Chapter Text
"Nothing's over yet, the cat is still in there."
- Emily St. John Mandel, The Singer's Gun
His awakening was abrupt, his breath coming out in a great gulp of air, like a man escaping from the depths and finally finding the oxygen he needed.
His awakening was not painless either. His hands were the main source of agony: crooked and bloody, arms so thin it took seconds to realize that they were his own.
The weirdest thing, though, was the weight inside his chest. Something that seemed to inflate like a balloon, taking space and his breath away, devouring him inside out.
He sat reluctantly, more pain present with each movement, his eyes burning terribly with the light between the trees, his ears beeping at the sounds around him. Minutes passed before he could focus, watery, confused eyes peering around, only to lose his breath again.
Rocks and fallen logs floated around him as far as he could see in the forest.
Izuku hugged his crushed hands to his chest, his eyes wide. The pain in his chest getting worse, burning and suffocating him.
His eyes rolled in their sockets and everything was gone again.
.................................................. ........................
Memory is one of the most complex processes to be performed by the human brain. At all times we are acquiring, storing and retrieving information, aided by our senses, fundamental in the process of assimilation and invocation of what we have learned.
Izuku had always been fascinated by this process, something important when doing his analysis. He knew about the areas of the brain responsible for the storage, the process of building mental palaces and, of course, factors that hinder or block this operation.
And so he immediately understood what the hero was telling him. He had understood at the moment he had woken up in the forest, confused and with objects floating around him.
Between examinations and visits by heroes and detectives aside, he had discovered that he had been missing for two months. A few days ago, someone had reported him roaming a deserted road in another city, and took him to the nearest police station.
His last memory had been of returning from school after Bakugou tossed his notebook out the window, after that he only remembered waking up in the woods, alone, and how he had walked for hours until he had found a road. And now, apparently, he had a quirk. It was something he had always dreamed of having.
He had a quirk, a more powerful version of what his mother had.
Izuku glanced at his hands in his lap, feeling the silent hero's eyes analyzing him from the chair beside the bed. He ignored him, focusing on the wrong angle of his fingers, even healed, and the strangely darkened nails. Scars were covering every inch he could see of the crooked fingers. He had not observed what else was wrong, but it was impossible not to realize that when he could not close his own hands.
"A hidden quirk can be wakened by specific triggers or, in certain cases, extreme trauma."
He swallowed the bile. There was no enthusiasm for this new development. Just something dark, a heaviness in his chest whenever his breath came out of control and some object floated in the room. The mere sight of his quirk made him gag.
"Maybe." He thought as he looked up to watch the patient man from the corner of his eye. "This is why they sent the hero who can erase quirks to talk to me."
In another situation, he would have been enthusiastic about this meeting. It seemed he couldn't feel it anymore. There was nothing but that balloon in his chest.
"No severe head trauma has been reported."
Psychogenic amnesia then. Caused by trauma. As his quirk. A quirk like his mother's, but more powerful. Powerful enough to throw doctors at the wall during a panic attack, shake walls, float objects, and destroy windows. Powerful enough for Eraserhead to be there.
"Can I see my mom now?"
The man's expression changed, his face growing uncomfortable.
"Izuku!!"
Like a trigger, Izuku felt his hands shake, his breathing increasing its pace. The weight inside expanded like a balloon, squeezing his lungs, keeping him from breathing.
The IV bag exploded and within seconds red eyes were staring at him, strong hands gripping his arms as someone entered the room. Izuku felt suddenly cold, a chill that made his body tremble and his eyes closed without strength. A cold that would not be gone in a long time.
Maybe it was really a good idea to have Eraserhead there.
..................................................
The disappearance was first reported by Inko Midoriya when her son didn't return home after engaging in a clumsy rescue in a villain attack.
She had gone to the police station and talked about a strange conversation with an unknown man who had come to her house, but as much as she tried she couldn't remember his face or the content of the conversation, which she felt had some involvement with her son.
They didn't immediately believe her, ignoring her certainty that no, her son would never run away from home, even after he had done what he had done. He wouldn't be hiding at a friend's house, she was sure of that. Suggestions that perhaps he had committed suicide were thrown without care, no one allowing her to pass past the front desk of the station in her hysterical state.
