out, scooting away from the offending patch of sunlight. Now he seeks it out without hesitation. It was addicting, to feel the burning of his skin after too long in the sun. He hadn’t even known that sometimes it was cold outside until he found the window. He’d had so much to learn after just one visit to the window, didn’t know that there was a whole world that he didn’t even know of. He didn’t know about cats, or how the air smelled, or how sunlight felt.
Pictures didn’t do it justice.
Izuku stares out the window, watching the opening of the alley with wide eyes in search of something new to look up. It’s a little after three o’clock and Izuku knows his Mama won’t be home until midnight. It’ll be a late night, since he can’t go back to bed until his Mama redos the protection spell.
But that just means he can see the stars again! Izuku also really likes the stars, but nowhere as much as the sun. Izuku startles when he hears something flutter right next to his ear but relaxes when he sees a bird. Izuku cocks his head, looking at it. He’d researched the tiny things floating in the air, and found out they were called birds, and that they could fly but he’d never seen one up close other than outside of pictures. This one is small and red. Red is Izuku’s favorite color, and he can’t help but reach out as if in a trance.
He’s surprised when it doesn’t fly away. Any that got close would immediately fly away as soon as Izuku moved but this one just copies Izuku, cocking its head with a chirp.
Izuku sucks in a breath when his finger smoothes over the downy feathers. This is the only other living being he’s touched besides his Mother, and she hates touch unless it’s during their tradition, and even then she controls where she touches him. It’s usually just his hair and that’s it.
He’d looked it up, something called touch starved. Izuku’s eyes fill up with tears, the feeling of another living being underneath his fingertips overwhelming to the pale boy. It comes as a surprise when the glow that usually surrounds him spreads to the bird. That had never happened before, didn’t think it could. Mother put the quirk on him, not the bird.
He flinches away when suddenly it shrinks.
“ W-what?” Izuku whispers, reaching for the bird again. This time it hops away with a terrified chirp, wings fluttering dangerously. It’s no longer a normal sized bird, instead looking like a chick.
“ How did that happen? Was it… a quirk? Do I have a quirk that only works on birds?” Izuku whispers in shock. “ Could I leave? Is this what I’ve been waiting for? But why did it look like Mother’s quirk? I’m so confused.” Izuku mumbles to himself pacing. The bird is long gone, which means no more experiments.
“ I have to tell Mother, she’s sure to have the answers.” Izuku whispers excitedly. This means he can go out- Izuku blanches. He can’t. His Mother will know he went near the window and be mad again. He can’t tell her.
“ What do I do?” Izuku whispers. He spends the rest of the night deep in thought, barely noticing when his Mother comes in and he settles between her lungs. As she begins to sing Izuku tries to work up the courage to ask questions. She’s quick tonight, most likely tired after her long day. Once she’s done she walks into the kitchen to get some water.
“ Mother?” Izuku tries, following her into the kitchen. Inko turns with an irritated smile.
“ What Izuku? I’m tired, can’t this wait until tomorrow?” Izuku flinches.
“ It’s just, you're sure I don’t have a quirk and can’t leave the apartment? I mean maybe it just has a weird activation metho-” Inko snaps.
“ How many times do I have to tell you Izuku! You don’t have a quirk and you never will. You will never leave this apartment, you're stuck with me. How hard is that to understand! Do you want to leave me?” She screams, slamming her hands down. Izuku jumps, not noticing the pen that flies off the counter.
“ N-no I love you Mother, I just thought I would ask. I mean maybe if I don’t tell anyone then surely I could just stand in the grass or..”
“ I don’t want to ever hear you ask to leave this apartment again Izuku.” Inko hisses, struggling not to lose control of her real quirk. The urge to pull on his heartstrings is strong. She takes a few moments to get back under control, before looking at Izuku. He looks like someone killed his puppy. Great…now she has to pretend she’s sorry for snapping.
“ I’m sorry Izuku, I didn’t mean to snap. I just worry about you, after all you're my sweet boy and I don’t want you to get hurt. Please don’t ask me again.” Izuku nods softly.
