Chapter Text
When Izuku realized he was starting to get close to the hero fight, he turned on his heel and started walking in the opposite direction. He’d already gotten in All Might’s way today and made him run out of time, so the last thing he wanted was to cause trouble for more heroes. Of course, a nuisance was all he’d ever be. Like All Might had said, he would never be able to be a true hero, which meant that all he’d ever be to the heroes was just another civilian to be saved. Who knew, maybe Kacchan would save him someday. Izuku smiled sadly at the thought. At least Kacchan would still make an excellent hero and he might not be happy about having to save a worthless deku like him, but he would, even if just to prove that he was stronger than whatever villain was attacking them.
Izuku tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and went sprawling to the concrete, “...ow…”
There were no heroes around to save him from a scraped knee, not that it’d be worth their time if they were around, so Izuku dug through in his backpack until he found his first aid kit.
“Ow, ow, ow…” Izuku hissed when the alcohol wipe tugged against his skin and in his rush he was probably a little rougher than he should have been, but he was used to the pain of taking care of his own injuries.
He grimaced as he stood up, but now that the wound was clean, the pain was back down to an ignorable level. He took a few steps before stopping when he realized he had no idea where he was. Izuku sighed and grabbed his phone. Thankfully there were apps for that.
As soon as he got past the lock screen an update notification took up the entire screen, but Izuku didn’t have time for that right now, so he didn’t even read the notification before tapping the arrow to click past it. At least, that’s what he thought the arrow meant before the screen flashed black and a progress wheel popped up.
Updating
0%
Izuku stared at the screen for a long moment before shoving the phone in his pocket. Of course a useless deku like him wouldn’t even be competent enough to use his own phone. He nervously gripped the straps of his backpack a little tighter and started walking in a random direction. He could find his own way home. He’d done it before when Kacchan and his lackeys had chased him to an unfamiliar part of town a few times. Of course, he usually at least had a working phone, but it wasn’t the end of the world. He’d done hard things before, like asking All Might himself if he could be a hero!
Ok, maybe that wasn’t the best example.
Izuku heard a loud bang close by and jumped.
“Ok, Izuku.” He muttered to himself. “It’s just…just a cat. Or a villain, but probably a cat. Think positive.”
Izuku gulped in an attempt to swallow his nerves and kept moving. He just had to wander around until he recognized something. Simple enough. He could do this…probably.
He jumped again as he heard a shout, “Hey! Get away from there, it’ll bite you.”
“Nah, I don’t think it’s a snake.” Another voice said. “Not in the middle of the city like this!”
“I dunno, maybe it’s someone’s pet that escaped.”
Izuku peeked around the corner to see two thugs bent over something he couldn’t quite see. One of them was poking at it with a stick and as Izuku watched, the thing on the ground jumped up and wrapped around the stick before flailing around like a hose with too much water going through it. Both of the thugs yelped and the one holding the stick threw it down the road toward Izuku before running in the opposite direction, his companion hot on his heels. The stick slammed loudly against the ground as the mysterious snake thing flopped around for what seemed like forever before coming to a stop just a few meters away from where Izuku was hiding. He couldn’t make out many details, but from what he could see, it definitely didn’t look like a snake. It was longer, for one, and had a weird texture, almost like it was made of…fabric? Before Izuku could think better of it, he was already inching forward to take a closer look. The object was a weird shade of gray and upon further inspection was made of some sort of coarse fabric, so it couldn’t be alive, despite the way it had moved before. It was probably an object designed to be reactive, because it had only started flailing around after that guy had poked it with the stick.