An ugly part of Izuku, bitter and aware of the injustices that existed in this world, thought that part of all reluctance to see the case as a real affair had been that he was a teenager without a quirk: ordinary people used to disappear between the fingers of the system easily.
They ignored the strength Inko Midoriya could have to protect her son; after all, Izuku had inherited his stubbornness from somewhere. In a week Inko had created a case after careful research watered by despair, and she had found similar disappearances in recent months. Inko had had to take strange streets and dark alleys and talked with suspicious and dangerous people until she had discovered a pattern that finally caught the attention of the authorities.
There was a mobilization of the public and the media until the situation finally fell in the ears of someone doing their job right and the search and investigation began. For some reason, even All Might had been involved in the situation, being one of those who pledged to help with the search, which further increased the media coverage, people trying to understand why the number one hero was so invested in the search of a missing boy without a quirk.
After weeks of going to the police station every day to get involved in the search with Detective Naomasa, one day Inko didn't show up. Her apartment was found overturned, with signs of struggle, the door wide open.
Inko Midoriya was not found.
Three days later Izuku was spotted on the deserted road.
.................................................. ...
A stranger was staring at him from the other side of the mirror. A cadaverous face, too pale, making his freckles more apparent. His eyes looked strange, wide and dull. His mouth was in a perpetual straight line. He raised its corners slightly and the result came out strange and fake.
He couldn't recognize that person.
Strangest of all, though, was what he avoided looking the most: his white hair. The term Marie Antoinette Syndrome was whispered among doctors. White hair, blackened nails.
Memory loss, a forced quirk and now this. Three signs caused by extreme trauma. Something so intense that he had purposely buried so deep inside his mind he couldn't reach it at all.
Something that involved his crooked hands and the scars on his body that even with the doctors' quirks weren’t completely gone. It included awakening bloodstained in a forest after months, so thin that even after days at the hospital he could still count his ribs, feel the sharp angles of his body.
A noise of something breaking and he saw his crooked image in the fractured mirror.
"Midoriya. Is everything okay over there?"
He touched the glass, ignoring the pain as he cut his finger into the sharp bulge, his eyes fixed on the blood dripping on the porcelain sink. He held his breath at the image, his eyes following the falling drops.
"Blood splattered on dark walls. Screams."
"Shit!"
A close curse made him turn his head, one hand holding his wrist firmly but strangely gentle.
He frowned, seeing the hospital washroom door broken open. The hero looked at his hand with an unreadable expression. Very close. The balloon expanded again, his breathing ragged and his body shaking.
Something in his expression made the man immediately release his hand and step back, his eyes red and his hair floating.
"I won't hurt you. Let's see this cut."
After that he no longer let him close the door.
.................................................. ...........
In his dreams, there was always water. He could hear the splatters hitting the ceiling wood as he stared at the front door. The rotting wood, with grubs crawling on the surface, gave off a strong odour that made his eyes water.
On the other side, he could hear screams, distinct and known, uninterrupted. The cold shook his bones as he covered his ears and closed his eyes tightly.
"Izuku!! Open the door!"
He never opened the door.
.................................................. ...........
Izuku knew it was logical for him to be under the guard of some hero. His mother was still missing, no one could get in touch with his father, no suspects had been arrested, and the case was still in progress. It also made sense that this hero was Eraserhead, the only one who could control his monstrous quirk, which seemed so in tune with his emotions, which made it so much more dangerous.
Still, he felt like a burden. He wanted to go home, open the door and see his mom in the kitchen preparing Katsudon, watching him softly as he chattered about his day.
This apartment was unknown, with its empty walls and spacious surroundings due to the absence of the furniture that filled the Midoriya residence. There was a smell of coffee drenched in the curtains, instant food in the cupboards, and energy drinks in the fridge. A cat came to greet them at the door, meowing demandingly and sniffing him suspiciously. It was like being on an alien planet.
Still, he couldn't complain about anything, not only because of the strange apathy that had struck him since awakening in the hospital, but also because clearly the hero, who was as uncomfortable as he was to share his space with a strange child, was trying so hard.
Eraserhead emptied the office and had the trouble of putting a bed, a dresser, and a study desk in the corner. The hero let him know that he had passed by his house and picked up some things that he would need, even though the place was still considered a crime scene and was closed.
