Chapter Text
Midoriya Izuku likes to say he has a good life. Pushing aside the quirklessness and bullying—he has a wonderful mom, a place to call home and an education; all of which he is grateful for. He tries not to allow himself to be selfish, focusing on the good, highlighted parts of his life.
When he walks around the city hero-hunting after school. When Inko—his mother—invites him into the kitchen to help cook dinner. When he stays up late, indulging in the notebooks of complex quirk and hero analyses. He holds these moments close, grateful, afraid of them being taken away.
There are times when he’s selfish (all humans are selfish, all want something they don’t have), and those are times when he wishes he had a quirk, wishes he had friends, wishes the bullying stopped. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he is convinced he is just a really late bloomer.
But, in the end, he knows he is just Deku…
Katsuki laughs loud and proud, throwing the burnt notebook out the window, “if you want to be a hero so bad,” leaning over Izuku’s desk to look down on him. “Go take a swan dive off the roof and wish for a quirk in the next life!”
The words gripped at his heart and refused to let go, eyes filling with tears, not noticing the explosions in his face and the footsteps out. He takes in a breath of air and doesn’t let go, still as a statue, letting the lack of oxygen burn his lungs.
The school day is long since over, but the teacher had found amusement in embarrassing him by announcing he is going to apply to U.A. too. Not that he was ashamed of the fact that he was trying for the school, he just didn’t find it necessary to announce that aloud… especially since it just caused Katsuki to be angry with him.
Izuku has wanted to be a hero his whole life. Before he was diagnosed as quirkless and even now, after he was diagnosed ( Diagnosed . Makes him sound like he’s ill. He isn’t. ) being a hero is his dream . He wants to help people, not just defeat villains, but give people hope too.
Exhaling—his lungs thank him—he stands and scurries out of the classroom. People in the halls pay him no mind save for a few whispers. The cool breeze greets him as he leaves the school building, air warmed by the sun. Instead of walking towards the gate like others are, he makes a steady path to the small pond, where a few stories up his classroom sits.
There is his notebook, floating in the water, nibbled by koi.
A quiet sigh escapes his lips, so many pages of detailed notes, months of work, now burnt and soaked. He picks the book out, Hero Analysis for the Future No. 13 it reads on the cover. Future, huh? Izuku thinks, discontented. Kacchan has a bright future… Pushing the bitter thought aside opens it and inspects it with care. The few pages with ink are smudged and illegible, but the pencil lead survived the water.
He’ll just redo the ruined pages later.
Putting the notebook in his bag carefully with a frown, he backtracks his steps to leave the school.
It’s too late for hero-hunting today since he was held back for so long, so he’ll just go home. Help mom with dinner or work on fixing his notebook, maybe.
He makes the walk by muscle memory, not paying attention to his surroundings, muttering quirk theories he itches to write down. Shade from a bridge covers him from the sun, the colder temperature makes him shiver. He blinks, breathing in, only to find he can’t. Whimpering, something cold and slimy slips into his mouth, down his throat, and over his nose. His hands shoot up to claw at whatever it is in a desperate attempt to get air into his lungs.
It’s liquid, he realizes quickly, a slime quirk. His lungs squeeze tightly and he feels the overwhelming need to cough—it burns. He struggles, hearing words in his ear, “you’ll make a good host…” His heart beats fast, lack of air making his vision black and senses hazy.
“I AM HERE!”
Suddenly, the slime bursts apart. Izuku gasps, falling to the ground, hacking up the leftover fluid in his mouth. His vision fades in and out, his physical strength struggling to hold him up on his hands and knees.
Still catching his breath, his heart misses a beat, remembering what was just loudly shouted. He whips his head around quick enough to give him whiplash.
All Might crouches over the main body of mass of the slime villain, fitting him into two empty soda bottles with minimal struggle.
“A- All- All Might?!” Izuku squeaks out pathetically in a high voice.
Being saved All Might— his number one favourite hero of all time!! —was nothing he ever expected to happen in his life. Sure, he had his daydreams where he’d meet him or be saved by him and say how much he inspired him, wanted to be like him; but those were daydreams! Is this a dream? Somebody pinch him…
The hero looks up, smile widening. ( Just like the videos!! Izuku cannot help but fanboy in his head.) “Ah! Young boy, are you alright?”