“ Of course Mother.” Inko smiles tightly.
“ Now I have some bad news for you.” Inko says. “ I have to spend a few days away from home, only a week, but we won’t be able to do our protection spell. You’ll still glow since I’ve been doing it nightly for the last fifteen years, but you mustn't leave the apartment. I’m trusting you. I’ll leave you food and a phone in case you need to get in contact with me. I need you to promise me you’ll be safe.” Izuku’s eyes widened. She’d never left before, what had changed?
“ Can I ask why you're leaving?” Izuku whispers trying to keep the excitement out of his voice.
“ Family problems.” Inko mumbles absently. She’s had a long day, and now because her bitch of a mother is dying, she’ll have to leave her treasure.
“ Family problems? I didn't know we had any other family, why don’t they visit? Can I meet them?” Inko sighs.
“ Sweetie, they also hate quirkless people, that’s why they don’t visit and no you can’t meet them. Now go to bed I’m done answering your questions. I have to get up early tomorrow. In fact I probably won’t even see you in the morning. I’ll be gone for a week okay?” Izuku nods slowly.
“ Okay Mother…I love you.” Inko rolls her eyes.
“ I love you too. Now go to bed.” Inko sinks onto the couch. She just wants to relax without having a brat up her ass all the time.
Izuku does as he’s told slowly, mind whirling with the possibilities. As he enters his room, a thought strikes him. He could leave. At night sure, but he could leave, and she wouldn’t find out. Izuku’s breath catches . He could leave.
The next day passes agonizingly slowly. He made up his mind last night. He was going to leave the apartment for the first time in fifteen years and he would feel the grass beneath his feet. He had to wait for nightfall though, so he didn’t run into anybody. He was gonna be safe just like his Mother wanted, and if he proved that he could handle himself maybe she would let him leave more often.
Like his Mother had warned, she had been gone when he woke up but there was food in the fridge and a phone on the counter with her number in it. A note on the counter said she would call at five o’clock every day.
When nightime struck Izuku couldn’t wait. He’d already tried the door to find it locked. Even if he knew a way to get out of it, he wouldn’t want to leave it unlocked. What if someone tried to get in? Instead Izuku ties a bunch of sheets together, making sure they’re tight enough that they won’t untie on his way down.
He watches the clock in anticipation and once it hits 1 in the morning, he enacts his plan. He grabs the makeshift rope and eases into his Mothers room with an excited grin. He ties it to her bedpost and dangles it out of the window. He’s about three stories up he’s guesstimated, and is pretty sure he won’t survive a fall if he falls. Or at the very least, he won’t survive without major injuries and then he’ll be discovered and his Mother would be FURIOUS.
Once it’s secured Izuku takes a final look at his apartment, a pang of unease hitting his stomach. It’s now or never, but what if something happens? Izuku takes a deep breath. He has to do it, there’s no other choice.
With an unsteady stomach Izuku swings a leg over the window frame and eases outside. He makes it to about the first floor before his grip falters and he falls the last few feet. Izuku gasps, the impact knocking the breath out of him. But…he did it!
“ Oh my god, I’m outside, Mother would kill me if she knew.” Izuku mumbles. “ Should I go back inside? No. No, I need to find grass.”
The concrete is rough on his bare feet, but he didn’t have any shoes to wear, didn’t need any since he wasn’t supposed to go outside, and his Mother’s are too small on his feet so the best he could do was slip on socks and hope for the best.
Izuku slips out of the alley, wincing at how the glow surrounding him basically paints a neon sign pointing directly at him. Not for the first time does he wish he didn’t glow constantly. He doesn’t see any grass, but it’s fine, Izuku is content to just wander around until he finds some, there’s plenty to see under the harsh fluorescent street lights in the meantime.
He doesn’t notice the figure following him from the rooftop, wearing yellow goggles. Eventually Izuku happens upon what he thinks is called a park. The light surrounding him illuminates the grass perfectly. Izuku slowly peels off the socks he wore, wanting to feel the grass on his bare feet and steps onto the grass.