His clothes were in the drawers, and his analysis notebooks were stacked on the table along with some new, coloured pens. He looked at the man standing in the doorway, his eyes following him as he studied the room. He seemed very sensitive to give him his space after what had happened in the bathroom, approaching him like a wounded animal, his hands always showing, and his posture relaxed.
"I thought you would want the notebooks. In addition, it was dangerous to leave this kind of information unprotected."
"Did you read it?"
Eraserhead nodded, petting the cat in his arms. Izuku reluctantly touched the notebooks. Number 13 was missing, of course. It was gone with him. Those notebooks had always been such an important part of himself.
He opened one and felt a bitter taste in his mouth, his eyes unfocused.
"That's good analysis. Your goal is the hero's course?"
The word made him hold his breath. Izuku closed the notebook, trying to control the balloon's expansion in his chest.
"No."
He answered softly, placing a pen that had begun to float back in place.
It was something everyone was right about after all.
Izuku could never be a hero.
.................................................. ...............
The first night Aizawa opened the door softly to check on his new housemate, only to see him awake and sitting on the bed, his back against the headboard and his eyes steady on the door, open and red.
Aizawa saw him catch his breath when he spotted him and tried to relax his body to look less like a threat.
"It's two in the morning, why are you still awake?"
Green eyes followed his every move, his expression focused, but an obvious fear in every shudder.
"The monsters appear at night, Eraserhead."
Aizawa felt his stomach tighten at what it implied and squeezed the doorknob he held tightly for a few seconds to control himself. He picked up Mochi from his feet and put her in the bed with the boy. Immediately she went to the tense and rigid shape, small and huddled on the headboard and sat on his legs, rubbing and purring like there was no tomorrow.
He left the room.
That night none of them slept at all.
.................................................. ..................................
"Damaged."
A whispered word he heard before the door closed in his face. He sat on the bench in the aisle, his legs hanging high. Mochi was in his arms. In recent days the cat had become a strange source of comfort, and Aizawa had not objected when asked to bring her during his quirk's registration. The man must have known he was going to need her.
He looked at the glass wall, the parted curtain showing where his current guardian was talking to the expert.
It was a little rude to talk about his quirk without him, but he didn't want to know about it anyway. It was ironic how he, who had always been fascinated by quirks, felt like vomiting just thinking about his own.
He hugged the cat more, trying to catch some of her warmth. It seems cold was a reboot. This explained hypothermia whenever he lost control.
He stared at the men, his eyes going to their lips, catching the words curiously.
"Broken"
"Dangerous"
"Trauma"
"Fear of his own quirk."
He frowned, his white hair falling into his eyes. White like Mochi's, who was staring at him with blue eyes. After the test room was destroyed, the balloon in his chest seemed calm. He could feel it there, but there was no expansion.
It needs fuel to expand. It needs heat. His father's fire, his mother's attraction. Telekinesis that needs heat to generate energy. His heat or whatever it was around.
He closed his eyes, sticking his face into the white fur.
They were wrong. It wasn't the quirk that was broken, it was him.
.....................................
On the return from the quirk expert, Aizawa stopped at the supermarket and filled a cart with protein bars and shakes and another with warm clothes.
Izuku had to eat every two hours and keep up his daily calories, which he reluctantly did.
In a few days, he began to look less like a walking skeleton.
Still, he was always cold.
...................................
He dreamed of his mother. He didn't see her, but he knew she was there. He could feel her behind him, hear her voice, but she was gone when he turned. They both tried to hug each other, but they never could do it.
She disappeared behind that door.
...............................................
No one said anything about the investigations, something about wanting to preserve it.
Izuku was nothing if not stubborn, especially with the disappearance of his mother. She had fought for him, he would fight for her.
He was living in a hero's house, where many heroes passed by. The information was there, with the right questions. He took advantage that he couldn't be left unattended, not with a destructive quirk and no control over it. Each time he went to the police station with Aizawa he learned something new. Like the disappearances before them: 8 teenagers, same age or younger, mostly without a quirk. Except for him, everyone else was a person who wouldn't have been missed. No family, no ties, no considered role in society. If not for his mother, he might have been like one of them.
And he was sure it was the same person. His mother had disturbed the pattern. He just didn't understand what was different about him for take this risk and take someone who would be missed.
"Naomasa asked me to control you, it's illegal to break into a policeman's office."