Izuku just kind of stares, dumbstruck, before managing to nod, still processing who is in front of him. Gosh—what does he say? Should he ask for an autograph? Praise him for his heroics? So many thoughts, so many questions; so many things he wants to say!
“Good! Then I’ll be off!”
“Ah- w- wait!” He scrambles out, but All Might has already taken a stance to take off. He realizes what he wants to say—no, ask —maybe a second too late. In a rush of panic for the sake of his question, he grips onto All Might’s pant leg just as he—now they —jumps into the sky.
The wind howls in his ears and combs his hair back as he tries to hold on as tight as he can, not wanting to fall off. “Kid!” All Might screams, shaking his leg violently, “let go!”
“I- I can’t!” Izuku screams back, tightening his grip in fear. “I’d die!” A fall from this height would kill him! He can’t let go of All Might, no matter how much he regrets grabbing on and delaying the hero from his work at the moment.
The hero makes a noise and stops trying to shake him off, moving towards the closest rooftop.
A million thoughts are running through his head—all too jumbled and unfinished to be said aloud or written out—as they land. His feet hit the solid rooftop and he almost collapses with the high amounts of relief and shock coursing through his veins.
All Might coughs, “that was dangerous, young man. I really must go!”
Izuku stumbles over his own feet, “wait! I- I want to ask something!” Hands shaking with nervousness, he takes a step forward.
“Kid-“ All Might coughs, steam pouring off him, and Izuku gasps as he just… poofs!
In place of the strong, tall, smiling number one hero is a frail, thin man with blood pouring from his cracked lips. Immediately, Izuku is concerned. An imposter? Someone with a copy quirk? Or an illusion? That would explain the smoke. But who would pose as All Might? It would be illogical for a villain too—what would someone get out of that?
His eyes widen in a shocker confusion, getting only one word past his lips. “What?”
The man groans, slouching. Silently, he lifts up his loose white shirt, revealing a large purple scar with faint traces of stitches leftover. Izuku holds back a flinch from the harsh wound, eyebrows furrowing, wondering why someone would show something so sensitive so easily?
“It’s still me, Kid.” So it is All Might? “Two years ago I was in an accident. So I can’t hold that form for long—my All Might form, I mean.” He lets his shirt go and his hand returns to his side.
The school boy’s mind searches the events from two years ago. A curtain fight comes to mind—one that the hero agencies and press weren’t allowed to talk about or show anything about. The government made it seem like the fight never happened, erasing all traces. Izuku—being the hero fanatic he is—found one video of it, and it looked harsh, brutal, so he never tried to push and find out more. He can only handle so much brutality, after all.
Assuming that’s what the man is talking about, he nods in silent understanding. The wind blows, sending shivers down his spine.
“I should be going now—don’t tell anyone you saw this.”
Izuku’s heart pounds, “w-wait,” All Might pause. He takes a deep breath, Katsuki appearing in his mind. The insults, the wounds, the threats… he hangs onto hope by a thread—he wants to become a hero with all of his heart!
“Can someone without a quirk be a hero?” The words come out strained as he squeezes his eyes shut. Without a quirk ; that’s what he is, all he is labeled as. Quirkless , someone worth less than a human being. His heart is going so fast he can hear it in his ears, cold sweat drips off his fingers before he clenches his fists.
His hopes aren’t high, but, gosh, does he hope for something— something to hang onto. To grab onto with all his strength and never let go, he wants hope , he wants someone to believe in him —
“No.”
His heart drops.
“Being a hero is dangerous, you need to be able to protect yourself. It’s okay to dream, but be realistic.”
Izuku doesn’t dare breathe, his hands lay limp at his sides, no longer in fists. No false kindness, no lies, just the cold hard truth. He admires that, sort of, at least All Might has the decency to tell the truth. (He’s heartbroken, feeling his last hope slip out from his grasp.)
“Become a doctor or a police officer if you really want to help people.”
And with that, the hero leaves. Izuku is left standing on a rooftop with his hopes and dreams shattered .
His last thread snaps, throwing him into the dark abyss below.
With silent tears filling his eyes and overflowing, he looks up at the yellowing sky. The tips of his fingers are numb, he can’t feel his feet. He wills himself to move to the door down from the rooftop, he just wants to go home.