He shrieks when the grass around his feet suddenly sprouts several feet higher. He leans down and pokes it, falling back when it grows again. First the bird and now the grass? What was going on? His mind struggles to come up with a solution. It had to be a quirk right? But Mother’s quirk didn’t work like that, and there was no way he got hit by another quirk, he hadn’t even met someone face to face besides his mother.Which means it was his quirk.
The glowing was his quirk, it had to be but why would his Mother lie, it didn’t make any sense! Izuku grabs his head angrily. He’s not sure what it means, but he needs to figure it out.
At the very least it was obvious that his quirk only worked on living things, which made sense since the only living thing he was allowed to touch was Mother and even then it was limited. Which means Mother knows what his quirk is, and lied. BUT WHY. Whywhywhywhywhy.
Izuku is broken out of his spiraling thoughts by a rough voice behind him.
“ Kid?” Izuku screams. He’s been caught but he’s quirkless; they're going to kill him. No he’s not quirkless.
Aizawa Shouta holds his breath behind the slightly glowing kid in front of him. He’d only ever seen his kid once, when he was a baby but that glow was so familiar. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, but here was a kid who looked the right age and glowing like he did all those years ago, before he was snatched before they could even properly meet him.
Shouta watches the kid whirl around with terror filled eyes. He’d smile, but he’s been told his smile is terrifying by more than one person.
“ A-are you going to kill me?” Izuku whispers with a tremble. Shouta frowns behind his capture weapon. Why would the kid think that?
“ No. I’m a pro hero. I saw a kid wandering around and figured I would investigate.” Shouta explains calmly, not making any sudden movements. And even though Izuku’s mind is filled with confusing thoughts, and the panic of being caught, he can’t help the excitement of meeting a real pro hero.
“ But don’t you hate quirkless people?” Izuku whispers, gut churning unpleasantly. I mean sure he might not actually be quirkless, but maybe this was just a weird side effect of his Mother’s quirk.
Shouta’s eyebrows furrow. The kid was obviously not quirkless, and even if he was it wouldn’t matter. The kid leans back and Shouta watches with wide eyes as the grass behind him shoots up. It had to be…After years of no leads had he really found his kid on a patrol? He lets his quirk flare up, and just like that Izuku’s glow is gone, the two of them falling into pitch darkness besides Shouta’s glowing red eyes.
Shouta releases after a few seconds.
“ Kiddo, I don’t know why you think you're quirkless, but you clearly aren’t. I mean you're glowing, and I just watched that grass shoot up as soon as you touched it. The fact that I was able to erase your quirk says it all.” Shouta mumbles. His fingers itch to just grab his kiddo, but he knows that will terrify the kiddo. While Shouta and his husband Hizashi have considered this child to be theirs all these years, even if they never got to truly meet him, the kid on the other side of the spectrum doesn't even know who they are.
The thought stings, they’ve kept a room open all these years, in the hopes they might one day be reunited. But this kid doesn’t know that, he has to tread carefully, make sure it was really their child, though he has almost no doubts anymore. Really his only doubt is that it could happen after all these years. It’s too good to be true. He’d almost given up hope after all these years.
Izuku blanches. The hero feels familiar, most likely Izuku read up on him years ago before his Mother insisted that he couldn’t anymore.
“ N-no, that’s Mother’s quirk, it just has weird effects. It’s supposed to be a protection quirk. “ Izuku mumbles trying to swallow the bile threatening to come up.
“ Kid, I can’t erase the effects of someone’s quirk, I erase the direct quirk factor. If that was your Mother’s quirk then I wouldn’t have been able to erase it.”
“ Nonononononononononononononono.” Izuku screams, mind completely breaking. He has a quirk, his Mother knew of it, she lied. Why is she lying? What does she want to hide? Shouta stumbles back in shock, watching the kiddo’s eyes slowly turning gold, until you couldn’t even see the white’s of his eyes past the golden glow. Lines of molten gold trail down his cheeks, tears Shouta thinks.