Izuku felt his body tense, looking out of the corner of his eye from where he was sitting on the floor playing with Mochi. The man looked calm, reading some papers at the table while drinking coffee.
"If you want to know something, it's easier to ask me, don't you think?"
The voice was sarcastic. He looked up in surprise, his eyes blinking confused, suspicious.
"Would you tell me the truth?"
"If you don't know it yet, I don't usually lie."
"Why?"
"Lying is tiring."
"No, why would you tell me?"
Aizawa sighed and looked him in the eye. His expression was sincere. Izuku felt something strange to realize how familiar his hairstyle was.
"Because it's your life and your mother. You are the most interested. And I'd rather you not messing up trying to figure things out for yourself, problem child."
He had been taken by surprise. Lately, he had acquired complete distrust in adults, but Aizawa had so far done nothing but help him and give him space. Even about his quirk: as soon as they had arrived home, he had sat down and told him everything that had been discussed and given him the option of counselling when he was ready. Even though Izuku knew he would never be: he didn't want anything to do with his quirk.
Aizawa wasn't loving like his mother, far from it. Still, there was something about him that reminded him so much of her.
“He cares.”
He looked at the man, struggling to make eye contact, something previously impossible since he had awakened. His lips curved slightly in an attempt of a smile. His mouth hurt from it, but he was still sure he had seen the softest dark eyes when the hero smiled back.
From that moment on he stopped flinching whenever Aizawa approached him.
.................................................. ..............................
Izuku couldn't move in most of his dreams.
A paralysis took over his body, a weight on his back. Sometimes he was huddled, arms around his chest holding him in place. A giant shadow that wouldn't let him escape.
Worst of all was the voice. The voice never fell silent, always at his ear, speaking even when he couldn't understand it.
"No one will come, no one cares. Only I care about you, only I love you. You just need to love me back, Izuku. When you disappear, I'll be the one who will remember your voice. Let me hear your voice."
Sometimes he didn’t want to understand it.
.................................................. .................................................. .......
There were bad days and worse days, but nights always fall into just one category. Sleeping never seemed like a good option, not when the rotted door waited for him, the screams and the pleas for mercy behind it, blood running down the floor and taking shape, trying to pull him inside.
Lately, he could feel hands pulling him, touching him, keeping him from breathing, stealing any heat he had, like his quirk usually did.
He often woke up to things shaking in the room, objects floating, and hypothermic, Aizawa staring at him with tired red eyes. Neither had rest anymore. Izuku knew that soon he would have to return to patrol, had heard him talk to someone on the phone, but the hero didn’t know what to do with Izuku.
Izuku felt like a burden, with his broken quirk that took any heat out of him. He knew nothing but the constant cold. As if it had been long dead.
Maybe he was.
“Stop it.”
A cup of steaming chocolate was deposited in front of him. His nose wrinkled at the smell, the heat making the terrible cold subside. Izuku lifted his head from the tabletop and looked at his guardian with giant eyes. The stern expression seemed to break a little, a smile almost coming out and he felt his hand in his hair, ruffling the sweaty strands. The fact that Izuku didn't flinch away seemed to surprise both of them for a few seconds and he curled more tightly around the sheet, the tremors slowly fading. Mochi was in his lap, oblivious to everything around her.
He freed his hands from the cocoon of sheets and took the hot mug closer. Aizawa walked down the hall with a trash bag and came back with the things he had broken by accident.
“I’m sorry.”
The man rolled his eyes placing the bag near the door.
“Did you break it on purpose?”
“No, but-”
“No 'but', it was an accident. No one learns control that easy, especially with a quirk like that.”
“Broken?”
He tried to contain the bitterness in his voice, but it must have failed. He felt Aizawa's eyes on the back of his neck. He could almost see his expression, 'It's too early for that, I need coffee.'
“Powerful. Late quirks are always more powerful and harder to control. I shouldn't have to say that, you are the expert.”
“I'm not.”
He muttered and could admit that his voice sounded like a child with a tantrum at the moment. His face warmed with embarrassment when he heard a coughed-out laugh from the hero.
“We need to replace some things.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I already said that you don’t have to apologize for it.”
“But I need to!”
His loud voice surprised him. Izuku had been nothing if not docile for the past few weeks. Almost apathetic. Broken.
