Chapter Text
Izuku didnt expect his day to go to hell in a handbasket at 4 in the afternoon. Not-quite-a-vigilante that he was, he had learned to expect that some level of hell-in-a-handbasket could happen at any moment, but he still hadn’t expected it to that degree while he was just out running errands.
As it was, his arms were too full of groceries to be able to fight back agaisnt the sludge villain, and by the time he’d dropped them the guy was already forcing his rancid slime down Izuku’s nose and throat. He’d always thought if a villain was going to take him out, it’d either be at an ungodly hour of the morning on one of his patrols, not the middle of the day in broad daylight. His last thoughts before blacking out were of Eraserhead, the hero and would-be psuedo father figure he sometimes spent those patrols with and just how worried the man was going to be when Izuku just suddenly stopped showing up.
Then he woke up to All Might himself slapping him awake.
Izuku might’ve had plenty of experience interacting with heroes between spending most nights needling Eraserhead (bonding with, as the hero would have described it- the man had been trying to adopt him for over a year after all) and running circles around any other hero that had tried to take him in as a vigilante, but this was All Might. Izuku could be excused a few moments of fanboying over the man who’d been an inspiration to him since he was four.
Ignoring the niggling thought in the back of his head about how All Might had signed his autograph before checking on the unconcious victim, Izuku let himself get swept up in the excitement of the moment- this was his chance to finally ask the one question he’d always wanted to, needed to ask. He’d probably never get the chance to again.
He wasn’t expecting to find himself alone on the roof of some random office building, reeling from the twin shocks of suddenly learning government secrets and hearing All Might crush his dreams with a single ‘no’. Izuku stared at the point All Might had disappeared from with his soda bottle bound villain before collapsing down onto the sun warmed cement with a single humorless huff of a laugh.
“Be realistic,” All Might had said. Izuku wondered if the man knew what that meant for the quirkless in this day and age. ‘Realistic’ would probably have him taking the fast route off this roof- honestly at this point it was barely realistic that Izuku was even still alive.
Long story short: His sperm donor had left for America when was diagnosed (and wasnt that a crock of bullshit, that he was diagnosed) quirkless at four and Inko had joined him six years later, leaving Izuku to fend for himself at the ripe old age of ten. It had been difficult, and terrifying, but he'd made it work using his wits, analytical skills, and a strong (if hidden) quirkless community to support himself.
Somehow the next few years saw learning self defense turn into accidentally saving a girl not much older than he himself was from being mugged turn into becoming the youngest vigilante (code name: Ghost) Musutafu had ever seen. Except not really, because latent cat mutation (soft green-furred ears nestled amongst his curls, extended canines, and claws replacing his fingernails) from his maternal grandfather aside, Izuku was still very much quirkless, and very much fell into the "vigilantism is unauthorised quirk use" loophole. (The mutation, for better or worse, doesn't count, and most people these days had some form of latent mutation anyways.)
He also accidentally caught the eye of one (1) perpetually exhausted underground hero who'd taken one look at the unattended child in a sorry excuse for a vigilante get-up bleeding alone in an alleyway and called dibs. It had taken years, but the man was making progress on working his way through Izuku's trust issues and closer to the day Izuku lets him and his husband officially adopt the kid.
All this to say, Izuku had long ago taken 'realistic' into his own hands, and All Might could shove it where the sun don't shine.
The young teen was shaken from his ruminations by his phone buzzing in his pocket.
alienqueen: i’m gonna buy you a beginner energy drink
actuallyasleep: theres nothing wrong with my coffee
purrple: oh please do
alienqueen: you dont have to wait for them to brew or cool off, and they have lids! you can just throw them in your bag and have them whenever
actuallyasleep: absolutely not
actuallyasleep: why do i put up with any of you
purrple: pretty sure his bloodstream is just coffee at this point, he’d probably just immediately die if he drank anything else
loud’n’proud: bc you love us!
actuallyasleep: that’s a wierd way to spell loathe
loud’n’proud: …
loud’n’proud: for that, i’m replacing your coffee with an energy drink in the morning
actuallyasleep: i want a divorce
hatman: take your lovers quarrel elsewhere
actuallyasleep: f u hatman
actuallyasleep: arent you supposed to be at work anyways
copycat: ??? wtf did i just walk into
purrple: @copycat alien is trying to convince asleep to try energy drinks
copycat: wouldnt that just kill him
purrple: that’s what i said
alienqueen: that’s what purrple said!
Izuku snorted at the antics in one of his chat servers. This one wasn’t actually one of the quirkless servers he was in, but one for a wider demographic of anyone local who faced discrimination for any part of their quirks, latent or otherwise.
While there were a few in the group that also knew each other out in the real world- loud’n’proud and actuallyasleep being married and also knowing hatman as an example- everyone kept their real identities secret for safety. Not knowing who anyone was beyond being residents of Musutafu didn’t change the fact that they were the closest thing to family Izuku had. Quickly typing out his response, he leapt into the conversation.
kittycatclaws: he wouldn’t even have to drink it, one existing within five feet of him would be enough to do him in
purrple: claws!
copycat: claws!
kittycatclaws: purrple! copycat!!
alienqueen: kittycatclawssss
actuallyasleep: kami now all three triplets are here
actuallyasleep: attacking me
copycat: but of course
purrple: what else would we do
kittycatclaws: i could feel the universe saying it was ‘annoy asleep’ hours
kittycatclaws: alienqueennnnnnn
actuallyasleep: sigh
loud’n’proud: did you really type out sigh
actuallyasleep: I’m being attacked. i’m going to take a nap before my shift starts
actuallyasleep: bye
kittycatclaws: lmfao
copycat: yeah, seems like something hed do
kittycatclaws: i gotta go too, see y’all later!
copycat: bye claws!
purrple: bye claws!
alienqueen: bye claws!
loud’n’proud: bye claws!!!!
kittycatclaws: byeeeee
Izuku picked himself up off the roof and slid his phone back into his pocket with a grin. He did have a patrol to go grab his gear for and an Eraserdad to annoy after all.
It wasn’t until the next day he remembered his groceries.