“ Why would she lie?” Izuku shrieks, power lashing out. Waves of green grass explodes from his feet, concrete cracking to let gnarled roots erupt out, and even Shouta is caught in the wave, he watches as the scars that decorate his hands slowly fade, and he’s sure if he looked in a mirror, he’d see far less worry lines than he usually has.
Shouta does the only thing he can think of, and cuts his quirk off, the kid slumping like Shouta just just his strings.
“ It’s okay, I think I know what’s going on.” Shouta says, trying to keep the tears out of his voice. There’s no doubt, somehow he found their kid. And their kid has been lied to all his life, told he was quirkless that the glowing was just a side effect of someone else’s quirk. But he can’t just reveal that he’s the kid’s dad, there’s no way the kid will take to that well. He’d have to break it to him gently, preferably after he got him off of the street, and once Zashi was there. “ Will you let me take you to the police station?” Shouta asks gently.
Izuku shakes his head wildly. The green has come back to his eyes, even after Shouta releases the hold on his quirk. He needs to think, needs to get away. There has to be an explanation, his Mother had to have a reason to hide this from him.
So Izuku does the only thing he can, he runs , ignoring the hero shouting after him, begging him to stop. The terror in the heroes voice doesn’t register to Izuku. By some stroke of luck he loses the hero, darting behind something called the Laundromat and doubling back. He needs to get home NOW.
All Shouta can think as he watches his kiddo run away, is that he can’t lose him twice. But he does. Somehow he loses a glowing child, who Shouta doesn’t think has ever been outside. And once he accepts that, he falls to his knees in despair. He’d just found him and now he was gone?
While Izuku struggles to find his way home, Shouta dials a familiar number with trembling hands.
“ Sho? Love, you never call during a patrol. Are you okay darling?” Hizashi answers worriedly. His worry only grows when he’s answered by a choked off sob. “ Love where are you, I’m coming to get you.” Hizashi demands. Shouta can hear him slipping on shoes.
Zashi, I found him.” The sounds stop suddenly.
“ You found him?” Hizashi asks breathlessly. They’d learned to move on from the loss of their child, but they’d never given up that he’d come back to them. Four years after their kid's disappearance they’d adopted another kid, Shinso Hitoshi and they’d told the boy about how he had a younger brother, one that had been kidnapped before they could even hold him, but that they would get him back one day. They’d spent nine months bonding with him and his Mother, holding a baby shower, going to doctor appointments. For it to be happening…
“ Zashi, I lost him. He looked terrified and I lost him, I’m so fucking sorry.” Shouta sounds wrecked and all the hope that had been building up crashes down. Hizashi begins to silently cry, sliding to the floor. It’s silent for a few minutes, their grief washing over them anew once more.
When Hizashi feels composed enough to speak he quietly asks, “ What did he look like?” Shouta pauses and takes a deep breath.
He was green, I mean green eyes, and hair. And his eyes held this innocence I’ve never seen on anyone other than a toddler, so filled with awe and excitement. He was still glowing like the…first time we saw him.” The ‘and last’ is left unspoken. “ That was what first clued me in, I mean he was glowing, and it was so familiar, and he was far too small to be anything but a child, so I followed him. He just wandered around for a while before stopping in a park. And Zashi the way he was acting I don’t think he’s ever even touched grass…or been outside.”
“ What do you mean?”
“ Well, he acted as if everything he saw was new and fascinating. And he seemed freaked out whenever he touched the grass and it shot up. That’s what confirmed it. The doctor’s said he was basically a living fountain of youth, and plants are alive. When it grew, he freaked out like he didn’t even know he could do that. And when I approached him he asked if I was gonna kill him Zashi! KILL HIM. He thought he was quirkless and that being quirkless was a death sentence for being alive.”
“ So…whoever took him has been lying to him, telling him he’s quirkless and not letting him go outside to keep the effects of his quirk from him. He’s basically a toddler in the sense that he’s never seen the world, I mean if you're right, this is the first time he ever touched grass! God Sho no wonder he ran, his entire world view changed in an instance.”