"I broke into your house, your life. I heard about the patrols, you can't work with me here and people are getting hurt because of me! You made a room just for me and I destroy it every night! I saw the cracks in the wall, what if one day I tear down the building!? What if pulling my heat is not enough ?!”
The man standing in front of him looked at him seriously. Mochi meowed in his lap, trying to reach his face. The balloon was in his chest, hitting the walls of his ribcage, expanding with each breath.
“You just need control.”
"I don't want control, I don't want this quirk! I WANT IT GONE!”
The cup exploded in his hand, shards of china and scorching chocolate scattering on the table and in his hands. Mochi jumped in time to escape it but he saw Aizawa shrink from the scalding liquid, a flying shard slashing his cheek.
He focused on the red eyes in shock, cold steam rising from his mouth with the sudden decrease in temperature in his body.
Aizawa sighed, blinking for a few seconds, his hair falling down.
“Come here-”
He quickly denied, rising and knocking the chair over, leaving a long space between them. Aizawa's expression became a little hurt.
"I won't hurt you."
It was not him that Izuku was afraid of at the moment, but of himself.
They had to lock him up somewhere with suppressants where he couldn't hurt anyone else.
He hugged himself, his eyes focusing on the chocolate stains on his pyjamas. They reminded him of other red spots. He could almost glimpse the blood dripping on pale legs. And a voice, a voice close, very close, talking and talking.
He put his hands to his ears and closed his eyes tightly. He felt something take over his chest, but it wasn't the balloon. The balloon at the moment seemed to be controlled by Aizawa. It was something different, something he had not felt in a long time.
He realized that he had not cried once since waking up in the hospital.
“I want my mom.”
Aizawa pulled him close, slowly. Izuku allowed it.
Maybe he was safer always near Aizawa.
Aizawa wasn't going to hurt him, let anyone hurt him, or allow him to hurt anyone.
He was the only safe person in his life at the moment.
.................................................. ....................
That same day they returned to the specialist for a prescription for suppressants.
Izuku felt that he could finally breathe better after that.
.................................................. ....................
“This is Kayama. She'll keep an eye on you today.”
Izuku looked at the woman at the door from behind Aizawa. He didn't mind looking like a child with the strength he held in the man’s shirt at the moment, his eyes studying her warily. Nemuri Kayama looked quite different from the Midnight heroine, with her button-down shirt, geeky glasses and a cat on her shoulders. Her smile was almost maternal, staring at him that way.
He looked at Aizawa, who at the moment seemed quite stressed about having to patrol, and reluctantly let go of his clothing, greeting the woman with a bow. His mom didn't raise a rude boy.
“Hi, Izuku! This is Sushi!”
She pointed at the cat, who stared at him with interest. Izuku smiled shyly and felt Aizawa relax more beside her.
While the adults talked, Aizawa explaining about the suppressants and giving some unnecessary instructions, Izuku sat with the cats on the floor.
He was a smart boy, he didn't need to read his file at the hospital or case to know what had happened to him, even if the word couldn't come out of his lips. He tried to drown it out of his mind as much as he could, but his dreams would not let him escape it, the scenes escaping the cracks in his mind whenever there was a trigger, hands on his body, destroying him wherever they went.
The signs were there, the terror near adult men quite evident. That's why Aizawa had brought Kayama-san, not Yamada, who was his best friend.
Izuku was right about being able to trust Aizawa.
.................................................. ...........
Kayama was fun. She looked nothing like his mother, but there was something motherly about her. They watched a movie and she let him chatter about his evidence board in the bedroom. There was something in her eyes that was familiar. A weird camaraderie.
Izuku wondered who had hurt her too.
“He likes you a lot.”
He looked at her curiously and the woman smiled at seeing something in his expression, the two sitting on the couch with the cats, a new episode beginning.
"Shota."
Izuku felt his face heat up, his eyes on Mochi.
"Do you think so?"
He whispered. Kayama laughed and squeezed his cheek.
"He only talks about you. He may look tough, but deep down he has a soft heart. Just look at him with those Bambi's eyes and he would do anything for you.”.
She winked at him and he blushed even more.
It was not as cold as usual.
He woke up sleeping on the couch, covered with cats and sheets and with the voices of Kayama and Aizawa nearby. He felt a kiss on his head and went back to sleep.
He didn't dream about the door that night.
.................................................. ...