His hand clasps the doorknob and twists it—it only goes halfway before becoming stuck. It’s locked. He notes, dimly. After jiggling the knob a second more, he rasps his knuckles on the hard material a few times and waits. No answer. He does it again, and again. Still no answer.
Taking a deep breath in and out, he wipes the tears on his cheeks with his sleeve, but only more fall in their place. He breaks, dissolving into a mess of sobs and ragged breathing. He’s worthless, a waste, not even human! He shouldn’t’ve been born in the first place—what is a quirkless kid doing here in the superhuman era? He can’t be a hero, no matter how much he wants to be—heck, he can’t be anything! No school or job wants a quirkless in their establishment.
He loses his balance and leans on the door, sliding down to the ground helplessly, curling up, holding onto his legs. Katsuki is right— he’s always right —he is just Deku. That’s all he has ever been, Deku. Useless.
Time is lost as he sits on the cold concrete rooftop alone, before he knows it, the sun is setting. He feels empty after crying his heart out, choking, and suffocating.
Selfish , he calls himself. Selfish for holding back the number one hero, selfish for thinking he could dream, selfish for thinking someone could believe in him. Humans are allowed to be selfish sometimes, but he isn’t human.
The cold air bites at his warm cheeks and puffy eyes as he stands back up, shaking like a newborn fawn. He takes slow steps over to the railing, it’s to the height of his waist, wraps his fingers around the chilled metal, leaning over. The ground is far down below.
Scanning the sides of the building, looking for a ladder or something of the sort, he comes up with zilch. He leans over the edge again, looking at the concrete below. He is about four stories high. It’s his only way down— mom is waiting for him, so things he wants to say and do —it’s the only way down .
“Go take a swan dive off the roof and wish for a quirk in the next life!”
He can’t seem to care about his ambitions or the person waiting for him at home anymore. It hurts, he should be used to it by now, but it still hurts .
What if he fell?
Izuku pauses, the wind brushing his hair gently. He imagines the wind blowing over his ears , the sound drowning out his thoughts.
Freefalling was something that Izuku often thought about. When a hero jumps through the air when a villain falls from a height. He wonders what that feels like.
Taking off his red coloured shoes, he lets them know that this is intentional.
His long-sleeved Aldera uniform doesn’t stop the cold from biting his skin. He moves shakily, (from the cold or nerves—he can’t tell) jerking every once in a while, breathing shallowly with a hitch.
Throwing his legs over the railing, carefully makes sure to balance on the small ledge. He holds onto the railing behind him tightly, heart beating in his throat. His vision goes blurry, he feels like he might faint, limbs trembling uncontrollably. Fear spikes higher than ever before. This is it—the end.
He carefully turns around, facing the rooftop, the long fall behind him. There are his red shoes, the ones he wears so regularly, scuffed, dirty, and falling apart. He could so easily climb back over the railing, put his shoes back on and call for help. But, he finds himself unwilling to move forwards.
His foot takes a step backwards onto nothing and he falls .
Fear is an emotion of all living things, it’s natural to fear the unknown and what it contains. It keeps you safe, cautious and more expectant. People think fear is a bad thing, a weakness, but really, fear is a motivator, something that makes you stronger. Fear is what makes you alive .
So when Izuku begins to fall— the wind rushing past his ears, chilling him to the bone— he feels all his fear slip away. The unknown welcomes him, he knows.
He has always believed people who died in fear were never meant to die. People with guilt or remorse in their eyes, or maybe just a scared expression, crying and wearing their heart on their sleeve. Those people aren’t meant to die, no they’re meant to survive, live until the day finally comes where they’re no longer scared.
People who die fearlessly are ready; the afterlife is ready for them too. They’ve experienced all they can and all they want. Those people are meant to die.
Izuku isn’t a human, he never was, he finally realizes. He isn’t allowed to feel fear in dying because he doesn’t deserve to live, he knows death has a spot for him ready.
He shouldn’t fear death. He can’t fear death. He isn’t allowed to fear death . He can’t be scared, it isn’t allowed— death, the unknown , it has always scared him.
The fear returns just as quickly as it left, he barely gets to let out a scream.
He hits the ground hard .