Izuku’s curiosity got the better of him and he grabbed the stick, which the mystery object was still tightly coiled around, and gave it a little shake. Instantly, the long strip of fabric started flailing like before, only this time, it had more to grab onto. Within seconds, Izuku was tripping over his own two feet as his ankles were tied together and for the second time that night, he went sprawling to the ground. Izuku tugged at the fabric, which obviously had some metallic component that hadn’t been obvious before, and got himself a little more tangled. The movement of the fabric seemed familiar, like he’d seen it on a video somewhere, but Izuku couldn’t quite worry about that right now when he was helplessly and hopelessly tangled up in a mysterious fabric snake in an unfamiliar part of town. The more he moved, the tighter the stupid fabric became and the more panicked Izuku got. After a few minutes he was so hopelessly trapped that even though his phone was probably done updating by now, he couldn’t even reach into his pocket to get it and call for help, so there he was, sitting in the middle of the sidewalk and probably would be until someone found him. No wonder Kacchan called him useless all the time.
Izuku had no idea how long he sat there, but the sky was dark by the time he calmed down enough to think of doing anything besides uselessly tug at the mystery object. He had to think about this logically. He recognized the movement from somewhere, so maybe if he could remember where he knew it from, that might help him figure out how to get out. Izuku wracked his brain for a few minutes. He knew he’d seen it on a video, and most of the videos that he watched were about heroes so maybe he’d seen a hero use something similar? It could be Best Jeanist, but he normally worked with threads, not whole strips of fabric. There were a couple of minor heroes who had fabric or metal based quirks, but they didn’t use any weapons like this and the only other person who used something similar was…was an underground hero that he’d only been able to find, like, three videos of, who also carried a knife to cut the weapon with in case it got tangled on something! Izuku gasped and started fanboying as he finally realized what he was tangled in.
He’d found a part of Eraserhead’s capture scarf!
“Eraserhead’s…Oh my…” Izuku hardly even realized he was muttering again. “He’s so cool and he can cancel quirks just by looking at someone and…and this is his weapon and…oh my god, this is so cool!”
After a few minutes of completely justified freaking out, Izuku took a deep breath and refocused on freeing himself. He never had found very many videos on Eraserhead, but he’d seen enough to recognize the capture weapon, so that meant he’d hopefully seen enough to know how to use it. The biggest thing was that he had to remain calm. The scarf would react to the slightest touch, the stick incident had proved that, so Izuku just needed to keep his movements subtle. He slowly pulled one arm away from his body, smiling when the capture scarf reacted and loosened slightly in response. Izuku got lost in the complexity of how it moved as he tested the scarf’s limits and started to learn how it moved. He didn’t know how long he spent untangling himself, but eventually, he had a carefully coiled scarf stuffed into his bag and more scrapes and bruises than he really wanted to explain.
This was the best hero merch he’d ever gotten his hands on! Of course, he knew it wasn’t technically merch, but it was still a collectible and how many kids could say that they had a piece of Eraserhead’s scarf?! Not that he’d be telling anyone, of course, Eraserhead was underground and he didn’t want to do anything to endanger the hero’s privacy, but it was still…it was probably better than his limited edition All Might figurine! That felt blasphemous, but it was true! Eraserhead’s scarf was 100% the coolest thing he owned now.
Now that he was free and his phone was finally finished updating, Izuku could actually use his maps app to find his way home. Thanks to him stupidly clinging onto All Might as he jumped, he was a lot farther from home than he wanted to be, so it was going to take a while to get there. If only he could actually use the capture weapon like Eraserhead could. According to a rumor that Izuku had read online, Eraserhead used his weapon to help him parkour across the city when fighting villains, but that took a lot of training that Izuku didn’t have. From how hopelessly he’d gotten tangled in the weapon immediately after finding it, it probably took years of practice, especially if Izuku wanted to master it.
He stopped in his tracks. Where had that thought come from?
Izuku forced himself to take a step forward, and then another one until he was walking again. It wasn’t that crazy of an idea. Sure, he couldn’t use it to be a hero or anything, but people were allowed to have hobbies! Tons of kids took up wrestling or archery, even though most of those wouldn’t ever use those skills to be heroes someday. There was no reason he couldn’t at least practice with the weapon.
It was just a hobby.