In the months that followed, Izuku managed to finish the rest of the school year in online courses. Aizawa had said it would be a good distraction, but he didn't expect Izuku to end it so quickly. During that time, the school had gone out of his mind. It felt like another, distant life.
That Izuku no longer existed, and he knew almost nothing about this other in his place now.
He felt a little bad for refusing when Mitsuki and Masaru went to the police station and spoke to Naomasa, asking to see him. The news of his disappearance and being found seemed a hit in the media for months, but soon the news died out and people forgot about the case.
His situation was still uncertain, and the police seemed in a dead end over his mom’s case. It was frustrating to know that the solution might be in his head, but he couldn't get what he wanted from there.
Meanwhile, he was still under Aizawa's responsibility. And so the man had sat down and given him options about what he wanted to do about his education. Old Izuku would have clung to the situation, he always loved to learn, especially knowing Aizawa was teaching at his old dream high school. Now he had a powerful quirk, if he could get control over it, he could be a hero.
This new Izuku was just tired and didn't want anything to do with his quirk. He could live on suppressants, but after he had crossed the line and been hospitalized for taking too much of it, he was being controlled. This Izuku was afraid of people and crowds, of men and noise. And when he was afraid things tended to get destroyed around him. It was unwise to leave him around children.
An option would be home-schooling, but Aizawa worked all day and Izuku trusted no one else but Kayama, and she also had to work.
The solution came from an unusual place.
“Nedzu? The principal of U.A.?”
"I showed him some of your analysis. He seemed keen to be your tutor.”
Izuku didn't know what to think about it.
"Isn't he busy?"
"Nedzu does what he wants."
He smiled a little at his guardian's frustrated voice.
"But he's a genius and he's willing. It's an opportunity many would want, for years he has not caught an apprentice.”
Something from old Izuku came up with that. A hunger for information that he thought he had lost forever.
"Am I going to have to go to U.A?"
Aizawa nodded with an apologetic expression.
"But you won't have contact with other students and teachers if you don't want to. There is a special room for you, you’ll pass the day with him, have lunch with me or Kayama and come home. No need to make the decision now, the semester does not start yet for a few months. Just think about it.”
In a few months, his mother could have returned and would think of something else.
If all went well, he would not have to make that decision.
"There is one more thing."
He looked at the other with the firmness of his voice.
"I know you'll hate it, but you'll have to learn to control your quirk."
He began to deny quickly, hugging more Mochi to his chest.
"Izuku, I'm sorry, but it's the safest for everyone."
"The suppressants-"
“-are not meant to be used constantly. I will not allow you to destroy your body like this. I will not negotiate that. I will train you myself, with my quirk it’s ideal.”
Izuku knew he had no choice.
Still, he spent a week without looking at his guardian's face.
.................................................. ....................
It was always the same door, sometimes it seemed closer, sometimes farther away.
The screams were incessant, he could make out his own voice, but he could hear his mom too. She was there, behind that door.
Only if he could open it.
Only if he had the courage.
.................................................. .....................
To illustrate the quantum principle of uncertainty and how it affects the universe, an Austrian physicist named Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger conceived the so-called Schrödinger's paradox.
It consists essentially in a thought-experiment where a cat is trapped inside a box. In it, there is also a radioactive element, a Geiger counter, a flask of poisonous gas, and a small device with a hammer. Such device is connected to the Geiger counter so that when the counter detects radiation, the hammer is released and it breaks the flask, killing the cat.
However, this event does not necessarily happen: in fact, there is only a 50% chance that the radioactive element decays, releasing radiation. That means that there is a probability of 50% that the flask is not broken, hence that the cat is alive. But what happens inside the box is unknown to everyone who sits outside: this is why the cat is considered both dead and alive at the same time. The two realities coexist, but when the box is opened, they collide and collapse into either one of them.
Izuku did not want to open the box.
.................................................. ......................
Writing about his quirk was a necessity. There was no escape from it: Aizawa wouldn't allow it, and Izuku really didn't want to hurt anyone if the suppressants were taken from him.
His quirk was strange, a mixture of his father and mom, but combined in a wrong way. It converted heat into energy that was used to move things. The problem was that there was no power off button, it was always catching heat, so Izuku's body was always cold. When there was no source of heat it consumed his fat, devouring him from the inside out and therefore he needed to eat 4 times more than he used to. It was like having a caged animal inside his chest that needed to be fed. His body was struggling to survive, so it would never grow larger than what it was at that moment and also explained why he was so skeletal when they have found him.