“ It was a woman. He said Mother. She’s lying to him about being her mother.” Shouta sounds devastated when he says that. Tears begin to slip down Hizashi’s face again. The idea that someone is pretending to be their baby's Mother, lying to him just to use him? It sickens him. “ But we know he’s alive. We know that he’s still around here, that he hasn’t been taken far away, and we know the general area of where he lives. There’s no way he got far on foot. He didn’t even have shoes on. We’re closer than we ever have been Zashi. We’re gonna find him.” Shouta finishes.
Because he may have lost him this time, but he won’t the next. He’s going to find their kid and he’s gonna protect him this time.
“ I’m going to wake Toshi, he deserves to know what’s going on. And tomorrow morning we need to go update Tsukauchi. This is the biggest break we’ve had in years. The only reason the case hasn’t been officially closed is because we’re heroes.”
“ Okay. I’m coming home, I’m not in the right mind to be patrolling. I’ll see you soon. Love you Zashi.”
“ Love you Sho.”
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The rest of the week flies by in a mind-numbing haze for Izuku. He doesn’t go outside again, and doesn't dare try. At one point it registers that everything might be a lie, and he raids his Mother’s room, throwing everything into a disarray without a care, searching for his birth certificate. When he can’t, he turns to the internet, because surely if he was taken then it would be on the news.
And it is.
There are several articles of a glowing baby kidnapped from a hospital with no new leads. It’s the same hospital his Mother works at. She took him. His entire world is shattered. When he finally feels like he can move again, a day before his Mother comes home he thinks of what to do.
If he stays he’ll get caught up in her web of lies again, and he doesn’t think he’ll get out again. He wants answers, wants to confront her but it’s too risky. So that night he packs a bag and slips out the window. He’s not sure where to go or what to do, but eventually he ends up outside the park. He doesn’t take off his socks this time.
He steps on the grass, dragging his feet over to a swing and settles on, swinging slowly. He’s there for who knows how long, before he hears a thump. He turns, eyes dull to see the same hero from that night.
“ Kiddo?”
“ Hmm” Izuku mumbles listlessly, turning away.
“ Are you okay? I-” Izuku begins to laugh hysterically.
“ Am I okay? What do you think? I'm not quirkless and I looked it up. I was kidnapped. My entire life is a lie, and now I don’t even have a family. Who would keep looking for fifteen years for a kid they didn't even meet? I left before I could confront my Mother, but now I don’t know what to do. OF COURSE I’M NOT OKAY.” Izuku bursts into sobs, grinding his hands against his eyes.
“ I did. I never gave up.” Izuku freezes, tears slowly stopping as well.
“ W-What?”
“ I never gave up kiddo. I-”
“ What do you mean never gave up? Don’t act like YOUR my parent. The chance that my PARENT would find me the one day I get enough courage to slip out of my apartment for the first time in my life? Yeah right.” Izuku laughs bitterly.
“ You are. Me and my partner Hizashi? We had a surrogate, using my sperm and her eggs. The day she gave birth we were on a mission but we came as soon as we could. We got to see you once, before we were pulled away by the Doctors who were so excited by such a powerful healing quirk. They wanted us to bring you everyday, which we refused by the way. To put that on a child, it was ridiculous. As you grew, if you wanted to we would have let you, but not as a newborn.” Izuku pauses.
“ Healing quirk?” He asks softly. Shouta winces. Of course he doesn’t even know what his quirk is.
“ Your quirk was dubbed'' Fountain of Youth”. What your quirk can do is amazing. It affects life, bringing them back into their peak physical form. Healing wounds, deaging people. Making grass grow… I’m not sure what else it can do, but the doctors said that it didn’t seem to affect you at all, just being touched by you would do the trick. There was no draw back. Your quirk was so special. But me and Zashi didn’t care about the quirk. We cared about the son we gained, and we were so excited to start our life with you.” Izuku begins to cry again.
It makes sense. It follows the article he’d seen. It’d mentioned them, but hadn’t given any names or such. And even how he explained his quirk made sense. How his Mother- no not his mother. How Inko refused to touch him unless it was time for the ‘tradition’. How the bird deaged, how the grass grew.
But..should he trust him? As if Shouta read his mind, he speaks up.
“ I know it’s hard to trust it, but I promise you that I don’t want you for your quirk. I don’t know what you went through, but we never gave up on you. We’ve been searching all this time, and last time when I saw you I couldn't help the hope I felt that it was you. The glowing reminded me of the baby I’d seen in the NICU and then I saw the grass and then you deaged me a bit and I knew it was you.”
“ Do you have proof?” Izuku whispers.
“ I have a picture of us standing in front of your crib. It was the only picture we’d ever gotten and me and Zashi treasure it with all our hearts. I can show you it?” Izuku nods, wiping at his eyes. “ And since biologically I’m the Dad, I can get a DNA test taken.” He approaches carefully, opening his wallet and pulling out a well loved photograph.
Izuku takes it hesitantly, and there he is, the hero and someone also familiar standing next to his crib. Izuku would recognize his baby form anywhere. He was really found by one of his parents…
He traces the photo, staring at the stranger, his other Dad? He supposes. The hero looks like he does now if not a little younger. And the stranger or other Dad, also looks young, but has a wide grin on his face, tears streaming down his face. It’s the complete opposite of the heroe tiny smile in the photo.
“ You never gave up?’ Izuku whispers hoarsely.
“ Never.” Izuku looks at the man in front of him with tears in his eyes. He searches desperately for features they share, and he can see it in the hero's nose, his eye shape. This is his real parent.
“ I-” He chokes up, reaching forward tentatively before flinching back. If what this man said was true, then he couldn’t ever touch someone for an extended amount of time without deaging them. The hero smiles softly, not bothering to hide it, and wraps a hand around Izuku’s, eyes flaring red.
“ My quirk allows me to erase others unless it’s a mutation or the effect of another person’s quirk. I could erase yours which means, it can be turned off at least partially. You haven’t received any training, but you will soon. You don’t need to worry about harming me.” He pulls Izuku in for a hug, not letting go even when his eyes sting from overuse. He won’t let this kid go until he’s ready.
It takes a while, for either to be willing to let go, Shouta whispering little facts to the crying boy. About how Hizashi would get up early to make pancakes shaped like smiley faces. Of how he has a brother named Hitoshi and how they have four cats. How it could be their life soon. That Izuku just needs to take a leap of faith.
Izuku smiles waterily when they do pull away eventually.
“ My name is Izuku.” Izuku says. “ And I want my real family.”
Shouta smiles back, tear tracks drying on his face.
“ My name is Shouta, and your real family has been waiting a very long time to meet you.”
Aftermath
A year later
The weeks after his Dad took him home were stressful. Under his Papa’s careful guidance he’d learned to control his quirk, so he doesn’t have to worry about turning his family into children everytime he touches them.
Inko was arrested and sentenced to life in prison three times over. He was still working through his feelings about her with his therapist. She’d raised him for fifteen years, and while she hadn’t hit him, she’d abused him in various other ways over the years, not to mention how she literally kidnapped him.
Him and his brother were like glue, sticking together whenever they could. Hitoshi had been the biggest help, always patient with his endless questions. His family loved him, but they weren’t controlling. He could touch the grass, and see the sky and smell the air whenever he wanted. They had movie nights weekly and ate dinner together. His parents tucked him in and made him feel cherished in a way he never had.
They were always open to hugs, and cuddles. When he had a nightmare, they were right there to soothe him. It hurt to know what he was missing these past fifteen years, what should have been his, but he was here now and he was going to make the best of it.
He’d made friends, that explosion boy he used to see occasionally and a girl who could control gravity. They were so cool! And every weekend his parents took him exploring, showing him the world after so long being trapped away from it.
Sure he didn’t understand all of the social cues, and there were still a lot of issues to work through, but Izuku knew he could do it.
And best of all, his childhood dream had been rekindled, and now he was in the hero course, training under Recovery Girl with his friends and brother.
It wasn’t a life he ever thought he could have, but it was a life he was so happy to have found.
He loved his family, his friends, and the new world which was finally within reach.