He knew now that there was a reason why this quirk had been suppressed for years, an attempt by his body to protect itself. Now it was active without a power off button. Izuku was always packed with three coats, the heater was never turned off, and the cabinets and refrigerator always had protein bars for him to consume the calories needed, especially after his training had begun.
Izuku had felt terrible about it for all the costs, but Aizawa reassured him that all expenses were being paid by Nedzu and that the principal had enough money for it. The hero seemed really invested in it and he tried not to be suspicious but rather grateful.
Still, a voice in his head found all this unnecessary. His quirk would always be broken. Always needing fuel, devouring everything around it and releasing destructive energy in tune with his most turbulent emotions.
He always wanted a quirk and now what he wanted most was that he didn't have one. He wanted to feel warm again.
He wished there was a button to turn off the monster inside his chest.
So the day Izuku met Shoto would be forever stored in his mind.
.................................................. ....
They had gone out to buy lamps. Since realizing his fear of the dark, Aizawa had filled his room with lamps. The light and warmth emanating from them was a relief, but there were always loses when he had a nightmare and one of them exploded.
He was also making the effort to walk in public despite his fear of people. He no longer felt ashamed of the way he clung to the hero's arm or clothes, hiding behind him whenever he could. The sense of security came first, and Aizawa was the safest person in his world.
The man scowled whenever anyone looked too hard at him, but Izuku couldn't blame them. Not when he wore cold-weather clothes, clung to his guardian like a lost child and looked a little sickly. Or maybe they were recognizing him from the posters of months ago, trying to assimilate the image of the missing boy with this weirder version of him.
More than once someone tried to ask him what had happened, the media not having had access to the details of his 'rescue' and much less about his time in captivity. There was much speculation about why someone would capture a child without a quirk. Aizawa could block the questions with a look.
Izuku was beginning to think he really loved Aizawa. It was hard not to be fond of someone who did everything he had done for a troubled and unknown child.
They were almost at the end of the shopping when things went wrong.
An attack by a villain took place outside the market and when Aizawa saw that no hero had appeared he had to intercede.
Izuku tried to be brave about this. The man would be just outside, and he would be safe inside. He had his suppressants in his bag, and it would be quick. Aizawa was always fast, so reluctantly he told him to stay inside, safe near the counter.
They could not know that more villains would appear.
The screams became deafening, people rushing into the market, pushing him closer to the shelves. He could hear explosions outside when someone grabbed his arm pulling him somewhere. Maybe it was just someone trying to help him, but at that moment all he felt was more panic. The balloon expanded in his chest and the hand disappeared from his arm, the person being thrown far off the shelves.
Someone tried to hold him from behind and he shouted until they released him, things exploding around the place.
He heard shouts as they moved away from him and between his unfocused eyes, he could see the shapes around him, closing in. Voices, one near his ear speaking his name softly, holding his wrist as he hurt him, made him bleed.
No way out. Vulnerable. No way out.
"Help me, please. Anyone. I need help."
The balloon took up his entire rib cage, the surrounding temperature drastically dropping.
The glass door exploded.
"I told you to get away from him!"
Izuku had not realized that the low temperature around him was not caused by his quirk. The scream made him open the eyes he had closed, finding himself huddled on the floor with his hands in his hair. He looked up and all he saw was white. Ice. A barrier had formed between where he was and the people, forcing them away.
In front of him was someone, some distance away not to scare him, but close enough if needed them. His focus, however, was not on that. It was in the heat that they emanated. Even with ice around them, he could feel it.
The hungry quirk in his chest struggled like a caged animal at the feel of fuel so close.
“It's okay.”
The stranger approached slowly, both of them pouring cold steam from their mouths. Between the strands of hair and half-open eyes, he watched the other. He was a teenager like him, with strange two-colour hair, as well as the eyes that watched him warily.
Izuku tried to control his breathing, recoiling around himself more, trying to suppress the monster inside his chest. A hand moved reluctantly and touched his shoulder before he could stop it.
The moment the warm skin touched his, the balloon in his chest attacked like an animal spotting a prey.
A whole side of the stranger caught on fire.